Nick at SonicState is at LIMS and gives us a first look at new synths from Roland and Yamaha.

First the Roland Juno Di, which is an "entry-level price" synth in the Juno family. New feature are a USB port for a thumb drive and mic input. Nick promises a "proper demo" later.

Roland Juno Di @ sonicState

The Yamaha S90xs is a more top-of-the-line model with all sorts of fanciness

Yamaha S90xs @ sonicState

      

We have heard the news of the great, new oberheim SEM's that Tom Oberheim just released; the original of which are much sought after and indispensable to many producers including Goldfrapp's Will Gregory.

So what pops up on ebay? Two high school yearbooks of the the man himself from 1954 and 1953.

Now you'd have to be the ultimate fanboy or Tom himself to want to get these, but I thought that it was quite funny to see these and wondered if it was due to the recent news of a new SEM. Unbelievable....

      

Many have heard of the live twitter playlist from Richie Hawtin. But check out this cool little app that just got updated. Yes, on the face this is silly; but hell, why not?

Tweet A Sound: getting started tutorial from Andrew Spitz on Vimeo.

Tweet-a-sound.

We eagerly await the Windows version.

      

Just thought I'd pass on a link to the digital audio hacks at hack-a-day. Often times, cool music related hacks come up that any self-respecting music-making nerd must love.

How about a homemade 8-bit sampler? Or a Robotic snare drum?

Check it out.

Also, be sure to check out the portable audio hacks.

      

I normally don't post on things from other blogs, but I thought I'd pass on a very interesting post on Matrixsynth (which was a post on the AH mailing list).

Looks like the Monkees were the first to use a Moog on a pop record with the song "Daily Nightly" in April '67.


Quite a cool song in it's on right. Most of the commercial work with the Moog was done by Beaver & Krause

Check out the post for other interesting early Moog work and more on Beaver & Krause.

      

Here's a very interesting piece that has come up on eBay. The Crumar Cordatron. I have a Crumar Tocatta, which is a neat little preset organ, but this is very odd indeed. It's an accordian splayed out in a keyboard fashion.



From the auction:

I can't find any information by running a search on this board. It must be incredibly rare. It might even be a prototype for all I know. If anyone has any information on it I would greatly appreciate your expertise.

What is so unusual about this piece is it couples accordian style buttons into an electric organ. The power output is very unusual also. Unfortunatey I don't have the power adapter & don't know where to begin on trying to find one. I'm dying to know what this board is capable of. Because of this I'm selling it as a collector's piece. The previous owner owned a music store that specialized in accordians.

Crumar is not know for their great build quality, so I'd be surprised if it powered up. Looking at the inputs on the back, it's think it was meant to connect to another controller or control an amplifier (maybe a leslie type device)...



Anyone heard, heard of or seen one of these?

      

I like hardware. There are more than a few music tech blogs that tend to share the software side of things, but I really like hardware. My studio looks like a museum of obsolescence, but hey I can get down with Reason and Live at times.

Regardless of my feelings, this has to quicken the pulse of any self-proclaimed music geek, "The Most powerful sound design workstation on the planet"






Here's a cool audio morphing example, drum loop to a voice:

      

Here's an interesting story about a Math professor, with a love of the beatles and his attempts to formulate their song structures. Nothing earth-shatteringly new here, but cool none-the-less...

Jason Brown listens to the Beatles with a uniquely analytical ear. The mathematics professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, says he's figured out the math behind the best of the Fab Four. Now, using "mathematical tricks" he's picked up from the band, he's written a very Beatles-esque song of his own. WSJ's Christina Jeng reports.

      

Good sound design is invaluable in selling an idea. It's timeless, memorable, and above all transparent.

Spent a great deal of time this holiday watching the Stars Wars movies (all 6) with the kids and it got me thinking about how good the sound design is in those movies They really are the White Album of sound design.

