Rare Kurzweil VA1 Demo

Kurzweil VA1 Quick Demo 1 by WeiserSound

Demo of the suepr rare Kurzweil VA1 that enver made it into production. Apparently the engine made it's way into the PC3X.

"I finally dusted off my VA1 and banged out a very quick/dirty demo with 9 tracks, one take each, no quantization, plus a cheesy drum track. The display closeup shows choices for oscillators, filters, "deform" (an extra block of shapers and distortions), "processors" (sub oscillators, ring mod, etc in the Osc section), modulation sources and FX (not implemented).

There's a tiny bit of reverb con everything, and a small amount of Laserverb on two of the leads, both coming from a KSP8. Most of the better DSP items survived and now live inside of the current Kurz boards like PC4, Forte and SP6. Note - many of the DSP items were experimental or iterations, never meant to see the light of day.

This is one of ten prototype units that were made, and one of the few that had the cooler paint job.

For music choice, I went with The Traitor, from Herbie Hancock's Manchild album, an old fav!"

You can find a handful of posts featuring the Kurzweil VA1 here.

Roland MKS-70 Super JX Analog Synthesizer

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via this auction

"Roland MKS70 (rack version of the JX10 keyboard).12 voice, 64 onboard patches."

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With Starlight In Their Eyes - Djangosfire Serge Improv Dec 2020

djangosfire

"'With the starlight in their eyes, they glimmer and shine - Set to cruise through the heavens, the Milky Way and beyond - Rumble shakes the capsule, as time between the past and the far off lead to wonder - To the Earth they say goodbye... with starlight in their eyes'

'Starlight in Their Eyes' 12-29-2020 Adam Scramstad/Djangosfire

I’ve been so busy past few months building DIY Buchla style modules... and I have NOT had any time to finish putting this Serge System together (its been sitting for way too long) until this afternoon. For me, the “test” of a system is when you sit down with NO patch cords (a blank slate) and start building a foundation patch.. then let it lead you into space. If I look up at the clock only to realize a few hours have past... well, then it all A-OK! Cheers - Adam"

John Bowen Solaris V2.0 Update Released

John Bowen

Above is a quick video from John Bowen on the new Phase Mod Oscillator posted back in March. You might remember mention of it in this post from February. The update is now available. Some details via the John Bowen Synth Design forum (pic via this previous post):


"I am very happy to announce the release of v2.0 Operating System for the Solaris!

I wanted to post a huge 'Thank You' to Jim Hewes, who has been laboring for almost 4 years on the Solaris OS. Jim has fixed more than 80 bugs, and added at least a dozen of features that I have requested. During this last year, not only did he completely re-work the entire SysEx code (replacing a bare-bones NRPN system) to allow for MIDI access to all of the now over 7300+ parameters (!), but has been working overtime to get a reasonable 4-part Multimode structure working. I think you will all agree what he has done is managed to save the Solaris from early abandonment to bring it forward as a still viable current instrument. What other hardware synth has been able to do that which came out 10 years ago?

I would also like to thank Hrast for coding the new Phase Mod oscillator type, and Sonic Core for providing the code for the CZ waveshape set. You can view Hrast's work under the name Hrastprogrammer and his wonderful software synth Transiztow: http://www.hrastprogrammer.com/hrastwerk/index.htm...

The biggest structural change is that each Multi Preset now is actually 4 layers deep, making it four times the size of a previous preset. All older presets will load as 4-part Multi Presets. Loading an older preset file automatically converts it into the new Multi Preset format. The new Multi Preset will populate Part 1 with all the parameters, including the Master FX, Output settings, Performance knob assignments, stored joystick position, SamplePool, arpeggiator settings, Assign switches, and BPM. As before, when the Preset LED is on, you are in Preset Mode. Touching any parameter knob will immediately jump out of Preset Mode and put the Solaris into Edit Mode. When in edit mode, the bottom line of the center display will display the current selected parameter, which now includes the part number as P1, P2, etc.

