Chopin: Mazurka, Op. 6 No. 1 (synthesized)

YouTube Uploaded by ScrollingMusic on Aug 25, 2011

"Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849): Mazurka, Op. 6 No. 1

Chopin composed at least 69 mazurkas between 1825 and his death in 1849. These short pieces for solo piano are based on the traditional Polish dance known as the mazurka. However, Chopin transformed his mazurkas into an entirely new genre, which became known as a "Chopin genre." This piece is in the key of F-sharp minor, and was the first mazurka to be published, although two were composed earlier (published posthumously.)

This synthesized rendition and the scrolling visualization were generated from a MIDI file by our Matlab synthesizer. This rendition is significant, because it achieves its timbre by combining three synthesis types: additive, subtractive, and sample-based. While the additive and subtractive voices are completely synthesized from scratch, we also added recorded samples of an upright piano (sample-based synthesis) into the mix. The sample bank consist of a recording of each of the 88 keys played in isolation."

Tara Does Townshend

www.tarabusch.com
www.analogsuicide.com
Don't miss the Tara Busch EP Remix Contest

Townshend pic via thewho.net Courtesy Ed Intagliata at Cassell’s Music

Astronauta Pinguim Zeitgeist/propaganda

You might recognize this pic from this post. JD in the comments stated he'd love to hear how that one sounded. Well, you can listen to some music in that post. There is also a show coming up on September 29 for those in Brazil. See the post for details.

Electric Golum Performance to Feature Trevor Pinch Vintage Custom Modular

See this post for details on the modular. It's a unique piece of synth history. See this post for info on the upcoming show.

Wasserklang Modulsystem - Test Run #1

YouTube Uploaded by royrobotiks on Aug 24, 2011

"'Wasserklang Modulsystem' is a water powered multichannel sound installation.
A big water wheel in the forge of Berlin's Technikmuseum drives eight mechanical music boxes, each playing a different song. They are connected by a several hundred meter long rope which makes a zig-zag course through the little forest and alongside the rail track.

The installation was produced by La belle Imira and Niklas Roy for Berlin's Museum Night 2011.

http://www.niklasroy.com
http://www.labelleimira.com
http://www.lange-nacht-der-museen.de"

http://www.niklasroy.com/articles/109/wasserklang-modulsystem-test-run-1

Some additional info via Niklas:
"The "Wasserklang Modulsystem" connects eight music box mechanisms via a several hundred meter long rope with a huge water wheel. The looped rope snakes over plenty of pulleys through the garden of the Museum of Technology. The music boxes are connected to some of the pulleys and cover the garden in a beautiful sound cloud.

The water wheel is part of the Museum of Technology's old forge. It was formerly used to drive the massive hammers inside the forge, but since several years it only spins for decorative purpuses. This year's Museum Night is themed with "music", so we decided to give the water wheel a new purpose as conductor of a music box orchestra."

Visit to u-he headquarters in Berlin

YouTube Uploaded by uheplugins on Aug 24, 2011

Don't miss part 2 below for some vintage synth play.
"Playing with Urs Heckmann's recently acquired collection of vintage analogue synthesizers."

Visit to u-he headquarters in Berlin - Part 2

Uploaded by uheplugins on Aug 25, 2011

"Playing with Urs Heckmann's recently acquired collection of vintage analogue synthesizers."

NOVATION SUPERNOVA II Rack

via this auction

Rare Abbey Road Studios EMI RS-124 Altec compressor

via this auction

Quick note: this is obviously not a synth. I'm making the exception on this one as it came in from a reader of the site. Yes you can send your auctions in too. See the submit auction link in the More Stuff section on the right. Also I do feature effects now and then if 1) they are made from manufacturers typically associated with synths as it is interesting from a historical perspective, 2) the effect is used in a manner typically associated with a synth (filters, chorus, phasers, etc), 3) demos of effects using a synth rather than guitar, and 4) effects built as modules for the modular world.

That said here's the auction description:

'Original and extremely rare EMI converted Altec RS124 valve compressor/limiter.

Made famous as used on many early Beatles records, this compressor was recently immortalised as a plugin by Abbey Road themselves.

These units were not available 'off-the-shelf' as they were modified at Abbey Road Studios and as such are extremely difficult to find nowadays.

This one is in good working order, as you can see from the photos it is not 'mint' cosmetically and shows it has history!

I have tried this on many different sound sources and the effect it has sounds like the aural equivalent of pouring melted butter over the sound, it's really creamy and just sounds very, very, VERY NICE.

OK so to the functionality...

The two things worth noting are

1. The Output Attenuator knob is slightly loose, it works as it should when you turn it, but would need re-aligning and tightening so it matches up with the numbers.

2. The other thing, is below the 'BAL' sticker a control of some sort has snapped off, I have never known what this control was or did as the unit worked fine without it!

So for those two (easy to fix) reasons I would say this unit deserves a service form somewhere like 'Funky Junk', who have experience with Altec compressors.

HOWEVER, neither of these affected my use of it and I am only mentioning them for transparency in the description.

Everything else works, sounds and lights up as you'd expect."

juno-2 juno-1

via Marko of Retrosound.de

It's interesting to see the size comparison.

Zyklus MPS-1 Midi Performance System - Demo tape

YouTube Uploaded by AnalogyGuy on Aug 18, 2011
via esaruoho in the comments of this post.
"Here's a recording from the promo tape which was made to demonstrate the features of the Midi performance System from 1988.

I own one of them (only one batch, 40 units, was ever produced because it was flop product for the very wrong reasons) and meanwhile I haven't yet done any video demonstrations, I decided to upload at least this demo tape. You can expect me to do them sooner or later because the Zyklus really is the center of my own studio and serves extremely well my purposes of improvisations... it was made for non-stop spontaneous music production with huge amount of experimental elements.

MPS is really even today totally unique. Instead of normal sequencer that uses tape machine approach, it uses individual sequences (phrases, loops, riffs, whatever) and handles them like "notes" so that you can "play" them with keyboard and transpose them polyphonically... and the transpose is not the only function there!

I am going to make tribute site for the Zyklus, but before that, for more info, see my friend's site here: http://www.scene.org/~esa/zyklus/

Maybe the only known Zyklus user was (suprise!) Vangelis (in the album "Direct") but another famous composer that was one of the original pioneers of electronic music in Britain, David Vorhaus, also used Zyklus and maybe still uses it.

About the songs in this tape, bear in mind that they were mainly made to demonstrate the features so they are not maybe that great as a songs but interesting nontheless... and remember, each song was made in live, without overdubbing.

Composers of the tracks:

[Part 1]
1. Alex White (The main demo)
2. Peter Kellock - 05:10
3. Jezz Woodroffe - 07:35

[Part 2]
1. Peter Kellock
2. Jezz Woodroffe - 01:45
3. AW WM PK - 03:50
4. Jezz Woodroffe - 08:23
5. John L Walters - 10:35

[Part 3]
1. Peter Buick
2. Bill Marshall - 02:08
3. Jezz Woodroffe - 05:37"