NajNaj tutorial

YouTube via larsby.

The Danny Carey Mandala Drum - Preset 00 - Filter Synth

YouTube via metopia69.
"Here's a demo of preset #00 out of 83 total. It's a synth sound and I turned on the pan delay effect. Also, a filter opens up as the sticks hit from center to edge. All sound is straight from the Mandala Pad and Brain."

The Danny Carey Mandala Drum - Preset 10 - Lea's Harp

"This preset is a harp sound. The Mandala plays different notes in different scale patterns depending on where and how hard you hit the pad."

Be sure to check out the others via the thumbnails at the bottom of the player when done.

Synesthesia Mandala Drum

"LAUREL CANYON, Calif. (Oct. 3, 2007) – It’s a drum, it’s a harp, it’s a guitar, it’s a marimba… it’s all of those things, and much, much more – at once.
Musical ingenuity once again emerges from the hills of Laurel Canyon, as Synesthesia today announced Mandala™ 2.0 – a new version of its wildly popular, patented high-def drum and synthesizer, co-developed with professional drummer Danny Carey of the progressive rock band Tool.
Now a computer peripheral – its USB cable plugs into PC or Mac – the Mandala 2.0 is the only electronic drum that truly emulates an acoustic drum. It offers drummers and musical explorers the only drum pad that knows exactly where it’s hit and how hard, across seven assignable zones – with an immediate trigger delivering the fastest-traveling sound possible.
A new kind of synthesizer, the Mandala 2.0 packages a musical range so wide it simultaneously offers players the top of the line, most accurate model of a physical drum (via 3,000 professionally created, proprietary samples of the Black Beauty Snare Drum) – along with a library of sounds derived from more than 100 other instruments. In all, the Mandala 2.0 features four gigabytes of sound samples. It’s a synthesizer with drumsticks, with a drum pad so sensitive it responds even to a fingertip touch.
"The Mandala helps people find their rhythm – whether it's the beat of a drum, or of a sound they haven't yet created," said Vince De Franco, Synesthesia founder and CEO, and inventor of the Mandala. "Use it as a compositional tool, or to create any sonic reality your heart desires. It's got percussive sounds down cold – and that includes percussion instruments like the piano, the vibraphone and the triangle. Its range gives people a rich, satisfying way to experiment. It literally will be a different product for everyone who buys it. It's the smartest thing you'll ever hit with a stick."
Whereas most electronic drums have one zone in the middle that detects the strike, Mandala’s creators invented and patented a technology that enables the drum pad to detect the exact location and strength of every point of contact across the entire pad. With 128 concentric rings from the center to the edge – each offering its own sound variation – the Mandala offers unprecedented musical breadth. This high-def drum and synthesizer is bringing to percussive music-making the same kind of high resolution experience that HDTV has brought to viewers.
The Mandala 2.0 retails for $349, and is available November 1 online at http://mandaladrum.com and www.musiciansfriend.com. Each Mandala is hand-crafted and thoroughly tested before it is shipped. Expect two-week delivery.
Other key features:
• The accompanying software lets players synthesize a host of new sounds and expand their drum kits and sample libraries at will. The software automatically accommodates up to five separate drum pads. It’s also designed to inspire and facilitate composition – along with the included instruments, players can add their own samples to the library, and use the effects to mold and create their own sounds.

• The Mandala 2.0 works seamlessly with most major music software, including Apple GarageBand, Ableton Live, and Native Instruments Battery and Reaktor.

• Mandala’s easy-to-use software comes with more than 100 presets for out-of-the-box functionality. Players also can create their own configurations as they explore and discover its astonishing audio range.

• One pad can accommodate from one to seven different zones of sound – each of which can be configured as a separate instrument, with an array of specialized settings. Players can have a snare, a bass and a cymbal (or a harp, marimba or organ, or any other instrument) – all in the same drum head, all at the same time. One Mandala can act as one drum, as an entire drum kit, or as an eclectic combo.

