Lazy River (Pro 3, Force)

video upload by ToyKeeper

"Just a fun silly bit of synthpop to lighten your day as you drift along on life's lazy river.

Instruments:
- Sequential Pro 3: Everything except drums
- Akai Force: Drums, arrangement

Audio from the Pro 3 is dry, no effects. No mother ducks were harmed in the making of this song. (the Force's sidechain effect is called 'Mother Ducker') However, rubber ducks have been known to enhance the listening experience.

Background image is from Wikipedia's page for 'lazy river'."

TK Karpluck String patch (Sequential Pro 3 tuned feedback, Karplus Strong) demo

video upload by ToyKeeper

"I'm just noodling with Karplus-Strong synthesis on my Pro 3, using a tiny pluck of noise as an exciter to get the tuned feedback circuit started. Basically everything in this example is coming from the feedback, to demonstrate its expressiveness and range while it self-oscillates and evolves. None of the oscillators were used at all; they're completely off.

Apologies for my sloppy, aimless playing. I mostly just wanted to demonstrate the variety of timbres and textures which can be created this way. I'm barely even doing anything; most of the expressiveness comes out on its own just based on how the patch is played.

Sometimes it sounds like an acoustic guitar. Sometimes it sounds like a cello being bowed. Sometimes it's a big angry growl. Sometimes it's a searing lead. Sometimes just a soft hum. All from a single, surprisingly simple, patch.

To tweak the sound, I mostly just play legato or not, to control when a fresh "pluck" happens versus just adjusting the tuning of the feedback circuit. I also used the mod wheel sometimes to add distortion, used the pitch bend wheel occasionally to dampen and detune the feedback, and occasionally bumped the feedback amount up or down by a single notch to control whether sustained notes would slowly build or slowly fade. Oh, and aftertouch for pitch-linked vibrato.

The feedback seems to be quite temperature sensitive, so the amount must be tweaked a bit each time it's used, and the sound isn't ever quite the same. So I recorded and uploaded the first improvised take, with no attempts to correct anything.

Audio is straight out of the Pro 3, dry. This is what it sounds like without any processing.

To make a patch like this, basically just start with an init patch, turn off the oscillators, route a plucky aux envelope to the noise level, and turn on tuned feedback (amount = ~62 to ~64, tuning = 24). The rest is just performance conveniences, like the mod wheel, aftertouch, pitch wheel... and some delay."

Octave Cat analog synthesizer ambient drone

video upload by Jim Alfredson

"This past summer I acquired a non-functioning Octave Cat SRM monophonic analog synthesizer. It was only making slow clicks but the filter and noise circuitry worked. I spent about three weeks troubleshooting it with the help of some folks in the online synth community. Thankfully I was able to bring it back to life. I completely rebuilt the power supply, replaced about half the ICs, and all the capacitors. I also refurbished the Pratt Reed keybed and refinished the wood side panels.

It sounds amazing; like raw voltage surging through wires. This is a little clip I made just messing around. I'm looking forward to adding this little kitty to my music.

Reverb is the Reverb Foundry HD-Cart. Delay is u-he Colour Copy. A bit of FabFilter Pro-L2 on the output and that's it. Edited in DaVinci Resolve."

Ciclos by Par

Estreno de Ciclos (full album - visualizer)

video upload by Par

00:00 intro
00:20 Fin
03:10 Silencio
06:26 Días
10:37 Atravesar
14:17 No estar
16:52 Disrupción
20:09 El otro día
24:02 Ya
27:26 El túnel
33:10 créditos

► BANDCAMP: https://parmusic.bandcamp.com/
► SPOTIFY: http://bit.ly/par_music
► INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/par_music
► FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/musicapar

Par - Ciclos
Con:
Vera Sienra (voz en Días)
Lucía Torrón (letra y voz en Días)
Camila Rodríguez (letra y voz en Ya)
Pedro Dalton (voz en El túnel)

Luis Angelero (guitarra en Días)
Gabi Lucena (guitarra en Disrupción)
Candela Cibrián (coros en Ya, recitado en El otro día)

Voz de Vera Sienra grabada en El liebregal por Federico Coore y Haugussto Brazlleim
Voz de Lucía Torrón y Camila Rodríguez grabada en Basurita por Guillermo Berta
Voz de Pedro Dalton grabada en La encrucijada por Orlando Fernández

Producción, grabación, texto en El túnel y mezcla: Par
Master: Emiliano Zapata.

Arte y diseño: Nacho Adda.

Grabado entre 2019 y 2021

Gracias a Vera, Lucía, Camila, Pedro, Luis, Gabi y Cande por sumarse y elevar la idea; a Lu y Feli por acompañarme, y a todos los que de alguna manera u otra colaboraron para que este trabajo salga a flote.

Para Bruno.