Here's a top ten list of the best sounds from Star Wars (compiled by some one with an opinion!) from the King of Sound Design Ben Burtt:



The amazing thing is the simplicity of some of the sources. The Tie fighters are pitched down elephant calls, blasters are contact mics on cables on the a bridge:

We climbed to the top of a hill where there was a small radio tower in the hopes that the wind would make some interesting sounds in the tower or the support cables.  I picked up a rock and banged on the cable just for fun and Ben said,  "That sounds like the imaginary laser gun ought to sound!" 

SO he recorded the sounds there and later in California he looked around for other towers and finally found one that he especially liked in the Mohave desert in California. There was a broken brace hanging on the cable that added a special quality to the sound and that was the one he used in combination with some other sounds to create the sound of the laser gun

All of these sounds are forever linked with a particular image and added more to the success of the Star Wars franchise, then any other single element.

Ben Burtt has moved on from LucasFilm to Pixar and did the work on the lastest Pixar masterpiece Walle. Look for the DVD extras that give a glimpse into the creation of the voices. Good stuff!

      

Happy to announce that ResonanceMultimedia (the sound company that owns this blog) has a SoundCloud account. In the future it'll probably be used for client work, but at the moment it's just public.

And you can always send me your tracks through my dropbox and I'd be happy to comment on them:


Send me your track

      

If you are like me and are lucky enough to have gotten hold of an Optigan ($40 in the late 90's, whoot!), chances are that you have had a few scratchy keys or buttons. In my case, I have had inoperative chord buttons since I've owned this thing. Not even a crackle or pop could be heard no matter how I jiggled/pressed/molested them, so I always figured the electronics or sensor had gone bad. Well to my surprise, they just needed cleaning! I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have working chord buttons, since they really are 75% of the charm and sound of the Optigan.<< MORE >>

"The Price Is Right Theme" by Edd Kalehoff:



I just love the passing flutes lines and the counterpoint on the horns (yes, I actually said that and mean it). Funky, bouncing bassline and moogy interlude; what's not to love?

Bonus:

Here's possibly the greatest piece of incidental music ever. I suggest you email this video to your co-worker the next time he or she screws up.



Extra Bonus:

Here's the track played before the showcase showdown. It's called "Dig We Must." Indeed.



Extra Extra Bonus:

Can't forget the Consolation Prize Theme. Definate Bacharach influence here

      

Sorry for the lack of posts recently...

Been away cutting, sawing, hammering, screwing, lifting, panting, smoothing, transporting, plugging in, pulling out, chopping down, digging, hiding, finding, turning, programming and drinking...

I'll be posting soon about a new project (mega-rack 2008) and updates on the guitar mod project, as well as new demos.

soon.

      

Check out this amazing video of micro/click House guy, Andreas Tilliander.



Pretty cool in this day of soft synths to see a new-school guy with no DAW in sight....

But look how much gear he has running...

      

Came across Boards of Canada Old tunes Vol. 1 & 2 (~1995, but I believe older than that) recently and I'm simply blown away. Classic Boards of Canada that many may have heard from the Skam releases, but two things definitely stood out. The humor and levity and the amount of tunes here (60+)...

I do feel a bit ill-at-ease with having gotten these through questionable sources (I'm firmly against piracy), but more so because this music wasn't intended to be released outside of their circle of friends. Oh well.

Lots of interesting stuff in here. Early versions of other tracks, pieces that were reintroduced later on Music Has the Right to Children, funny samples. Really, really cool stuff. And I most certainly hear a WaveStation on Magic Teens.

BoC definately suffered a post-IDM backlash (wow, are we post-IDM now). I'm reminded of an interview with Matthew Herbert, wherein he told us he was "bored of Canada." mmhmmm....

Regardless, this is the stuff that keeps me going. And it still sounds fresher than more than half the stuff out there now...

But I do feel a little guilty. I think I'll send them a copy of my vinyl release. Fewer people have probably heard that!

