Electro synthpop comic strip
Have a great weekend you all 
KORG Polysix – Free Reason Refill from Lizard
Lizard has released yet another Refill for Reason – his previous releases has been highly acclaimed and I have used them a lot myself. I have not tried this one and judging from the ad below I am not sure what we are supposed to expect from this one.
This synthesizer was released in 1981, and features six voice polyphony (as if anyone didn’t guess that by its name), a 5 octave keyboard (61 keys, not touch sensitive), 32 programmable memory slots, 1 VCO per voice, 24 dB/octave VCF’s & normal ADSR controlled VCA, a cool arpeggiator and a quite useful effect section. The VCO is square, PW or PWM with controls for octave(pitch) and speed. The VCF has controls for cutoff, resonance, EG (envelope generator) intensity and keyboard tracking.
The Polysix is full of knobs and buttons, that gives you instant access to all of the parameters and effects. It was the last Korg to have that, since its successor the Poly-61 introduced DCO’s and digital programming. No more hands on knobs when playing, and more tedious programming. The Polysix have 3 different play modes. Normal – as any polyphonic synth, Unison – makes all 6 voices play the same note, and Chord – memorizes a played chord and transposes this when a key in the desired pitch is played.
It also has a sub oscillator, like many single VCO synths, that adds depth to the sound. They say it sounds fatter and warmer then the 2 DCO Poly-61, although this synth has twice the number of oscillators.
The Polysix have SSM chips for its filters and envelopes, and some say this explains its warm sound. It also has a special self-tuning function. In unison mode the six voices are adjusted a little bit out of tune from each other, giving you a real fat monophonic lead sound. There are separate wheels for pitch bend and modulation. The Polysix was one of the last Korgs to have this instead of the (in my opinion) cheaper joystick.
Combinator HQ advertisement below:
This is a refill have been reluctant to release for a long time. There have been several reaons behind not doing so but primarily I felt it didn’t offer much that Thor couldn’t do. It was in partial completion stage when R4 was introduced and I had decided to shelve it at that time. And quite honestly, there are a few P6 refills out there already. The community risked being poly-ed out.
However this set of samples was dear to me since the Polysix was the very first synth I owned when I purchased it way back in 1983. In review of this work, I felt that it made a conscious effort to capture some of the abilities that the original unit had including unision/mono mode and chord memory. As it may not have a huge impact in the average refill library, it does offer authenticity, programing examples and a few interesting layered patches.
So now it’s out there. I also had a few patches in there that were R4 and decided to omit them. This one I believe to be R3 freindly containing no devices that are native to the newest version of Reason. This has variances on 60+ sampled patches. Over 150 Combis in all. Hope it has some value to some one.
Propellerheads feature Bon Harris
A really good feature story, enjoy
Bon Harris is mostly known as a founding member of legendary UK electronic act Nitzer Ebb, but he has also worked with artists such as Billy Corgan, Marilyn Manson, his own band Maven, and many more.
Bon is back in the studio working on the new Nitzer Ebb album and we met with him to talk about how he is using Reason in his work. Check the full story for a detailed explanation of how to fatten a bass sound using Reason’s BV-512 vocoder (with a Harris-crafted example patch to download) and even a little sneak listen to a new Nitzer Ebb track.
And of course a bonus Nitzer ebb video, one of my favorites:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w3A72L3rj4]
New fresh free loops from Beatmatch
After a small break beatmatch.info returns with big november update. Five totally new loop packs with over 120+ loops in WAV & AIFF formats. Go to downloads section to check out MNML Data Vol.5, Dubstep Vol.4, Future Hip-Hop Vol.3, GTL Vol.4 and second part of BEAT + recorded by Piotrus Pan.
All loops are available for free for non-commercial use at www.beatmatch.info ”
Cheers Ola
Generative arts in music
Demo of dj64, a DJ environment for the Monome interface written in Max/MSP.
This patch is still under development, but will be available from monome.org soon.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A0BkOkK3rA]
“When one thinks about it, music and the visual arts are really languages that have their own grammars. We find that certain types of sequences and juxtapostions of components create effective communications. The message is whatever the artist creates or programmer allows in the system. There are certain types of systems that use a small set of rules with various permutations. Other systems use a loose set of rules with a large vocabulary. In some cases, there are many algorithms that have little or no permutation within, but the communication is made by the permutations of sequencing and juxtaposition of the algorithms into a grammar and a language.
