In The Studio - Akai S612 vs. Akai S950

Published on May 16, 2019 The Daydream Sound

"An audio comparison of the sample rates of the Akai S612 & S950."

Drive & dual morphing filters - Bionic Lester from Industrial Music Electronics // Superbooth 2019

Published on May 16, 2019 DivKidVideo

"It's always a pleasure to see Scott of Industrial Music Electronics and see how current range of modules and upcoming prototypes. Scott gave us a demo of the new Bionic Lester mkiii with the Piston Honda as the input. The two inputs and dual stage soft to hard clipping gave a lovely rich harmonic saturation at the input stage and the dual digital morphing filters gave lots of interest tones as filters shapes smoothly morph as well as the cut off and resonance controls."

Presets for Eurorack & more from Polyend // Superbooth 2019

Published on May 16, 2019 DivKidVideo

"Polyend have been making interesting devices for some time now and their new range of 3 Eurorack modules shown at Superbooth 2019 certainly caught our attention too. The updated Poly allows for lots of MIDI to CV action with saveable presets for use with different equipment, Preset brings in a set of stored voltages to patch and control preset style behaviour in the system and the new USB power bank led power supply looked great for portable systems too!"

Next level analogue oscillator design from Joranalogue's Generate 3 // Superbooth 2019

Published on May 16, 2019 DivKidVideo

"As you'd expect from Joranalogue ... check the Filter 8 out here - [posted here] - they really break out what the essence of a filter is and can do ... Generate 3 takes the core of what an oscillator is and breaks it out into way more. It looks at what the fundamental is, the core of the circuit, multiple FM options include thru zero, phase modulation, separate odd and even harmonics, ring modulation over fundamental and harmonic levels ... it does a lot, sounded great and I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on one later this year."

Retrokits RK002 + Korg Nanokontrol2 = Roland PG300

Published on May 16, 2019 Retrokits

"This firmware is part of our RK002/DUY Firmware range. You can exchange firmware in the RK002 cable to do complex MIDI processing tasks, like converting simple CC messages into 'checksum encoded MIDI System Exclusive Messages' - which the Roland Alpha Juno and MKS50 need to edit patch data.

PS: Excuses - the Nanokontrol2 video looks a bit rusty, but it's shot in low-light conditions to bring out the NK2's lighted indicators :-)

The PG300 DUY is a full patch editor for the Roland Alpha Juno and MKS 50, it is available at https://retrokits.com/rk002/exchange/ PDF overlay template file for the Nanokontrol2 is also available.

To exchange firmware on your RK002 you need a computer MIDI interface which supports MIDI Power and MIDI System Exclusive, While you're at it searching for one, check out our RK005 (Which is also a standalone USB host and Class Compliant MIDI interface doing all of the above AND is able to host the NanoKontrol2 without a computer present: https://www.retrokits.com/shop/rk005/ )"

RITM-2 with mod and midi.РИТМ-2 с новым скрипуном

Published on May 16, 2019 Alexey Taber

"we made another Ritm2, midi for 4 parameters, midi clocks/ divider clock, midi pichbend at 1 oct, modulation depth with midi, pulse width CC#, also use the original harmonic generation scheme"

Sirius-Serpens Modular-Analog Low Pass filter with distortion demo (no talking)

Published on May 15, 2019 Dziam Bass

"Today I have a small demo of the Sirius filter from Serpens Modular.
I used it on a few sequences with clean out and dirty out for example as the sound changes itself in a dirty out which adds distortion.
The advantage of this filter is definitely great design and the distrotion which is just amazing with a larger resonance resistance, but also Sirius filter uses similar to the
The Korg PolySix, Mono / Poly and the PPG Wave 2.0 what really is a special character for sounds.
currently the module is available and it seems that it is one of those which you ''must have''.
In fact, this is only part of what Sirius can do..."

Serpens Sirius

Retroaktiv MPG-50 - Using the MPG-50's Assignable Control System

Published on May 15, 2019 Retroaktiv Synthesizers

"The MPG-50 is a dedicated controller for Roland Alpha Juno 1 & 2 and MKS-50 synthesizers. While the MPG-50 serves as a replacement for the PG-300 programmer, it has far more capability and functionality. In this video I am demonstrating the ASSIGN function of the MPG50, which allows users to assign up to 5 parameters simultaneously to sliders A and B, as well as an expression pedal. Incoming mod wheel, breath controller, or aftertouch can also be assigned and routed to any parameters on the synth.
Here I am using the mod wheel and aftertouch simultaneously to control 6 Juno parameters at once. This can make very complex sounds with the Juno, and the data can be played back to the MPG50 and replicated."

IQ Ring Modulation : analog Frequency Shifter patch

Published on May 15, 2019 Sbranvlztronics

"An Allpass filter network and a Quadrature VCO on protoboard, plus LFO and two Ring Modulators 3rdWorldRack modules."

I'd love to see the audio output on the oscilloscope.

Update:

Frequency Shifter Patch: Oscilloscope and Spectrogram

Published on May 19, 2019 Sbranvlztronics

Wavehole Approach to Granular Synthesis Using Xenakis Screens

For those interested, see here.

See here for previous posts featuring Xenakis and granular synthesis.

What or rather who is Xenakis? Via Wikipedia: Iannis Xenakis - "Xenakis pioneered the use of mathematical models in music such as applications of set theory, stochastic processes and game theory and was also an important influence on the development of electronic and computer music. He integrated music with architecture, designing music for pre-existing spaces, and designing spaces to be integrated with specific music compositions and performances."

From the site linked above:

"The wavehole approach to organising acoustic particles is an adaptation of the Xenakis screen. In Formalized Music Xenakis discusses various methods with which to organise grains of sound. A Xenakian screen is not unlike Gabor’s Matrix (1946). The representation is musical and interpreted differently from the theoretical signals presented in Gabor’s communications literature. The Xenakis screen (Fig.1), is a two dimensional grid which, exists in one moment of time."

If you look below you will see an image of multiple Xenakis Screens over time. The screens remind me of a mix of wavetable and granular synthesis. In a wavetable you have a table of multiple waveforms you can morph through. In granular synthesis you typically have a sample or audio you can morph through and manipulate over time either grabbing a "slice" of the audio or particular "grains" within a slice or slices of audio - almost like a hybrid of additive and subtractive synthesis but working with a given audio sample.

"Each cell of the screen grid, houses a silence or grain event. Thus, each screen can have, depending on its resolution, a sparse or dense population of grains. The population is referred to as a cloud. Each occupied cell has a frequency ∆F and gain ∆G parameter. A Xenakis cloud is the grouped grain topology in one screen at a given moment in ∆t as in Fig.2."