      

I'm addicted to ebay. That's just a fact of life, but when I see something like this I know I'm not the one with the problem.

I was involved in an auction for an Oberheim Strummer, a simple piece of kit that performs various functions on midi data to make your incoming data sound more guitar like. It's something that could easily be created in Logic's environment or Ableton's midi racks... Regardless, I'm a big proponent of trying everything old again, if for no other reason than to discover a sound/technique you may not have experienced. It's also interesting to recontextualize retro gear in today's thinking.

Here's a description of said device:

Your keyboard may have a great guitar sound, but can you play a great guitar part?

Yes. The Oberheim Strummer will transform your keyboard playing into a stunning and convincing performance featuring realistic guitar articulation. By looking at such factors as the range of the guitar. the number of notes being played. chord position, and the velocity of the performance. Strummer can transform the incoming MIDI data out into performance data emulating that of a real guitarist. Performance data may be delayed, echoed, harmonized, transposed and sent back out on multiple MIDI channels. In addition to control over strum direction and speed, the Strummer also features Chord Capture for real time single finger chords. Individual picking patterns and riffs may be assigned to a single key. for real time performance playback. You can even control the number of "strings" being strummed via keyboard velocity. Strummer Keyboard players now can emulate guitar techniques on their synthesizers and samplers to create incredibly authentic guitar sounds. The Strummer listens to chords played on a MIDI keyboard and plays them back through a MIDI sound source (synthesizer or sampler) just as they would be played from a guitar. Chord voicings will now be correct to accurately reproduce guitar sounds and the chords can actually be "strummed".

The Strummer can change the speed and direction of the "strums" just by changing the way the keyboard is played. Also, the Strummer has the ability to distinguish between chords and single notes, allowing chords to be sent over one MIDI channel, while single notes are sent out over a different channel (like a solo lead guitarsound).

In addition, the Strummer includes many other important features:
· MIDI Delay (Echo)
· Adjustable delay and decay rates
· Multiple MIDI channel output
· Velocity switching
· Keyboard splitting
· Chord voicing variations
· Arpeggiation
· Chord Capture (adjustable single finger chords)
· Transposition of MIDI delay (great for MIDI harmonizing)
· Synchronizes to MIDI timing clocks (External Sync)
· MIDI program changes
· Supports MIDI Sysex for storage transfer of user defined patches

So I've got my snipe in at a whooping $76, a fairly high price for something so outdated....

Well, how ridiculous is it that a bidding war ensues and it goes for $310!

In the course of 6 minutes they walk it up from $55 to $310. Unbelievable! I'll be watching this seller to see if he relists, as no one in their right mind would pay that... oh, free-darnell, do you know something I don't?

      

via Harmory-central:

The much-anticipated and much-talked-about Moog Guitar will debut at Summer NAMM in Nashville. The Moog Guitar is "a fantastic axe designed to be played by the best musicians in the world," says Moog Music President Mike Adams.

According to Adams, The Moog Guitar opens the guitarist to a whole new musical vocabulary: "It's not a guitar synthesizer; not a MIDI guitar; not an effects processor," Adams said. "The guitarist is intimately connected to The Moog Guitar because it works its magic on the strings themselves." See the attached FAQ for additional details.

The first public demonstration of The Moog Guitar will be at the Moog Guitar Showcase, featuring Kenny Vaughn and Fareed Haque with Garaj Mahal. The Moog Guitar Showcase will take place at Nashville's renowned 3rd and Lindsley on Friday, June 20 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $10.

The Moog Guitar will be demonstrated to media at NAMM at a press conference at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 21 in Moog Music's NAMM Booth 2030.

The first ever Moog Guitar will be the limited edition Paul Vo Collector Edition Guitar. The AAAAA maple top guitar with a mahogany body and ebony finger board will be a much sought-after axe even without the addition of the patented Moog electronics. Each guitar will be individually signed by Moog associate and guitar inventor Paul Vo and will carry a sealed Certificate of Authenticity identifying it as the first ever Moog Guitar.

