Detron

Detron by alienrobotdance
"A short fast track I made exclusively with JX3P. I got the controller for it (DT200 by Dtronics) in the mail today and I thought I'd give it a spin :)

Sounds are recorded into ableton, only eq and compression are added, and a little reverb. No further processing.

Drums are 808."

via alienrobotdance
"I got the DT200 by DTronics (The Roland PG200 clone that I discovered on Matrixsynth) in the mail today and I wanted to make a fast track using only the JX3P. All those new knobs are fantastic to play with. Drums are 808, synth parts are all JX3P. For the 'arp' I used the internal sequencer of the JX3P, triggered by a pulse in Ableton."

Beat707 with Arduino Synth

YouTube Uploaded by beat707videos on May 20, 2011
See this post for a recent review.

dr. moonstien circuit bent bio static optical theremin signal destroyer

YouTube Uploaded by drmoonstien on May 20, 2011

drmoonstien on eBay (RSS)

VAX77 Host Control Demo [Polyphonic Aftertouch Keyboard Controller]

YouTube Uploaded by InfiniteResponse on May 20, 2011

I believe Infinite Response is the only current manufacturer of keyboards featuring polyphonic aftertouch. If anyone knows of others, feel free to comment. For those new to the term, polyphonic aftertouch allows you to apply aftertouch to only the note/s you are applying aftertouch to. On most synths if you apply aftertouch on only one note on the keyboard, all notes are affected. Many synths support poly aftertouch via MIDI. The Roland A90, Sequential Circuits Prophet T8, Yamaha CS80 and I believe Kurzweil's MIDIboard all supported poly aftertouch. Ensoniq obtained the rights to the most common form of poly aftertouch and as a result many of their synths including the SQ80 but not the ESQ1 featured it.

Simple Doepfer Dark Time + A-100 Sequence

YouTube Uploaded by Dovinia on May 20, 2011

"Very simple, but happy little sequence with a somewhat hypnotic feel (at least to me). Dark Time is controlling A-100 including the tempo of a second sequence from A-160/161."

afternoon (shapesynth, sinusoid, kinetic)

YouTube Uploaded by humbletune on May 20, 2011

"An afternoon composition using my iphone applications: shapesynth, sinusoid, kinetic and one secret....

http://www.humbletune.com/apps"

Erik Sigth - iTunes
iPads on eBay
iPod Touch on eBay

"shape
Shape is a polyphonic synthesiser allowing the user to draw the shape of the oscillator wave form. The positive side of the oscillation is represented by 32 blocks and the negative side is its mirror, generating all sorts of possible raw retroish sounds. Shape is best experienced with akai synthstation 25.

+++ 16 voices.
+++ Attack.
+++ Decay.
+++ LFO envelop.
+++ Delay.
+++ Akai synthstation 25 compatible.
+++ On screen 25 key stylophone style keyboard.

kinetic
Kinetic is a music instrument inspired by the inside of a maracas, however it is not a percussive instrument. Notes are represented by bouncing balls that make sounds when they hit a wall and gravity is determined by the location of your device, using the accelerometer. Switch between scenes in order to create chord structures.

sinusoid
Sinusoid is an 8 bit music tracker/sequencer sound toy. It has four channels, 2 sine, 1 square and 1 drum channel. Sound controls are attack, decay and tremolo. Other features are copy, paste, save and load. Sinusoid is inspired by retro games and almost forgotten trackers..."

A Poll on Computers In the Studio

I'm curious how many people currently use computers in their studio and if so, do you use it for audio, MIDI or both. Feel free to share and expand your opinion in the comments.

Emma Knight - Dirty Electronics Lead & Schemas

Dirty Electronics Lead & Schemas from Emma Knight on Vimeo.

KORG nanoKONTROL 2

YouTube Uploaded by soundofseventythree on May 19, 2011

"My KORG nanoKONTROL 2 arrived yesterday. It inspired me to improvise this track which I am calling 'Ladybug'. It features the nanoKONTROL 2 controlling Ableton Live along with the Novation Launchpad, and the Akai MPK mini. The bass is a sample of me playing my Squier Jaguar Bass through my KORG Pandora PX5D which was also used as the soundcard for this set. Thanks for watching!"

Update: http://soundofseventythree.bandcamp.com/

Beat707 Arduino Drum Sequencer Review by Altitude

http://www.beat707.com
"This project was brought to my attention a month ago and it immediately caught my eye as a perfect solution for a sequencer for my 9090 TR-909 clone.

Quick Run Down:
The Beat707 is a Arduino shield (meaning hardware front end) and software for an Arduino (Uno/2009/Mega) hardware platform. The Beat707 hardware can be purchased via their website assembled for $100 (An Arduino MIDI Groove Box Shield). Their website has a number of video demos that I recommend everyone check out. An arduino will run you $15-$65 depending on what you get and where you get it. I opted for an Uno for $30 but am upgrading to a Mega since the code limit for the 2009/Uno has pretty much been met. Anyone looking into getting one, I recommend a mega (Chinese clones are ~$40).

The hardware is simple to assemble, simply join the Arduino and the Beat707 (pins and headers) and upload the software. Arduino has its own software to upload the apps to the hardware and it is trivial to use (no programming knowledge required)

The Hardware:
The controls are straight forward. Sixteen step buttons, 4 navigation buttons, Stop/play/record/shift. Ports are midi in/out, Power, USB. It can be powered via USB and it also has a midi over USB function.

Here is mine. I opted for different style buttons from the kit to better suit my case. I also have two mods installed (more on that later)


The software:
The sequencer consists of 18 tracks: 14 drum instrument tracks, 2 monosynth tracks, and two accent tracks. Each drum voice can be set to a different midi channel and note. The names can easily be edited in the software so you don't have to have them named according the to GM names.

Editing the drum tracks is pretty much identical to the Tr-707. There is a A/B variation for each track giving a total of 32 steps (and it even goes beyond this, however I have not played around with that feature). The combination of the shift key gives access to editing and quick jump parameters (copy/paste/mute/solo etc). Pattern edit mode is your classic x0x style editing and there is also a realtime record where each of the 16 keys represents and instrument (again, like the 707)

The two synth tracks work considerably differently than the drum tracks and each note is entered per step and remains on until a note off event is programmed (to hold notes) or another note begins. There is also a slide function to slide between notes. What I really dig about the synth tracks is that with a keyboard attached, you can simply play in the notes from a keyboard. A clever scheme is used where a light note press (low velocity) is recorded as a rest and a hard press records that note. Both events advance the sequence to the next step. Quite fun to use.

Hacks and Mods:
The designer built in quite a bit of expandability so it is very easy to add features. Like I show above, I added an analog pot (which can be assigned to a number of parameters) and an encoder which allows for quick editing of parameters. There are also a number of switch inputs that can be used for a variety of things (footswitch start/stop). Trigger outputs are also built in to trigger non-midi external drum voices.

At this time, there is no case or faceplate for the Beat707 (coming soon afaik) so I designed my own enclosure based on an extruded Hammond box and a CNC made panel. I used lightpipes for the LEDs since they are mounted to the board and SMD parts."