KORG DS-10 scribble acid

YouTube via openchallenge
"i was randomly scribbling and ended up with a nice acid line"

Another ARP 2600 Synthesizer Video Clip

YouTube via 123synthland
"Here's an improvised performance on a vintage ARP 2600 we just put up for sale. We stopped posting full front panel videos since someone copied one of our patches. Not that this particular patch is anything special, mind you, but people should come up with their own patches. Ya know?"

Moog Sample and Hold Model 1125 Demo w/ Vintage Minimoog Analog Synth

YouTube via 123synthland
"Here's an improvised performance on a vintage Moog Sample and Hold unit. This flexible box is controlling one of the many vintage Minimoog synthesizers we've lovingly serviced and sold. The S+H is currently up for sale.
Enjoy the noise and email us anytime at minime123@onebox.com"

Vintage Linn LM-1 Drum Computer made famous by Prince, Human League, etc

YouTube via 123synthland
"We buy, sell & trade vintage analog synthesizers, but you probably knew that already. Here's an improvised performance on an original Linn Drum Computer LM-1 we recently sold to a well known musician. The cover's off as I was doing a final inspection and test before shipping it out. These Linn sounds were all over 80s synth records, especially Prince and Human League albums. We've got another LM-1 in stock that we will probably put on the market soon. If you look closely, you'll see a vintage Emu modular synth in the background. We love our modular synths. Enjoy, and email us anytime at minime123@onebox.com"

Some History on the Development of the Moog Little Phatty

For whatever reason a thread cropped up on AH questioning Bob Moog's involvement with the Little Phatty and specifically whether he was involved at all. One, I remembered the project started when he became ill and two, core bits of the tech is based the Voyager! Even if he wasn't hands on, much of the technology that makes it what it is would still have come from him. I don't get it. That aside the following is an intersting insight to Bob Moog's involvment as well as the involvment of his team.

"Bob was completely involved in the genesis and design of the Little Phatty. He was actively working on the project when he became ill. He wired up the first prototype, which was built from a modified Voyager analog board wired directly to a panel of pots. The original idea was a stripped-down all analog two-oscillator performance synth, with a minimal but effective feature set and a knob per function on the panel. No MIDI, no patch memory.

This concept did not survive any opinion surveys, which all indicated that MIDI and memory were required features. Once we added a digital board to the design, the knob-per-function interface became too expensive to keep cost within our target for an inexpensive two-oscillator performance synth.

So, the final Little Phatty interface was conceived, using a knob per synth section rather than a knob per function. I believe this layout was conceived by Axel Hartmann. The Real Analog Control [RAC] system, where pots are both scanned for digital value and physically switched into the analog circuits which they are controlling, was conceived by Steve Dunnington.

So, Bob Moog brought the Little Phatty project into being, and shaped its original feature set. Most importantly for this project, he select Cyril Lance in particular to be his assistant/successor, after a very discriminating search. Cyril stepped in at the point when the project code-named "el P" was making the transition from all-analog to midi & memory, so he designed the Little Phatty digital board as one of his first projects for Moog Music. Prior to this, of course, Cyril had been a consulting engineer, a particle physicist (graduate of Cornell; same university as Dr. Moog), and of course a touring blues guitarist of some repute. Even though the digital board design was ultimately Cyril's, it was done in close reference to the digital board of the Voyager, which was rather similar to the digital board of a Memorymoog. As for the Little Phatty analogue board, it is comprised almost entirely of circuits taken directly from the Moog Voyager. The're the exact circuits Bob designed well before his untimely passing, simply configured for a different synth concept. The circuit layouts and corresponding component values for a given little subsection are generally identical between the Voyager and LP.
A notable exception is the Little Phatty's Overload circuit, which was designed and painstakingly tweaked by ear by Steve Dunnington. I think he did a good job with that circuit.

So, the LP has Bob's Voyager oscillators and Bob's Voyager envelopes (complete with quirks and circuit errors just like on the Voyager), the same implementation of the ladder filter (only times one instead of two), the same VCA design. An instrument is a whole The digital control, the RAC system, the panel layout, overload... these things were designed by other people, all of whom desired to continue Bob's legacy and to create a real, playable instrument that stood on its own merit. I should mention that the original Little Phatty firmware was written by Chuck Carlson, a programmer who had worked with both Moog and Buchla prior to working on the LP.

