Battery Powered TR-707 With Interchangeable TR-808 and TR-909 EPROMs

TR-707 Battery-powered with quick-swappable EPROM sounds

YouTube via rolandsh1000

"I think the 707 has some definite things going for it: great interface, lightweight, individual outs, onboard sound mixer pots, solid trigger outs. However, the things I always thought were odd were that it wasn't battery powered (such a lightweight chassis...why not?), and the sounds were good but not great (probably better than the 505 and 626, but the stepsister to the 808, 909, and possibly 606).

So this mod tries to fix both of those:

The first part is battery-power. I have an internal array of 10 AA cells that can be switched in and they'll power the unit for at least 10 hours. I use rechargeable NiMH cells for environmental friendliness. This enables sitting on the couch jamming with headphones and no wall wart leash!

The second part is a ZIF eprom socket mounted on the front panel where the M64-C memory cartridge used to go (something I know that I would never ever have used). This is wired into IC34 and IC35 on the voice board, which provide the ROM samples for all the drums except the crash and ride. Since IC34 and IC35 were 27c256 sized ROMs in parallel, they can be replaced with a single 27c512 64k ROM, which I've done here. No credit to me: Thierry on the Yahoo TR-707 group figured this out and posted his methods there for adding new sounds. To burn my own sounds, I got the WAVs from Hyperreal for the 808 and 909, downsampled them to ~22kHz and 8-bit, converted them to binaries, then adapted Thierry's BASIC program that organizes all the sounds into on 64K file per their stock organization in the TR-707.

This video shows me running from battery power (the only thing I plug in is the amp). I run through the exact same patterns using sounds first from a 27c512 EPROM with the stock 707 binaries, then my converted 808 EPROM kit, then finally a 909 EPROM kit (I didn't like how that last one turned out...anybody know of better sources for 909 sounds?).

I suppose doing the crash and ride eproms are next!"

pierre schaeffer - "etude aux chemins de fer"

YouTube via apopcollapse.

Anyone confirm this was the first piece of musique concrete?
"The first piece of "musique concrete," composed by Pierre Schaeffer in 1948 out of sounds produced by trains.

This is posted as a reference to a series of articles on the problems of composition posed by musique concrete. The article on Peirre Schaeffer can be found here:

http://againstthemodernworld.blogspot...

If you like this music, please purchase the album:

http://www.amazon.com/L-Oeuvre-Musica..." on Amazon

Update via Joe of Electronic Music Teacher:
"I just want to note that Etude aux Chemins de Fer may be the first piece of Musique Concrete, but it is not necessarily the first piece of "sound collage" tape music. Schaeffer coined the term Musique Concrete (also called "acousmatic music") to describe non-narrative music using "sounds" as the primary source material, divorcing the actual content of the sound from what it represents. (When listening to Etude aux Chemins de Fer we are not supposed to hear trains as trains, but simply as abstracted sounds - elements in the composition.)

The earliest piece of tape-style electronic music might be Walter Ruttman's "audio film" titled "Weekend", from 1930. According to The Transparent Tape Music Festival:

"Weekend is a pioneering work from the early days of radio, commissioned in 1928 by Berlin Radio Hour. In a collage of words, music fragments and sounds, the film-maker and media artist Walter Ruttmann presented on 13 June 1930 a radically innovative radio piece: an acoustic picture of a Berlin weekend urban landscape.

Before making Weekend, Ruttmann had produced the experimental documentary Berlin-Symphony of a Great City (1927) as well as a number of short, experimental abstract animations. After his experience with his films, Ruttmann deliberately sought possibilities for producing an audio-film for radio. "Everything audible in the world becomes material," he wrote in a manifesto in 1929, prefiguring Schaeffer, Varese, Cage and the other giants of the musical avant-garde."

Source : http://www.sfsound.org/tape/ruttmann.html

You can hear "Weekend" at this link:
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/weekend/"

Bob Moog honored at UNC Asheville

Update via Schwertwal in the comments, this occurred last Monday.

via the Citezen-Times.com:

"UNC Asheville dedicates its Bob Moog Electronic Music Studio on Monday.

The 10 a.m. event, in room 24 of UNCA’s Lipinsky Hall, will honor the legacy of the late Bob Moog, who taught at the university 1989-1993. The 30-minute program will include remarks by Chancellor Anne Ponder, music department chair Wayne Kirby, Moog Music product development specialist Steve Dunnington (UNCA '93), and Rosser Douglas, a UNCA music major.

A studio tour will follow, including live student performances and hands-on opportunities on the theremin and synthesizers.

The Bob Moog Electronic Music Studio houses a variety of classic analog synthesizers and processors, including a Voyager Mini Moog, Moog pedals and theremins. Next door is a recording studio with a high-end recording and mixing console, and an electronic keyboard lab, equipped with MIDI keyboards and Macintosh computers.

Concert Thursday night

At 8 p.m. Thursday, UNCA's Electronic Music Ensemble will perform original scores with Moog synthesizers, theremins and electronica at White Horse Black Mountain in Black Mountain.

Electronic music scores written by UNCA electronic music students will accompany excerpts from "Metropolis," Austrian director Fritz Lang's legendary 1927 science-fiction film. Admission to the concert is $7, a portion of which will benefit UNCA’s music department."

PatternMusic Instrument Settings

YouTube via richardlawler
"PatternMusic Music Creation App for the iPhone. Tutorial on instrument settings including voice, note length and transpose."
Available on iTunes here:

APK.avi

YouTube via gaufresderiz. Audio comes in at :41.
"ATARI PUNK CONSOLLE + 8 step sequencer...
+ Speack n spell circuit bent
+ Thing A Ma Kit"

MP2000 - 025 - Moog Sensastions by Pat Prilly

flickr by goldenticket
(click for more)

"I'm a big fan of the Montparnasse 2000 aka MP2000 record label. Over on my site www.entertainingthings.com I'm working on making a few posts related to the label with tracklisting, pics, info, sound samples etc. It will be a work in progress for a few days. The post is at http://www.entertainingthings.com/2009/11/20/montparnasse-2000-part-1/.

If you are a fan of the record label or whatever feel free to leave comments and link to it from your blog/facebook etc

Right now almost every MP2000 picture is one i took and edited down to 1200x1200 if you would like the original larger version so you could edit the pic to make it better (clean it up with photoshop) feel free to message me

As mentioned my posts on EntertainingThings.com are a work in progress but I will be adding links to where people can buy the records so if you are selling it one of ebay or something you can contact me and ill add the link.

Also if you have a better quality picture of a cover or an alternate cover please contact me and ill add it to the site. "

MP2000 - 35 - Moog Mig Mag Moog by Jean-Jacques Perrey

flickr by goldenticket
(click for more)

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This Is Sandy P

flickr by Masonic Boom

"What happens when you cross the Aphex Twin with Delia Derbyshire?

You get Sandy P, the heroine of a couple of novels, is what you get.

(Or would that be Karen Tregaskin? ha ha ha)"

Ham Heart Synthesizers -"the sweet yellow and black one..."

YouTube via bigcitymusic
"This Ham Heart, hand-made analog synth box sports one main oscillator, four modulating LFO oscillators, a filter and switches for LFO ranges. These little boxes are chock full of interesting drones and wild sounds. All Ham Heart synths are unique looking and sounding..... they're all different and we like that!"

The Raven /// A100 Analog Modular system

YouTube via beckhusen
"Except the sound of the bell in the middle of the clip all sound variations which are not the same like the first regular looped drone of the beginning are made only by changing parameters at the A127 VCRF (triple voltage controlled resonance filter) . That's an absolute great module and i won't imagine to miss it in further productions."