Audacity 1.2.4 Update and 1.3 Beta Released

Audacity is a free, cross-platform sound editor. I use it to edit my WAV files and convert to MP3. It's a great piece of software. 1.3 Beta is out. Title link takes you to the Audacity site with more info. Via CDM and electro-music.

Some nice Synth P*rn via CDM

Title link takes you to the post. Bigger shot of the below pic there. Enjoy.

Sweet Buchla 200e...

New MacBeth Studio Systems Yahoo Group

Title link takes you there. Just set up by Tim Lee. In via AH.

John 'PAiA' Simonton Memorium

No title link. Note the John S. Simonton Memorial Fund at the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, PO Box 1146, Oklahoma City 73101.

--------------------
In Memoriam: John Stayton Simonton, Jr.
June 24, 1943 - Nov. 25, 2005


Oklahoma City - Founder and president of PAiA Electronics, Inc. (OKC)
John Stayton Simonton, Jr. died at his home in Arcadia, Okla. on
Friday, Nov. 25 after a yearlong battle with esophageal cancer. He was
62 years old.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii to John and Eva Simonton, John Simonton grew
up in New Orleans, La. graduating from the Sam Barth School for Boys
and the Metairie Park Country Day School. In 1965 while finishing his
engineering and psychology degree at Louisiana Tech University in
Ruston, La. he met and married Linda Brumfield Simonton.

After completing his degree in 1967, John moved to Oklahoma to work for
the first computerized jet engine test facility at Tinker A.F.B.

In 1968, John founded PAiA Electronics, Inc. in Oklahoma City, a
company dedicated to providing synthesizer kits to the do-it-yourself
electronic musician. John Simonton has designed hundreds of products
including the Gnome MicroSynthesizer, the SMPL System SMPTE / MIDI /
Machine synchronizer and the PAiA Programmable Drum Set, which is
credited with being the first commercially available user-programmable
percussion box.

Many music artists received their first exposure to synthesis with
PAiA's modular systems. Many engineers, scientists and technicians had
early exposure to their professions through his trade journal articles.
His work with starved tube circuitry produced the TubeHead series of
preamplifiers and his most recent project was PAiA's Theremax theremin.

A widely read author and contributor in the electronic popular press,
John was also the publisher of Polyphony magazine, which was first
published in 1975 and later renamed Electronic Musician. Electronic
Musician eventually sold to Mix Publications of Berkeley in 1985. John
was also the founding partner in High Technology, Inc. the first
computer store in Oklahoma in 1976, which became the first wholesale
distributor for Apple Computer, Inc. in 1977.

Deeply dedicated to doing what was right, John was a mentor and
inspiration to many do-it-yourselfers encouraging them to pursue
avocations and careers in engineering and music.

He is survived by wife Linda Simonton, daughter D. Stayton (Staci)
Craig, son John S. Simonton III (Trey), granddaughters Nikki Craig and
Callie Simonton, and grandson Christopher Kai Simonton.

A memorial service to celebrate John's life will be held at 6 p.m.,
Saturday, Dec. 10 at the Omniplex Science Museum in Oklahoma City. In
lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the John S. Simonton Memorial
Fund at the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, PO Box 1146, Oklahoma
City 73101.
"

x0xb0x Wiki and More - It's Alive!

Lot's of discussion happening on AH regarding the x0xb0x. If you don't know what the x0xb0x is, it's a Roland TB303 clone. Check out the x0xb0x site. I also posted on it here and here. Oh, if you skim through the list below, do check out the mp3 from Amos.



On AH:

Mods from Amos:

• 5 CV Inputs - http://bulldog.unca.edu/~azgaynes/CV_inputs.jpg


• Audio FM of the Filter


• Unmodified demo of the x0xb0x with Moogerfoogers - http://bulldog.unca.edu/~azgaynes/liveX0X-somasen.mp3


• x0xb0x Wiki - http://wiki.jonnay.net/x0x/x0xd0x


• Envelop click - http://bulldog.unca.edu/~azgaynes/envelope_click.jpg

Via Colin Chung:

• Demos - http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=417985

Driscoll Modular Still Available

I posted on the Driscoll Modular back on September 29. The following comment just came in on the post. If you wanted one, here's your chance. : )

Julian driscoll said...
Hi all

I am Julian Driscoll, who designed and built
the Driscoll Modular.
I can still build them.
My email address is jcdrisc[@]melbpc.org.au
I am in Melbourne, Australia
I do custom work also
snail mail :
4/2 Bona Vista Ave
Surrey Hills
Vic 3127
Australia

cheers, Julian D

Crystal

Updates via the comments: this software actually is free, not a demo. : ) Check out the comments link below for more.

Via Tony K on SynthSights. Haven't seen this before, but it looks interesting. Title link takes you to more info including samples and downloadable demo.



"Crystal is a semi-modular software synthesizer featuring both subtractive synthesis and frequency modulation (FM) synthesis. It offers abundant modulation control with over 90 parameters which may be modulated, multi-stage envelopes with graphical editors, extensive tempo sync of envelopes/lforates/delay times, built-in effects for chorus/flanging/comb filtering/echoes, and a band splitter for effects processing by frequency band. Not only that, Crystal has wave sequencing, granular synthesis, program morphing, MIDI learn, and imports soundfonts. The musical applications for Crystal are literally boundless.


Crystal is a plugin, which means it runs within a host, such as Cubase, Orion, Logic, Fruity Loops, etc. "

1001 Posts!

Just realized I hit 1000 posts! This is post 1001. : ) BTW, the search functionality so far hasn't picked up all of my posts, so it's pretty hit and miss. Hopefully Google will fix that over time - they own Blogger. In the mean time... Check out the Archive links at the bottom of the page or the bottom right pane of the page. They are grouped in months because I plan to be around for a long, long time. ; ) But because they are grouped in months, the download times will vary based on your connection. Fortunately text comes first followed by images, so it isn't too bad.

Spleepo2 and G2 Death Synth

I posted earlier on the Shifty Death Synthesizer, a programmable MIDI DSP box that can be controlled by a Palm Pilot. In the comments section of this post, Tom of Music Thing pointed out the Spleepo2, a VST version of the Shifty Death Synth and a Clavia G2 patch Tom created that emulates the synth for you lucky G2 owners. You can find more on both via the title link that takes you to Tom's post on electro-music.com. You can find more directly on Spleepo2 here: http://www.dsperado.com/sbleepo.shtml. Thanks Tom!

Spleepo2


"SBleepo2 is a VST simulation of the hardware-based Death Synth. It has its own sequencer, two oscillators, and about 15 combination metrics to join them. Oscillator A can be a live input or a square / saw, Oscillator B can be a square or saw. You can change pulse width, the frequency multiplier, the oscillator sync amount, and portamento. You can change the length of each sequencer, or how long they ring out for. You can adjust the volume of the entire mess (thank heavens!) You can set the number of measures before it "returns to 0." You can set the BPM."

Chroma CPU Replacement

Now this is good news. One of the biggest fears of getting an old vintage synth is what do you do when an obsolete part fails? Well, Chroma fans rejoice. There is now a CPU Replacement board that not only revives your Chroma if your CPU should fail, but it actually has a number of improvements. Title link takes to the rhodeschroma site with more info. The icing on the cake? The replacement board mounts in the same location with the same connectors - no modding necessary.