MIDI Controller 101s: Getting Started with Launchpad and Launchkey // Novation live

video upload by NovationTV

"Things can sometimes be a little confusing when starting out with anything new, so in this session -CALC- goes back to basics. Starting at the very beginning we’ll be looking at the first steps to take when opening the box. Focussing on both the Launchpad and Launchkey MK3 ranges, -CALC- will help get you up and running and share some useful hints and tricks along the way."

Q169 Oscillator ++ waveforms & Siren Sound patch

video upload by synthesizersdotcom

"Demonstration of Waveforms on the Q169 Oscillator ++."



"A simple patch for a siren sound."

Additional Q169 Oscillator ++ posts

https://www.synthesizers.com/

Madrona Labs Sumu Preview & Aaltoverb Public Beta

You might remember the development of Sumu announced back in 2018. The preview is now available.

via Madrona Labs:

"In the same way that Kaivo brought two different and compatible kinds of synthesis together, combining granular synthesis with physical modeling, Sumu combines advanced additive synthesis with FM. Since it's been in the works for a long time, and is now nearing completion, I broke with my normal way of doing things and put out a detailed preview on the web site."

Sumu is an additive instrument that I've had in the works for a long time. Now that it's nearing completion and heading towards a public beta soon I'm going to break with the way I normally do things and put some detailed info out ahead of its release.

Sumu is another semi-modular instrument. It shares the general appearance of its patcher-in-the-center design with Aalto, Kaivo and Virta. As you can see, it's on the more complex end of the spectrum like Kaivo. Everything is visible at once and there are no tabs or menu pages to navigate, which suits the way I like to program a synthesizer tweaking a little something here, a little something there.

In the same way that Kaivo brought two different and compatible kinds of synthesis together, combining granular synthesis with physical modeling, Sumu combines advanced additive synthesis with FM synthesis.

What's most different about Sumu compared to my other synths is that the signals in the patcher are not just one channel of data, but 64—one for each partial in a sound! By keeping all these channels of data independent and still using the same patching interface, Sumu offers a very usable entry point into additive synthesis, and a range of musical possibilities that have only been approachable with high-end or academic tools or just coding everything yourself... until now.

Each of Sumu's oscillators is the simplest possible kind of FM:a single carrier+modulator pair. And the modulator can produce a variable amount of noise, which like the modulation ratio and depth can be controlled individually per oscillator. In a single voice there are 64 such pairs. Obviously a lot of sounds are possible with this setup—in fact, with the right parameters varying appropriately we can reproduce any musical sound very faithfully with this kind of oscillator bank..."

See Madrona Labs for additional details.

Aaltoverb public beta
Sumu's design combines a lot of animated displays, as well as a new popup menu system that I had wanted to add for a long time. The graphics / UI framework that I was previously using was a big help in getting Aalto and friends written but didn't have the speed to support the new designs, so I dove in and wrote one from scratch. This new UI kit runs entirely on the GPU using OpenGL and Apple's Metal framework. It's exciting to see it bringing the new designs to life. You can see a movie of some of the new menus here [instagram.com], that I now have running in Aaltoverb.

Another big improvement to the plugins going forward is that they will all run natively on Apple Silicon. I have one of the M1 Macbook Airs and it's a great machine for music, with impressive power for DSP, and no fan! I feel like we skipped forward a few years into the future with these machines.

This all brings us to the Aaltoverb beta. I've got these big enhancements—new graphics and Apple Silicon compatibility—to a beta state, but there's more work on Sumu to do before they could be tested there. So I'm rolling them out in a new version of Aaltoverb for Mac and Windows, released as a public beta. This way adventurous users can try the new features while I'm still finishing up Sumu.

Version 2 of Aaltoverb will be a free update."

Movement by MATTHS

"MATTHS (aka Matthew Hodson) has been busy releasing 1 track a month for the entirety of 2021. This 11th instalment is unapologetically hard and upfront.

Movement is a dark, repetitive and brutal offering inspired by the dance floor and will make you come back for more.

https://matths.bandcamp.com/track/movement

MUSIC: Production, performance, mix and mastering by MATTHS
ARTWORK: Elina Krima

This track is exclusive to Bandcamp and you can become a MATTHS VIP member for only £3 a month and receive hours of extra releases right away!
https://matths.bandcamp.com/vip-membership"

XIU XIU TOO GROSS 4 U (short)

video upload by Perfect Circuit

"A quick short !
Head over to our page for tons more performances, tutorials, reviews and more!"

https://www.perfectcircuit.com/

Happy Nerding FX Aid Chorus Dimension-D

video upload by Happy Nerding

"“Modulation” section is updated with the Dimension-D chorus emulation. Unlike the real unit, this emulation has smoothly varied modulation Rate, Range and positive/negative Feedback for wider range of possible settings.

As usually for such effects: once Rate is set to zero, then Range control can be used for manual/CV modulation. This way external LFO can be used as the modulation source."