Excel Spreadsheet Based Drummachine

Music Thing has a post up on an Excel Spreadsheet Based Drummachine. Yap... Reminds me of the Excel Spreadsheet Synth also featured on Music Thing. Title link takes you there.

Rhodes Chroma Tapper

Update from Chris in the comments section:
"If you do a search for "tapper" or "thunker" from the home page of rhodeschroma.com, you'll find a number of mentions of this feature of the Chroma. It can also be turned off. In the interview I did with Phil Dodds and Tony Williams, I asked how the "thunker" came about: http://www.rhodeschroma.com/?id=doddswilliams#thunker"



When I recently played a Rhodes Chroma for the first time I was astonished by the feel of the keyboard and the sound it produced. I had no idea what to expect, would this be a somewhat thinned down polysynth or would it have the brawn of the mighty poly analogs like the Oberheim OBXa, SCI Prophet 5, or Roland Jupiter 8. Well let's say it pretty much holds its own against these classics and actually outdoes them in some ways. The sound is absolutely full, thick analog, and the flexibility of routing and modulation options out does the above. But... this is not the point of this post. When I was playing with the Chroma I noticed a sort of thick clunk when pressing its membrane switches and for some parameters I heard this when moving its one editing slider. It through me off and I actually thought it was broken! I was actually a little relieved as at that point I figured there was no way I'd be tempted to buy this particular unit. But then it occurred to me that this might actually be by design. I played with a bit more and sure enough it was clear that this was on purpose. After using it a bit I began to appreciate the thudded tap - it added a certain weight and tactile response to editing the synth which would be missing without it. I find it fascinating that they took the time out to implement this and I'm left wondering if there are any other synths with it. At this point there is none that I know of. Title link takes you to more on this unique feature on the Rhodes Chroma site. BTW, I'm still blown away by the resources and support available on the Rhodes Chroma site. If there was ever a synth resource award, Chris Ryan would be on the top of my list. Links via Chris Ryan on AH.

Two links on the tapper:
http://www.rhodeschroma.com/?id=emm#shapingthesystem (picture)
http://www.rhodeschroma.com/?id=diagnostics#tapper

Linplug Octopus - 8 Op Dual Matrix Synth

8 Op FM synthesizer for OSX and XP. Title link takes you there. Via Moogulator's Machinesound.de blog. BTW, Machinessound is a great synth blog, well worth checking out and subbing to.

The Synth Elf - New Flickr Shots

Yep.... Some more after the hop.

Scaffbeat Studio 1 - New Flickr Set

Title link takes you to a nice synth Flickr-fest. Via Moogulator of Sequencer.de, via http://maschinensound.de/blog/?p=254. Note: There is a video link on this last link but I had a bit of trouble getting to myself and had to head out. I will probably try again later, but I did want to call it out in case you wanted to give it a try.

Update: Click here to go to the movie. When you are there, scroll to the bottom of the page. You should see a FREE link. Click on it to get to the movie dowload.

SCI Six Trak Service Manual

Title link takes you to the 4.06M PDF of the SCI Six Trak Service Manual. Via Midi Mike of http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/2163. Thanks Mike!

Update: also here

Microns & Ion - New Flickr Shot

Title link takes you to a bigger shot.

The Screamers - Synthesizer Punk Rock

There is an intersting thread going on AH titled, "Best punk use of synth." A number of bands were called out, some of which were questioned as far as whether or not they were punk in the classic sense of punk. Well, the Screamers definitely were classic punk. They had a small stint in the late 70s in Los Angeles. They were a four piece band with Tomata Du Plenty - Vocals (R.I.P.), Tommy Gear - ARP Odyssey, David Braun - Fender Rhodes electric piano, and KK Barett - Drums. The Screamers were a band from 1977 - 1981. Notice no guitar or bass guitar, just the ARP Odyssey, Fender Rhodes and drums. Title link takes you to the Screamers page on http://www.punkrockers.com with some audio links (just above the pictures). Listen to them. What's crazy is that there are no guitars - this is not a bleepy synth experience, this is classic punk rock.



Other links worth checking out:

http://www.synthpunk.org/screamers
http://www.dvdmaniacs.net/Reviews/Q-T/screamers.html
http://www.mp3.com/the-screamers/artists/334431/biography.html
http://www.synthpunk.org/

Inside a Prophet 10 - New Flickr Set

New Flickr set via Brandon Daniel on AH.

Update via Brandon in the comments: "note that this is a special kind of prophet 10, most of them had dual keyboards on them, only very early ones had a single keyboard"

The original Prophet 10 was essentially two Prophet 5s in a Prophet 5 case. It suffered from tuning instabilities due to tempature issues in the small case. A larger cased dual manual keyboard followed to take care of this problem. These shots as Brandon calls out is of the older single model.

NIN Gear Page for The Fragile

Title link via Kieth Seaman. < Old Man Voice> "Yap, I remember seein' NIN back in the day... a lil ole club called Helter Skelter. He had dreads and performed in a cage back then... Yap.... " < /Old Man Voice> At least I think it was Helter Skelter. It's all kind of fuzzy now. It was off of Sunset Blvd in LA if I remember correctly, so if you know please refresh my memory. But... I do remember seeing K.C. And the Sunshine band reunion at club 70s. Now that was a suprisingly good show... To be fair, NIN put on a hell of a show back then, amazing. But... Let's all remember, Skinny Puppy "taught the killing game first." Well before the likes of Madonna, oops I mean Marilyn Manson. Same thing right?