Pacific Northwest Synthesizer Meeting

"The Pacific Northwest Synthesizer Meeting is next Saturday.

Bring your analog or other synthesizers for show or to play. Come see and
hear what others have brought. Additional information is available on my web
site.

Saturday, October 21, 2006
10:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Renton Technical College
Building C, Room 110
3000 NE 4th St
Renton, WA 98056

Take care,
John
www.sound-photo.com"

imogen heap on letterman

I almost didn't put this up as I try to keep post specifically about the synths rather than just artists using synths. You can imagine how out of control the site would get if I opened the flood gates. But... Since I've been on a bit of a looping kick lately I figure why not. I've heard of Imogen Heap before but I never made the time to listen to her music. Brian Comnes sent me a link to this video as Imogen Heap is becoming the looping artist. This video shows how she is able to create a full piece of music all by herself using loops and most importantly building them live. Pretty cool, and Letterman seemed to like it. : ) This song is really growing on me. Anyone know what synth she's playing?

Mark Shreeve (Live At Emma '94)

YouTube via Kenzoid27. Sent my way via frederic. Title link takes you to more.

SpiralSynth Modular

"SpiralSynth Modular is an object orientated music studio with an emphasis on live use. You can use it in a fairly straight forward way to make tracks with, or get very experimental. Audio or control data can be freely passed between the plugins. Data can also be fed back on itself for chaotic effects."

Title link takes you there. via SoNiCbRaT.

Roland SH-1000

Title link takes you to shots pulled from this auction.
"It has 10 preset sounds and a synth section for creating your own sounds. On the synth section there are 9 synth selectors giving a range from 32' to 2' each of which can be combined for generating more complex waveforms. It also has a VCF and VCA. Effects include Vibrato, Tremelo, Portamento, Glide, Growl, Waw and Random Note which plays "accidental" random notes, interesting effect. There is also White and Pink noise."

Philips PMC100 Tiny Portable Synth

No title link. Shot and details pulled via this auction.

"This auction is for my Philips PMC100. It comes with its original box, a shoulder strap that clips on, a set of earphones with spare foam covers, the original manual in German, and a photocopy of an English manual. There are also some other little booklets to go with it that are in German.

It is in very good condition and works well - although I must point out that I'm not really sure what it does! As far as I can tell it works fine.

It can work on either 6 AA batteries, or a 9 volt multi adapter, neither of which are included.

It has a tape recorder built into it, that enables you to save your compositions like how old computers used to work. The tape recorder also allows you to record audio.

Connection wise it has a headphone/line out socket, a microphone socket and the external power input socket.

The PMC100 has 100 instrument or "melody" voices, and another 15 "melody and accompaniment" voices.

The keyboard is touch sensitive in a similar way to the EDP Wasp.

There is not much more to say abouth the PMC really, I couldn't find much info about it on the net and I know very little about it myself. As it is portable and can be run on batteries, I did wonder whether it may be of use to circuit benders?

Here's what I did find about it on the net:

Its based on the Yamaha FM sound chip, was launched in 1986, it had a nine-channel FM synth with a 100 presets, a membrane keyboard, 8k of ram, a built in cassette recorder, and buttons for a strap. It was designed by British PC music pioneer Lyndsay Williams, who claims to have designed the first ever PC soundcard, for an Olivetti in 1987."

Update via Andreas in the comments: picture of a white PMC100 via link.

Lord of the Korg

This goes out to the people who took the time out to comment in this post. ; ) For those of you that appreciate the video, check out Yanni Live!

The Yamaha HX1

Click here for a site dedicated to the Yamaha HX1, including samples, sent my way via Loscha. The site also includes the following modules: CVS-10, AVS-10, MDR-2/3/4/10, FVX-1, AVX-1, VEX-1/VEX-10, MBS-10 and more.

"The Yamaha HX is an electronic organ (musical instrument with keyboards) usually refered as an Electone - electronic tone (sound) generator. It is used not only for playing church pieces as with traditional organ or harmonium, but also for contemporary music such as jazz, rock etc. along with auto accompaniment and rhythm patterns. The first HX was introduced in 1987 and was the first electone equiped with Yamaha's new AWM tone generator (sampeled acoustinc sound). (EL and AR series are almost entirely AWM based).

The HX has warm sounds and beutiful figure (as can be seen in the Modular page). The tone generators of that series supported FM (Frequant Modulation),WM (Wave Memory - sampled organ sounds) and AWM (Advenced Wave Memory - sampled acoustinc sounds). As far as I know, only the HX (and FVX-1) series had 8/16 operatores for each FM sound, the famouse Yamaha DX-7 and SY-77 had only 6 operatores for each FM/AFM element. The HX has:
- 90 presets + 8 user (programmable) FM polyphonic voices (8 op. each),
- 54 presets + 6 user (programmable) FM monophonic voices (16 (!!) op. each),
- 16 presets + 16 user (programmable) WM polyphonic voices (Sampeled Drawbars),
- 5 presets AWM polyphonic voices (U/L keyboard),
- 5 presets AWM monophonic voices (bass),
- 60 Percussion AWM sounds."

Spoogeworld - Yamaha Resource Site

This one via Loscha. Title link takes you to a Yamaha resource site with manuals, patches and a book on FM Theory & Application written by the creators of FM synthesis.

Waldorf Wave Demo Take 2

Remember this WAVE demo? OH is back with one more:

"i have posted a link to a song [risong] with many sounds from the waldorf WAVE. a larger version is now available at: link

it is now called "resurrect me"

it is not finished yet but there are many beautiful WAVE sounds at the beginning and above all in the slow break."

Shadow Wave pictured.