Synth Bling - Keychains, Pendants and More

Title link takes you to a site selling Yamaha DX7 and Roland D50 keychains, pins and pendants. 24k Gold Plated D50 picutured to the left. Get your synth bling on. Shots saved for posterity. Via this post on Sonic State's the-gas-station.

MOTM On One Blue Monkey

Title link takes you there. Video link under date under title.

EMS Rehberg

Title link takes you to the EMS Rehberg site. I knew about the UK EMS site, but not this site. According to Dennis Verschoor: "The German EMS was a european distribiteur and technican. Later on he was allowed to design/build ems stuff. Some people say the German ones are even build better. Good German quality (volkwagen, bmw, mercedess etc) : )"

According to their pricelist here, you can pick up a refurbished Synthi 100 for 55.000 Euros or roughly $66,184 US compared to this Synthi 100 with a minimum starting bid of $60,000 US.

Update: Notes from Malte:
"Some years ago where I had some cash I emailed Rehberg about the
possibility to purchase a Synthi A and he answerd rather quick that they
indeed are available. The website has never changed, like the EMS UK
one, but I guess its still valid. As a service you can borrow equipment
from EMS too, although not the 100 I guess :)

This picture shows the 100 that is now in small town Lueneburg

http://www.emsrehberg.de/SYNTHI__s/L_neburg1_web.jpg

Here is the history of another famous of the first importers of synths
in germany (but only in german), Synthesizer Studio Bonn Matten +
Wiechers, who are credited on nearly every Kraftwerk CD and responsible
for the Synthanorma sequencer and Banana synth, an Oberheim clone.

http://www.elektropolis.de/index.htm

BTW: this is Ludwig
http://www.elektropolis.de/images/rehberg.jpg"
Cheers,

Malte

MIDI'ed Chamberlin on Sonic State

Video of a MIDI'd Chamberlin. This has to be seen. Title link takes you there.

I *Heart* Rob Hubbard

Thought this was funny. You can find the full post on the C64Music! blog.

From Wikipedia on Rob Hubbard:
"Rob Hubbard (born 1956?, Kingston upon Hull, England) is a music composer for several microcomputers of the 1980s, especially the Commodore 64. He was probably the first to push the SID soundchip to its limit, composing powerful and catchy tunes for many games of the time. Rob resents being confused with the unrelated L. Ron Hubbard."

Synth Artists Featured on Moogulator

Moogulator has a couple of posts up on two synth artists with some tasty shots. Links to each post above each shot below. Title link takes you to Moogulator's Sequencer.de.

LFO-ONE


Moognase

Carbon111 on the New Moog

Carbon111 put up a great post on Synthwire on why he sold his old Moogs and why he is looking forward to the new Moog. It's a great read. Trust me, go read it. Title link takes you there.

Mark Pulver on "the Minimoogs"

Mark Pulver is one of those iconic names you come across in the world of synthesizers. He's just a person like you and me, but he has a pretty extensive and respected background when it comes to synths, and he's someone that helped me re-discover the bigger world of synths nearly ten years ago on Sonic State's the-gas-station (it used to be THE synth forum back then), later Analog Heaven, and a private email now and then. He is a "deputy" on Analog Heaven (one of the people that helps administer and keep it under control) and he was good friends with Bob Moog himself. Check out his tribute to Bob. So let's just say I have a huge amount of respect for Mark.

So, I've heard that a Voyager can nail the Minimoog sound as indeed it is a Minimoog plus more, and on the flip side, I've heard that it doesn't quite sound the same. So I thought I'd ask Mark. The following is what he had to say. It's interesting in that after reading it seems so obvious. You'll notice that in a sense it's inconclusive - that is what's obvious about it. Time and design both impact a synth. And no two minis are exactly the same. Title link takes you to Mark's Voyager page for more of his thoughts and notes.

"I think that the Voyager is a great instrument, and it's capable of a lot
more sounds and textures than the original Mini - including some of the
sounds that have made the Mini famous, and some sounds that will make
itself famous in its own right.

I think that a lot of the love of the Mini is how it plays, and that comes
from the 30yo keyboard, caps, trannys, etc. Audio circuits that actually
have bleed through, power supply rails with dirt on them, etc. There are
ways that the Mini handles when you tune the OSCs to a harmonic that
overdrives the filter "just" that way - VERY hard to define, or to catch on
a scope, or to make happen on a modern machine. I really think that stuff
like this comes from design flaws turned into features. Not a bad thing,
just something that can't really be replicated.

There are a lot of things like that in the Mini.. Lay the filter on the
edge of howling - notice how it loves to distort the VCA. _AND_ that
character will change based on the pitch you're playing. _AND_ that
character will change based on if you're gliding between notes. _AND_ _AND_
_AND_...

It's like, the Voyager is a pure design - lotso the same schematic work
from decades ago, but then with grit _designed_ into it. No happy accidents
waiting around the corner like the first time that Bob pressed a key on the
Model A.

It's not a bad thing to design in "flaws that have become features", it's
just different. Ya' know?

I guess the bottom line is that I don't have a concrete answer - to me,
something like this really needs ethereal babble.

And... feel free to post it in your blog if you think it makes sense. : )"

Mark

It does. Thanks Mark!

Synthasaurus

Title link takes you to Synthasaurus, home to Andrew Sanchez' modular website. There is a huge list of samples he made with his custom modular.

Vintage Synths Safe in Japan

Title link takes you to the good news on Create Digital Music. "The Japan Times, an English-language newspaper, reports today that the Japanese government is backpedaling on its plans to ban the sale of used electronics." Whoohoo!