Drummer Meets Physicist
Inventor and physicist Vince De Franco developed the Mandala with professional drummer Danny Carey from the progressive rock band Tool. Carey uses seven Mandalas every night on stage because, he said, it’s “the only way I can trigger and control all the sounds I want to play.
“I told Vince I wanted an electronic drum that would trigger immediately, and that would let me load a gigabyte of sound samples,” said Carey. “What he created is the most advanced electronic drum I’ve ever seen. And now this new version blows the last one away.”
Carey used the Mandalas to trigger many of the sounds on the band’s latest album, 10,000 Days. Every percussive sound in the track, Intension, is produced as a result of hitting a Mandala. Other professionals using the Mandala include Pat Mastelotto of King Crimson; Will Calhoun of Living Colour; Lol Tolhurst, co-founder of The Cure; and Matt Chamberlain – who has played with Pearl Jam, David Bowie, Tori Amos, and many others. "

[link]

Wersi String Orchestra

Listed for sale on the Matrixsynth Forum. More info on this piece here.

Update: it is now up for auction

Casio MT-400V Filter Tweak

"The Casiotone MT-400V may not be a serious, professional synthesizer, but thanks to its true analog lowpass filter section, it is seriously fun to play with. Having realtime sliders on a "toy" synth is completely unheard of in recent products and rare in 80s-90s products as well.

That said, the MT-400V's filter falls a bit short on the resonance side; it just doesn't make it into the "squinky" realm of self-oscillation when the resonance control is pushed to the max. But, with a simple tweak, it can!"

[link] via best in the comments of this post

Synthi Anton

"A comic from the year 1977, created by Klaus Schulze (text) and Harald Grosskopf (drawings). The story was one of Klaus' many efforts to tell and explain to the world: What is a synthesizer? This was still necessary in 1977. More than twenty years later we have digital equipment and computers..."

[link]

via Till "Qwave" Kopper

Tron - Light cycle sequence (1982)

YouTube via allertonoff.
"Among the all time great science fiction classics. The first feature film to make extensive dramatic use of CGI. It still looks fresh today, with a wonderfully retro score by Wendy Carlos. Sheer industrial delight and magic. Highly reccomended."

via Wikipedia:
"The background music for Tron was written by pioneer electronic musician Wendy Carlos, who is best-known for her album Switched-On Bach and for the soundtracks to many films, including A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. The music featured a mix of an analog Moog synthesizer and GDS digital synthesizer (complex additive and phase modulation synthesis), along with non-electronic pieces performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (hired at the insistence of Disney, which was concerned that Carlos might not be able to complete her score on time). Two additional musical tracks were provided by the band Journey. They were originally going to be recorded by British band Supertramp. The soundtrack album was released on record and tape by CBS Records. It has been recently re-released by Walt Disney Records."

ARP 2600 Vintage Modular Analog Synthesizer Video Demo 2

YouTube via 123synthland. Demo 1 here.
"We deal in vintage synths, so we get to play a lot of fun toys. One of our favorites is the ARP 2600. We've sold many of them over We deal in vintage synths, so we get to play a lot of fun toys. One of our favorites is the ARP 2600. We've sold many of them over the years, and each one sounds different. This is a video of 1 of a couple short "jam sessions" I had with the we just put up for sale. Its knobs are off as we were wrapping up cleaning and servicing this unit. We've got a keyboard for it but it wasn't used for this noisemaking session. ARP 2600s are well known for their filter instability. This one in particular is quite unstable - the filter clips really easily when the resonance is low, to the point where the sound can sometimes disappear, so it's great for distorted noises. Simply altering the volumes of the signals going into the filter and VCA can cause some very interesting rhythmic effects. Because of its unique sound, we decided to leave the filter the way it is rather than tweak it or replace it with a "better behaved" one. This video is a departure from my normal 10 second clips, so hopefully this won't bore you guys to death. :) Enjoy. Email us anytime at minime123@onebox.com"

Zeit in the Box

via Robert

Note this Zeit is not yet completed hence the lack of knobs.

The New Mellotrons on Radio 4

via Nelson:
"UK national speech station Radio 4 reported on the new Mellotrons today:
Link to the realaudio segment. The relevant sequence begins at 11m40s. in case that link doesn't work here's the link for the show. The relevant segment being 7:30-8:00. I don't know how long these links will work!

Cheers,
Neltron"