New Oscillator Type: PhaseMod (PhsMod)

In addition to all of the new Multimode features, a 7th Oscillator Type has been added. This features both “DX7-style FM” (otherwise known as Phase Modulation or PM) and Phase Distortion (PD, from the Casio family of CZ synths). The waveshapes provided are as follows: For PM – Sine, Morphing Saw (Morph1), Morphing Square (Morph2) For PD – CZSaw, CZSquare, CZPulse, CZSawPulse, CZReso1, CZReso2, and CZReso3.

For Phase Modulation, use PMod as the mod destination. For Phase Distortion, use the Shape knob and destination. (You can have both types of modulation going on, of course.) On the oscillator’s page 2, you will find Sync and Quant(ization) parameters. For the PhaseMod Type, the only sync value is Gate. For certain PM sounds, you need to ‘lock’ the start of the phase to make sure you have a consistent attack to the sound, or you don’t want to have phase cancellation with stacked oscillators. Gate works with the Phase setting, to restart the phase at a specific point for every note-on event.

Quantize reduces the bit resolution of the PhaseMod oscillator. The range is 0-31 (with 31 = 1 bit). Results are very subtle until you are in the 27-30 range.”

Modbap Per4mer Eurorack Effects Explanation and Jam by Trovarsi

Perfect Circuit

"Our friend Trovarsi came by to show us some of the sounds of the Modbap Modular Per4mer and explain how some of its features work. The Per4mer has four arcade buttons that switch on DJ style effects (delay, reverb, glitch and tape stop). There is also a color processor that gives everything you pass through it the sound of a digital sampler, or some saturation or a vinyl emulation. The Per4mer has a compressor that can do regular compression as well as sidechaining or compress a signal in time with a clock.

Of course since the Per4mer is a eurorack module you can trigger the effects with triggers instead of pushing the buttons, and you can control the knob settings with the CV inputs. The Per4mer is also stereo in and out!

Per4mer available here: https://www.perfectcircuit.com/modbap...

Timeline:

00:00 - Intro
00:07 - Jam
02:13 - Effect Overview
03:10 - Color Processor
03:45 - Compressor
03:58 - CV Control"

Modugand-Brian Bamanya and Javier Díez Ena

Afrorack

"I did a little collaborative project with Spanish artist and Theremin player Javier Díez Ena. The track is called Modugand."

cool diy sequencer

New Custom Patches for the Korg Minilogue XD by Robust American Patches

via Robust American Patches

"We are extremely proud to offer Volume I for the Korg Minilogue XD! Volume I is a collection of 64 brand new patches. (Plus, as always, you get 10 brand new complimentary patches) This collection isn't all sequences/beats and key trigger fun...Although there is plenty of that! We've also included some very playable poly synths and smooth legato basses and leads. Every patch in this collection makes heavy use of the XD's main controllers. The joystick, aftertouch and velocity all come together to make these sounds fun and extremely expressive. Save 40% as part of our New Year's Sale!

Happy New Year to all Synthusiasts everywhere!"

Links:

Volume I for the Minilogue XD

Volume I Patch List Page

Kurzweil MS-1 MICROSEQUENCER 4-TRACK SEQUENCER

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via this auction

I believe this is the first one to be feature on the site.

"We recently acquired the entire stock of Philadelphia's legendary Cintioli's Music store and will be listing it here on eBay in the coming weeks. This piece was taken from the pre-owned stock of that store and is guaranteed to work well."

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Altered FM explorations with opsix

Korg

"Join KORG's James Sajeva as we dive into sounds and features on Korg's new opsix altered FM synthesizer"

Tone Tweakers Vintage ARP 2600 Synthesizer Model 2601

123synthland

"Find meticulously refurbished and future-proofed ARP 2600s and other vintage synths that are better than the rest at https://www.tonetweakers.com"