Got to admit the colors are ghastly....

      

I've been trolling Youtube for old 70's TV promos that feature synthy bits.. why? I have no idea, but the results are fun.

First up, how about a minute and a half of variations on a theme for sister stations under the Post-Newsweek umbrella:



Well ain't that something. I love the whistle-y/theremin-y patch. How the heck did they make those graphic back then any how?

Next, a childhood favorite:



That sounds like a Prophet-5 to me. I have a nearly identical factory patch a Six-trak. Definately curtis chips...

Sadly, PBS decided to go with a glissando, plucked logo treatment in the 80's, but The Anneberg/CPB Project and EFC productions kept it real:



Let's not forget the grandaddy of all PBS stations, WGBH BOSTON:



And the grandaddy of all media, VIACOM. Interesting how the synths move from RCA/Columbia lab coat roomsized modular to Moog 70's to DX7 to Wavetable to VST. A bit of synth history in this one:



And a mega-mix, of a ton of logos, some synthy, other not so much. This really illustrates, for me, the nature of composing for logos. You've got to make a big impact in a short amount of time. It's really no wonder that agencies turned to electronic composers for their treatments.



Not a whole lot of synth work in this, but how could I exclude this GEM:

      

While perusing craigslist DC, I see that Deep Dish is selling their studio. Whether or not you are a fan of their tunes, I always love reading about what gear people use. Wonder what they'll be using now...And why ever get rid of a Jupiter 6?!

House music superstars Deep Dish are moving to a new location and a smaller setup! They're selling tons of great gear. All equipment was used in their private smoke-free studio and can most likely be heard on every Deep Dish record made in the past couple of years! Pictures available upon request although all gear is in IMMACULATE condition!


Mackie 32x8 Mixer
Mackie D8B Digital Mixer
Pioneer DJM-1000 DJ Mixer

Yamaha NS-10 Monitors x2
Genelec 1031a Monitors x2
FBT Monitors x2
EV Speaker x1
Genelec Subwoofer

Kurzweil K2500RS Sampler x4
Korg Triton Rack
Waldorf Q Synth
Roland Jupiter 6 Synth
Roland CompuRhythm Rhythm Machine
Studio Electronics SE-1 Synth

Line 6 POD pro
Line 6 POD
Lexicon MPX-500
Roland Chorus Echo
Pioneer EFX-1000
Mutronics Mutator
t.c. electronics - D-Two Delay
t.c. electronics - finalizer

Tascam CD-RW2000
Pioneer CDJ-1000 x2
Technics 1201 x2
Lacie CD-RAM??
Sony PCM -R500 DAT
Tascam 302 Tape Deck

Apple 23” Cinema Display
Dell Monitor
Samsung Syncmaster 17”
Fender Jazz Bass
Studio 4 MIDI Interface x2
M-Audio Radium 49
Neutrik Patchbay x3
Presonus Central Station
Emagic Unitor 8
Art SP 4x4 Powerconditioner x4
Rack Rider Powerconditioner x1
Digidesign Digi002 x2
MOTU 2408 mkII x3
UAD-1 PCI Card

all REASONABLE offers considered!

      

I'm no stranger to modding gear, as I love the opportunity to do so. I've modded Boss Pedals, a Korg EX-800, and built my own guitar, so when I recently acquired a new guitar; things were inevitable.

In the next few weeks I'll be blogging about the transformation of this:

I'm going to replace the pickups with a Lace Sensors (a somewhat trendy-in-the-nineties, now out-of-fashion) set of pickups, a new wiring scheme called a Fat-O-Caster (allows 11 pickup combinations), a synth pickup (going to drive all my synths)  and a tortoise pickguard (I like it).

I'm very much looking forward to playing pizzicato violin arpeggios with it.