THE HUMAN LEAGUE – No Time (John Peel session 1978)
The sci-fi soaked daddies of the Sheffield synth scene who, along with Kraftwerk and Gary Numan, were most instrumental in hooking me on electronic music in the late 70s. When I heard this existential curiosity, from the John Peel Radio 1 session recorded at Maida Vale on August 8 1978 and tx’ed on Aug 16, it blew my mind. It reworks their demo track Again, the Eye Again – and was redone once more as The Word Before Last for the Reproduction album – but this version knocks the others into a cocked hat, and remains my favourite among their work. A cover version is in the offing sometime.
‘I spent a bad day yesterday / With a man and a picture of himself / The tape was running and the TV turned / How different these people were, I learned…’
Modular explorations from Benge
Each track was created on one modular synthesiser system*. Two additional techniques were used during the recording process: sound on sound multi-tracking and digital delay** (with no feedback) of the left hand channel to provide a stereo image
* The various modular systems were (in alphabetical order***):
ARP 2500
Buchla 100
EMS VCS3
Moog 3C
Paia 4700
Roland 100M
Serge Modular
** The digital delay unit used was a Bel BD-80S, set to a delay time of approximately 400ms
*** This is not the order in which the tracks appear
credits
All tracks (c) 2014 B.D.Edwards
Recorded at Memetune Studios, England
Miss Kittin & The Hacker: “Hometown”
Video by 7thfloor.fr
Gort – The Robot, three patches
Gort-The Robot demo, three short patches. No effects on the first two patches, delay on the third patch.
Visit http://kinetiklaboratories.blogspot.it/
The square wave oscillators can run freely (Stop Mode) or alternatively gated by the 16 steps internal sequencer (Activate Mode). In the latter case each step generates different oscillators combinations and therefore different sounds, varying in tone and timbre.
Using the SYNC IN jack you can synchronize Gort’s steps with pulses coming from external sequencers or drum machines.
Gort must be supplied with an external power supply, providing 9vDC on 2.1mm barrel jack, negative tip.
Price: 280 euro shipping not included.
For direct sales contact:kinetik.laboratories@gmail.com
KORG volca – TONGPOO
volca arranged by BakaOscillator.
volca でYMOの東風を試みる。
Upcoming iPad-synth Pepp playing at random
Can machines make music by themselves? What would happen if you told Pepp to make up something at random? I just did.. Enjoy the Pepp machine! Available soon for iPhone and iPad.
The Wavetable Synthesizer
About the synth below:
The Wavetable Synthesizer utilizes what I have dubbed ‘creative synthesis’. Instead of indirectly affecting waveform shape with envelopes, LFO’s, and oscillators, the Wavetable Synthesizer allows the user to directly control the waveform shape using 12 sliders and two knobs. Eight of the sliders control the overall shape of the wave (acting much like ‘attractors’ on a line), while two knobs control how the points are interpolated (smooth, triangular, or square) and at what resolution (from fine to coarse). The four sliders labelled ‘A’, ‘D’, ‘S’, and ‘R’ are used for attack, decay, sustain, and release respectively (more information on that here). Users can access saved waveforms with a bank of buttons, and when selected, can watch the controller transform automatically to these settings. The rightmost knob allows for control of the transition speed between presets.”
“The software for the Wavetable is where all sound synthesis takes place. Due to familiarity and available resources, Processing (Java) was used. The first challenge in creating the software was to create a smooth waveform from only eight distinct points. In order to accomplish this, an interpolation function needed to be utilized. While the math to perform these interpolations is readily accessible, Java also has libraries available to aid in this. The image to the right shows comparisons of the Apache Lagrange (white), spline (green), and linear (red) interpolations. Ultimately, the spline and linear interpolations were used in conjunction with a “square wave” interpolation.
In order to then play the waveform, the minim wavetable function was implemented. The MidiBus library handled all midi communication
Dexed – new multi-format synth modeled on the Yamaha DX7
Dexed is a multi-platform, multi-format software synth that is modeled on the Yamaha DX7. It lets you create new sounds, use them in your DAW and save them to your DX-7.
According to developer Digital Suburban, ‘the goal of the project is to be a tool/companion for the original DX7.’
Features
- Multi platform (OS X, Windows or Linux) and multi format (VST, soon AU and others that I don’t use); by using JUCE
- The sound engine music-synthesizer-for-android is closely modeled on the original DX7 characteristics
- 144 DAW automatable DX7 parameters available from one single panel
- Fully supports DX7 input and output Sysex messages; including controller change. This means that you can use this with a native DX7/TX7 as a patch editor and sysex manager
- Each operator have a realtime VU meter to know which one is active
- Can load/save any DX7/TX7 sysex programs. It is also possible to save a single program into a different sysex file.
The sounds in this demo come from the DEXED engine, not from a hardware DX7.
Dexed is a free download from the project site.
Garbo STHLM – Odd girl out
Second track from their english trilogy of songs
Roland JV-1080 Demo
Demo of the Roland JV-1080 in performance mode.
“I have the Techno (SR-JV80-11) and Dance (SR-JV80-06) cards installed.”
The Roland JV-1080 was one of the hottest and most popular digital synthesizers ever to come from Roland. Incredible sound quality capable of emulating any instrument imaginable plus totally fat analog synth type sounds and loads of percussion! It has 64 voices of polyphony and 16 part multitimbral, it’s no wonder this is part of almost every Film Score Composers set-up as well as many more artists and hobbyists!
It has 8MB of sounds and it also offers a lot of expandability with 4 expansion slots and 2 data card memory slots. You can get up to 42MB of sounds by adding any of the popular JV-80 expansion cards suited for Techno, World Instruments, Orchestral or Synthesizers. The 1080 has a large LCD screen, lots of effects and filters for creative flexibility, motion control and extensive MIDI implementation. Editing is intense but enhanced and simplified by external editors like MOTU’s Unisyn.
DATAMASKIN
