The NAMM Show 2008 -- Korg Tech - Kaosillator and Karma

YouTube via TheNAMMShowChannel
"Two amazing pieces of hardware from Korg. The first is called the Kaosillator, and it puts a whole synth in a tiny little box. It's pretty freaking amazing. Karma is a software component of their hardware. It allow for randomization of certain elements of creating beats. Sweet."

Me playing the Roland JX3P

YouTube via williamc99.
"This is just me playing with the Roland JX3P Synthesizer. I am not trying to be good or anything, this is just for fun, so there might be some mistakes in the playing of it, but that doesn't matter =P"

Formanta EMS-01 soviet synth demo

YouTube via dergach11
"Just my formanta ems-01 synth-station in action"

Native Instruments to Release KORE PLAYER for Free

"Free, advanced instrument with access to the best NI sounds
KORE PLAYER is a free software instrument designed for use with KORE SOUNDPACKS. Built on the same principles as the flagship KORE 2 Super Instrument, KORE PLAYER includes six Native Instruments sound engines under the hood and provides ready-to-play sounds that can be browsed and tweaked via the ultra-intuitive KORE PLAYER interface. Adding new sounds is as easy as purchasing and downloading affordable KORE SOUNDPACKS.

Whether used stand-alone or within your favorite sequencing environment, KORE PLAYER brings world-class Native Instruments sound within the reach of any musician or producer.

KORE PLAYER will be released in March as a free download."

more info

I wonder if it will come with any soundpacks out of the box.

Old School at NAMM

YouTube via MoogMusicInc.
"Eric Levy of Garaj Mahal demos the new Minimoog Voyager - Old School at NAMM 2008. Visit www.moogmusic.com for more information."

NAMM 2008: Tara Busch @ Fender Rhodes

YouTube via tarabusch.
"http://analogsuicide.com
http://tarabusch.com
http://moogmusic.com
NAMM 2008 Tara Busch @ Fender Rhodes"

MusoTalk 114-Namm Report 2008-Omnisphere-Euphonix MC

YouTube via musotalk
"weitere Informationen: www.musotalk.de Der neue Spectrasonics Megasynth Omnisphere kommt Ende des Jahres. Die Euphonix MC Control war einer der kleinen Hypes der Messe."

WNAMM08: Perfect Prophet Pair

See the write-up on Sonic State.

WNAMM08: MTron Pro Makes its Debut

See the write-up on Sonic State.

Drumfire DF-500 Drum Synthesizer

via this auction. This one in via Bryan K who was previously featured in this post. The Drumfire was used on most of the tracks for that release. Some details from the auction:

"This is what is also known as a "drum brain"... a synthesizer for drum sounds made to be triggered by contact mics (drum triggers) attached to a regular drum kit or pads or whatever you want, like regular audio signals.

In the picture you'll see some contacts that I'll include for those that want to make their own triggers. I have a bunch, so within reason I'll include however many you need.

The Drumfire is in great shape, everything works well.

Here's the lowdown... there are five channels that can be triggered independently and each has controls for the trigger input sensitivity. You can take audio output from each track individually or just use the stereo master output and have the sounds panned however you want.

The sounds on each channel: there's a triangle wave and a noise source with the addition of a "click" sound which adds attack. There's a "balance" setting for mixing the amount of oscillator or noise sound you want. Individual settings for oscillator and noise decay which vary in length from a short "click" to a long decay (longer than you'll want for percussion). You can adjust the pitch/frequency of the oscillator from sub-audio to midrange. There's a sweep setting for making the sound either sweep up or down in frequency (think disco toms).

Oh no, it's not just for disco toms.... it's fun for experimenting with by feeding the trigger inputs with different sounds. I made a ground loop by connecting the trigger IN of channel one to the footswitch IN and then taking the output of channel 1 into channel 2. By chaining them together and keeping the decays very short some interesting crackly sounds can be had, a low frequency noise source. Listen here to track 3 here. I used this thing to get sounds on other tracks there as well.

I've heard the electronic group Pan Sonic had one of these, and I recognize some of its sounds on their first album. Also, David Tudor used a percussion synth on his piece "Phonemes" and I could swear he used this model. Like I said, fun for experimenting with... for more than just drum sounds."