MATRIXSYNTH


Friday, March 10, 2006

GPF on Analog Industries

Gear P*rn Friday. It's a synth one. Title link takes you to another shot.

100 New Sidstations

Looks like Elektron found 100 more chips. Title link takes you there.



Update via xonox in the comments:
"I've been checking that page every week since january and sidstations were available all the time i think. It's a shame they raised the price, they used to sell for 580$us a few years ago... "

Doh! Nevermind. Nothing to see here, please move on... : )

Front 242 on DVDBORN

Video. Title link takes you there.

The Song That Made String Synths Famous

Well, in my world at least. Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart. I beleive this is an ARP OMNI 2. If not please correct me in the comments and I'll update the post. For years I've heard it's either a Solina or OMNI. In the video it's clearly and Omni. I do know New Order later used and ARP Quadra for their strings. ARP all the way for them. Links below.



Two videos:
The official processed video. The OMNI sounds silky and smoothed out a bit.
The live/raw video. You can really hear the raw sound of the OMNI hear.

Silicon Teens, a Wasp and an ARP 2600

Moogulator has a post up on some more synth goodies from YouTube including New Order, Fad Gadget, Human League, and the Silicon Teens. I picked the Silicon Teens for this post for two resons. One it's not every day you see an ARP 2600 and EDP Wasp in the same video, and two I completely forgot about this song. It was a nice trip back in time. BTW, there is a third synth in the video. If anyone know what it is please feel free to comment. Title link takes you there.

Rhodes Chroma Brochure

Shot pulled from this auction.

Moog Polymoog and Oberheim OB8 Schematics

More scans from ChristianH. I previously posted his Memorymoog scans. He added a scan of the Polymoog and OB-8. Notes below. If you can help, feel free to post a comment.

Udate: Looks like Jordan Gibson on the AH list came through. He ran a full scan of the Polymoog Service Manuel and Brandon Daniel is hosting the whopping 180M file on fdisk.com.



"Hi all,

I finally spent some time and did some joyous 30 year anniversary
Polymoog scanning to acompany the Memorymoog schematics scans I did the
other day.
This is the complete Service Manual, Volume II (schematics).
Some of the sheets are pretty large, but luckily I have access to large
format scanners at work :-)
Considering that some of the original manual sheets are some kind of
ancient 70s blue prints, which have severely yellowed background
(actually the paper deteriorated to a hot red in some areas), the end
result looks quite nice after some heavy processing, you all know the
routine - EQing, noise gating, compressing, and a tad of Exciter to
improve sharpness:
http://www.chrismusic.de/synth/schematics/polymoog.zip
12 MB ZIP file, but by today's download standards, this isn't that large
anymore.
All missing page numbers are blank pages, nothing has been omitted for
scanning.

I NEED YOUR HELP: Now, if some kind soul would do the same for Volume I,
I simply don't have that one. I assume, it contains calibration info and
circuit descriptions, and thus should be more suitable for small format
scanners. I'd be glad to host Vol.I on my site as well.

And maybe the additional "Polymoog Keyboard" filter board schematics
would fit in here nicely, if anybody has them available.


And while I was at it, there's an almost legible scan of the OB8 voice
board component layout:
http://www.chrismusic.de/synth/schematics/OB-8-voice-board-600dpi.tif
On all scans I found before, the component designator numbers were
pretty hard to decypher, which makes locating measurement points on the
boards quite tedious.
This one comes from an original service manual. Not on the light side,
at 600 dpi grey scale - a whopping 4MB for one page.

cheers
Christian


P.S.: maybe a little long-shot, I'd be glad to do a similar scanning job
with the giant CS-80 schematics diagram.
The one to be found on the net is a godsend nevertheless, but due to
small format scanning, the pieces won't really fit together.
If someone could lend the schematics to me for scanning, that would be
great.
If there is a CS-80 owner in the western Germany/Netherlands/Belgium area,
I'd even opt for a personal pickup (and maybe some synth geek talk as
well... ;-)"

Korg Radias Samples on Sequencer.de

Title link takes you directly to the Korg Radias page on Sequencer.de. New samples are at the end of the page.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Juan Atkins Interview

Title link takes you to a classic interview of the godfather of Detroit Techno and House.



Some synth bits (make sure to read the full article):
"'During the summer of 1980 I bought myself a Korg MS10. I messed around with that synthesiser all summer, and I'd got to the point where 1 was making up all sorts of drumbeats on it. 1 had two Kenwood cassette decks and a little Yamaha four-channel mixer, and I'd make up my drum beat and record it on one deck, then bounce it across onto the other and overdub another part at the same time. I became a real master at doing that; I knew how to EQ my drum sounds to start with so that by the time I'd finished four or five overdubs the music still sounded clean.'"

"Instruments in the Atkins arsenal include a Korg Poly 800, Yamaha DXlOO, Sequential Pro One, and Ensoniq Mirage and Akai S900 samplers. Like Saunderson, Atkins is not interested in sampling old records. He prefers to devote himself to the delights of synthesis - and in particular to one synth.

"The Pro One is my heart. I'll use that Pro One until it falls apart, and then I'll probably still use it if it makes any sounds. "These new synthesisers now, I think they're scaling them more to interface with the consumer. Synthesisers used to be synthesisers that a synthesist could play. Now manufacturers are going for presets and they make it really hard to get beyond those presets to program your own sounds. "

"Atkins has a similar preference for old drum machines.
"I still use the 808 and 909. I don't like Roland's latest drum machines, but the 808 and 909 are classics. The 808 has a real techno feel. Everything on that drum machine has an electronic feel, it's not like digitally-sampled real drums."

"'We unveiled our secret weapon, which was that we'd brought a Roland 808 to the party to play live rhythm tracks between the records.'

The crowd went wild and the Direct Drive crew got mad. But a new idea was born which was to have a profound impact not so much on Detroit as on Chicago."

Cream's Mini Up for Auction

Title link takes you to an auction for Jack Bruce of Cream's Mini. Details below saved for posterity. There was only one shot below, so the title link just takes you to the auction while it's up. Via Dylan Gaffney.



Jack Bruce's Mini Moog synthesizer Model-D
serial number 1058 circa early 70s (model D serial numbers started with No.1001 in 1971) - the side panels to the casing on the right-hand side are missing and in generally used condition. This instrument was used by Jack Bruce in recording and composing. Mini Moog synthesizer is now, due to its unique sound, a sought after collector's item.

Accompanied by a letter of authenticity from Janet Bruce.
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