R.I.P. – Lou Reed
We’re sad to report that the legendary Velvet Underground musician and irascible but brilliant rock star Lou Reed has died, aged 71. The story was broken by Jon Dolan in Rolling Stone and was just confirmed in an email to the Guardian by his agent.
Tutorial: How To Map VU Meters In Traktor to a DJ Controller
At popular request, Ean shares how he has the VU meters in Traktor mapped to four different channels on his Kontrol X1 controllers. Read more: http://www.djtechtools.com/2013/10/27…
Monochromies
Monochromies is a musical and visual meditation on the notion of color, composed for Virus TI, details below:
The idea of monochrome is very often associated to a single color considered in itself as the substance of a painting, since Yves Klein invented his famous blue and used it constantly in reference to cosmos and alchemy. But this conception is not aware that a genuine monochrome is far more than a unique tone and Yves Klein who was initiated to the secrets of color as well as alchemy perfectly knew it. Behind the visible radiance of a his symbolical atmospheric blue, all the dimensions of the spectrum are gathered in a composition of their different values, forming the specific vibration of the cosmic substance this artist invented. Such a strange phenomenon is not only poetry or the sign of an ancient belief conveyed into a kind of painter’s mysticism, but also a physical reality. Every color radiates through the others and produces the specific aura of each of them. As an alchemist wrote about the philosophical stone ” It has every color, white, red, yellow, blue sky, green”, is also true in the filed of music since colors and sounds are two expressions of the same basic reality. In this piece, I try to explore it by a combination of music and visual events, divided into four moments, each one corresponding to an element, but also according to a process in three dimensions plus one (space and time, sides of the triangle and their blossom in a final fourth absolute form in which the distinct lines and angles finally unite. These different moments are also successive enters into the core of the universe mystery through musical and visual doors (this is why I used the noise of a genuine door in the third enter, in association with the sounds of the Virus TI, from 6:27 to 7:52). Each door leads to a deeper vision until the piece reaches its end in the suspension of the enigma, close to its revelation, but a few steps before it since we can just go on the border but never cross it. The only knowledge we are allowed to reach being the intuition of the other side through our journey of impossible discovery.
Film and music by Marc-Henri Arfeux
Steady State Fate Ground Control
A short demonstration of the features of the Steady State Fate Ground Control. Examples of Attenuation and Scaling of Voltages are shown.
“Sound and Video by Raul Pena. Contains excerpts of “siqzn” and “glimaxc” from my first CD “Raul’s World of Synths” available through iTunes.”
Roland U-220 sound demos
The rack-mounted version of the U-20. Plenty of realistic sounds (especially for the time), and several drawn from classic Roland synths like Jupiter-8 and D-50.
The U-220 is a digital synthesizer that uses ROM samples of pianos, brass, strings, bass, drums, etc. However it is built for professional use and is truly a quality instrument, even though its sounds may seem like dated-eighties synth pop cheese. It’s got nice piano sounds, but they’re not the real thing. It features 6 part multitimbrality with a 7th drum part, plus 2 direct outputs and 2 stereo outputs. The 30 note polyphony helps if you take advantage of this synths multitimbrality for creating entire performances and ensembles. Digital reverb, chorus and delay effects liven up your sounds. Editing is simple, but there are no filters. With several performance features, the U-20 has a full 61 note keyboard with velocity and aftertouch. There’s an on-board arpeggiator, a chord-memory feature and the U-20 accepts Roland SNU-110 sound library cards.
Easel Pressure to Decay
A little experiment/demo of using keyboard pressure to vary the decay time of the Pulser — also pressure is used to fade in the other oscillator and some modulation…
Korg R3 Analog & Presets Sound DEMO
Quick groove sound check of custom & stock sounds on Korg’s R3 Virtual Analog Synthesizer
The R3 is marketed as a “Synthesizer/Vocoder”, and the included gooseneck mic lets you take full advantage of its 16-band vocoding capabilities right out of the box. Simply enter Vocoder mode for access to all of the vocoder’s variables that work with an internal or external carrier signal. It also lets you record up to sixteen 7.5-second Formant Motion sequences, allowing you to play saved phrases—albeit at a fixed tempo—through the vocoder without external input. Whether you’re looking to channel the spirits of sci-fi robots, make a guitar do backing vocals or are in need of some unconventional choral accompaniment, the R3’s pro-grade vocoder earns its place in both the mix and the title.
Each of the 128 editable patches can contain up to two timbres, sharing the somewhat meager polyphony between them. These can be layered or divided across the keyboard and can be assigned to individual MIDI channels. Each of these two timbres contain all the capabilities listed, so despite being well suited for mono and lead styles it’s possible to get surprisingly complex, evolving pads which belie its 8-note polyphony. This is best displayed when using each timbre’s modulation sequence, which lets you record a variable’s knob changes and can yield complex changes in a single key press. There’s also a 6-mode arpeggiator with a toggle button and latch control to further animate the sound.
Every timbre consists of two LFOs, two oscillators, a wave-shaper with sub-oscillator options, two insert effects, and three envelope generators for filter, amp, and one for assignment using the Virtual Patch system. This feature lets you define up to six additional routings, giving the unit a fitting touch of modular dynamics which can add subtle dynamics or make sounds spiral off into mayhem. Unfortunately the routings are limited, but most of the logical sources and destinations are included. The two oscillators cover a wide range of traditional analog waveforms with some useful extras (osc1 includes 64 DWGS preset waveforms and the vowel-like Formant wave) and allow a number of interactions between them: ring mod, VPM and unison, among others. External signals can also be processed through the filters, gates and effects. All of this is wrapped up with one master effect and a variable 2-band EQ with some other fine-tuning mods to polish the finished sound.
All of this programming demands an intuitive interface, and although it involves some menu-diving, this is handled by selecting the category with a rotary encoder and then editing individual variables with the 4 main pots. Though it isn’t “per-knob” editing, each pot is encircled by a slick-looking LED halo which shows the value regardless of the knob’s current position. Each knob also has its own small LCD screen which can show the variable or its value by hitting the shift key. This combination along with the Original Value light takes much of the drudgery and guesswork out of building your own patches, but it’s recommended to load up the included software editor since some sub-variable and effects tweaks can seem cryptic at first.
Review: Electro Harmonix 8-Step Program & Modular Synthesizer
A quick review of the Electro Harmonix 8-Step Program in regards of how it can be useful for a modular synthesizer or any other synthesizer that has a CV Input for the filter or other destinations.
Fairlight voicetracker, the usefullness of obsolete technology in modern day studio’s
A simple demo of the Fairlight voicetracker, built by Fairlight (the CMI makers).
It is a razorfast pitch recognition system and realtime pitch conversion unit that translates any pitch and timbre to control signals, both MIDI as CV Gate, totally ahead of it’s time and superceded by nothing.
There is even a basic 2 vco synth in the unit.
I demo the functionality of the display, which in my case is done by the former monitor (that i modified) of my CMI series 3, that runs in color on vga now..
The Korg Volca Dub
LIve recorded livejam with the three Korg Volcas.
all sequences where produced with the internal sequencers of the Korg Volcas.
a midikeyboard was used for playing and recording notes on the Volca Keys.
Minor EQ-ing in the high- and low-ends on each track and also on the Mastertrack was made.
also added 2 Effects from the Ableton Live library.
DATAMASKIN