I have been the alpha tester for the Little Phatty firmware as it has developed, and I've gotten to make a suggestion or two along the way.

I'm writing this instead of getting sleep here at the NAMM show, so I'd better leave it there.

Hope this helps,
Amos"

Note Axel Hartmann also designed the interface for the Voyager, and a numbe of other synths. Check out this post for the list of synths. You might be surprised. He is the face of many of our modern day knob laden synths.

MIDUINO

"The MIDUINO is a combination of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and the Arduino, which is based around the ATmega168 microcontroller. The Miduino is a breadboardable Arduino clone. The Miduino design kit comes with an ATMega168 pre-loaded with bootloader. The design can be utilized for general microcontroller projects or for specific MIDI designs.

The board design comes with a built in Opto-coupler and 4-way DIP switch which allows MIDI IN and easy setting of MIDI channels (1-16) if required. MIDI out is also available. The Miduino board is designed to be expandable. So MIDI IN is looped to MIDI OUT, on all the board designs."

via Palm Sounds

Old Days - KORG Wavestation Sequence

"An instrumental track using the Korg Wavestation for the main pads and the new Moog arpeggiator..."

You can find a link to the mp3 on khoral's Cafe 80.

NAMM: DoubleDeka Ultrasonic VCO Now Available

You might remember this one being announce back on 9/6/2008. It is now available via BrideChamber. Not official NAMM news, but it is new and it is NAMM season so I'll add the labels for those looking.

"From Ian Fritz, The DoubleDeka Ultrasonic VCO is here!!!

From the Documentation...
This unique VCO consists of an ultrasonic oscillator core followed by a parallel pair of waveform generators. Each waveform generator consists of a switched multi-octave divider followed by circuitry to generate a 10-step waveform using a set of 10 slider potentiometers. Also included are a novel synchronization circuit with two different operating modes and a built-in "digital ring modulator" (DRM) for producing a wide variety of synchronized and anharmonic sounds. The oscillator core is highly stable (better than 20 ppm/K in the prototype) and features wide-range, accurate tracking (better than 0.05% over fifteen octaves). The variable waveform generator provides fine control over an enormous range of available timbres."

Voltage controlled delay (AMORE)

Note this one is not new. I found it on this electro-music.com thread which states it's about half a year old. Normally I wouldn't call this out, but it is NAMM season and I know people are looking through them NAMM goggles... Remember, old can be new here. You can find more info on Bergfotron.

"Delay isn't one of the ”classic” modular synth modules. Maybe this is because analog delay chips became available when the synth industry had moved on to non-modular and polyphonic synths.
This module is based on the MN3207 BBD chip or it's modern equivalent, the BL3207. The latter is still produced and can be had for a very modest sum of money (you can buy it here). This is a 1024 stage chip and the board should also work with the 2040 stage BL3208, if you want a longer delay. The board also uses the companion clock chip MN3102/BL3102.
The delay time is voltage controlled, by using the VCO part from a standard 4046 PLL chip. An exponental converter controls the frequency of the PLL VCO. The delay circuit and anti-aliasing filters is based on the MN3207 application circuit from the datasheet. I increased the cutoff of the anti-aliasing filter by dividing all capacitor values with 1.5. Note that the BBD chip runs on +10 V single supply, which is the maximum supply voltage. So for this module, the +10 volt pin on the AMORE connector is used and therefore you need the 10 volt supply that is specified in the standard, in addition to +15 and -15 volts.
The board also contains a 3080-based VCA, which is used to give voltage control over the delay feedback. There is a high pass filter that rolls off the bass in the feedback loop. Otherwise the self-oscillation will occur at a very low frequency (1/delay time), which isn't very musical. If you don't want this bass roll-off, you can substiture the 15 nF capacitor with a 1 µF one.
The feedback loop has external connections so you could patch in other modules in the feedback loop if you want. Note that there is a jumper on the board for completing an internal feedback path (below/to the left of the 4046). This jumper must be removed if you want to use an external feedback path. The jumper can also be removed for troubleshooting. The CA3080 OTA can be difficult to find nowadays but you can get it from Banzai Effects, where you can get the BBD chips too."

Holding Pattern

via Buchla Tech

"As I wait for my silkscreen guy to come back into town and the rest of the back-ordered parts to arrive, I give you a picture of a 258 clone with no front panel legend."