In some cases, a formal scientific approach is taken, and the images reflect this in their pure mathematical rigor. The reliance on the formula may limit the range of expression. In other cases, a free-form artistic approach is taken, and the ad-hoc, organic nature and human hand is revealed., and the idiosyncrasies of the person come through. A close friend of mine would say that the scientific approach is the result of a fear of intimacy. Perhaps the free-form approach has its own fear of responsibility.
It’s interesting that generative art is related to grammar, the vehicle of meaning. Are we looking for meaning in art without injecting it with ourselves? Have we lost the connection with our own meaning or purpose? Is generative art the reliance on computers and technology for the solutions to our problems, even in the search for beauty or meaning?”
Dj emulation for the 40h / 64. Using 64 buttons, the user controls 2 decks, a virtual mixer, and several effects.
Created by Bitbasic
Future music performances with Oblong?
Well I wouldn´t mind trying it
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmqJr2ijKIo]
Oblong Industries is the developer of the g-speak spatial operating environment.
The SOE’s combination of gestural i/o, recombinant networking, and real-world pixels brings the first major step in computer interface since 1984; starting today, g-speak will fundamentally change the way people use machines at work, in the living room, in conference rooms, in vehicles. The g-speak platform is a complete application development and execution environment that redresses the dire constriction of human intent imposed by traditional GUIs. Its idiom of spatial immediacy and information responsive to real-world geometry enables a necessary new kind of work: data-intensive, embodied, real-time, predicated on universal human expertise.
Some of the SOE’s core ideas are already familiar from the film Minority Report, whose characters performed forensic analysis using massive, gesturally driven displays. The similarity is no coincidence: one of Oblong’s founders served as science advisor to Minority Report and based the design of those scenes directly on his earlier work at MIT. Other foundational components are less directly visible but as crucially transformative. The g-speak platform braids development arcs begun in the early 1990s at MIT’s Media Laboratory, where Oblong’s principals produced radical user interface advances, distributed and networked language designs, and media manipulation technologies.
From academia; into popular cinema; and out broadly into the world as commercial product: it’s an unordinary path for technical thought and effort, but one — leading to g-speak — that seems now logical and even necessary. The people who work in Oblong’s Los Angeles and Barcelona laboratory offices are as concerned with design as with programming, with humanist principles as with running a company. Synthesizing these concerns is the only way to insure that the metamorphosis of human-computer interaction we offer the world will be one of beauty and durable worth.
For all you NORD fans out there – NORD Electro 3…
…has been launched. I believe it is a synth popular among a lot of new wave bands, such as Melody Club. Hmmm not sure that’s a positive thing, but still hehe
Nord and UK distributor Sound Technology are very pleased to announce the next generation Electro – the Nord Electro 3.
With the introduction of the Nord Electro 3, the legacy of the original Electro and the knowhow that have shaped some of the other Nord models have been combined. The Electro 3 features a new organ section, a new piano section, new effects and also a new exciting feature that allows the Electro 3 to use any samples from the Nord Wave library.
The Electro 3 comes in two sizes, a 61 and a 73 key version with semi-weighted waterfall keys.
Nord Electro 3 will ship in the UK in December 2008 priced at £1399 and £1599 RRP inc VAT for the Electro 3 61 and Electro 3 73 respectively.
Best soft synths out there…
Although a year old I still think this is a great way of making soft synth reviews, big credit to CM magazine and I hope they will make a follow up soon – since a lot has happened even though its only been a year.
“We countdown the best virtual synthesizers in the world, as voted for by Computer Music readers and forum users. Episode 1 features positions 10 to 5.”
Episode 1:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UNn2AxxaEY]
Episode 2:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epyjrwSRA9E]
have a great weekend
Cheers
More old men reunited – Ultravox back on tour
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3OaIsqtG64]
For the first time since the “Live Aid” show in 1985, the classic line-up of Midge Ure, Billy Currie, Warren Cann and Chris Cross will get back together for a UK tour with Ultravox in April 2009. They will play a total of 14 shows during the “Return to Eden” tour. This is of course connected to the re-releases of their classic albums.
You can read our review of the new “definitive remastered edition” of “Rage in Eden” here.
And speaking of “Rage in Eden”, Billy Currie will release a new solo album on April 6, and at least one of the tracks is said to be inspired by that album.
I still hoped that John Foxx would join as well
Music that will give you World War II vibes
Found this little clip that really give you that feeling of being stuck in a bunker or better yet down in a sub. The music is really telegraphic and VERY cool enjoy. Yah, and by the way when I was in SanDiego I did visit the old USS Midway – speaking on the theme of World War II, really awsome, enjoy!!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcZoISmd99k]
USS Midway
DATAMASKIN
