Synthesizer cut-outs – DIY fun stuff
In the MooG for Love
Animation film tribute to Legend of Electronic music KLAUS SCHULZE.
Directed by James L. Frachon
These “cut-outs” are faithful counterparts paperboard kits * of some mythical synthezisers which make me dream since ages (I’m almost vintage too !).
I’m still dreaming…
Experimental: ARTBOTS
Swedish experimentalist and electronic musician (the guy behind the Yellofier iPad app) has treated us with this cool video:
Art Bots is a project where the visitors at Sweden’s National Museum of Technology and Science create their own art by inventing and constructing art robots. They are given a variety of components but no instruction how to assemble the robots. By using different motors (cheap milk foamers or hand fans), legs (piano wire, sticks or straws) and bodies (cups, plates, tubes etc) and pens and brushes as feet, they build robots that move in different ways. The robots also get unique personalities and unique artistic expressions. The robots are let lose on a big piece of paper limited by narrow walls, so the robots stick to their task and don’t run away -and they create collective art.
Synthesis Technology – Morphing Terrarium Wavetables
A short exploration of some of the wave table features of the Synthesis Technology Morphing Terrarium E350. Sound and Video by Raul Pena
Checking out the Moog Sub Phatty
‘synthway’ has shared a new video featuring the Sub Phatty, details below:
First video of my new synth, the Moog Sub Phatty. Just a basic monosynth improvisation with a nice amount of reverb! 
Gear:
Moog Sub Phatty
EHX Cathedral
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
Tweaking a few knobs with the Moog Sub Phatty… using mainly lower register sounds. I wasn’t very creative with it because nothing was planned. Playing random licks in C minor (mostly) and randomly tweaking the knobs.
I’m planning on making new videos like this (but smaller!) that show a few special features of this great instrument.
Demos of the Mode Machines Wasp Filter
Mode Machines Wasp Filter – Band-Pass Filter Demo
1. TB 303 thru Mode Machines Wasp Filter – Band-Pass
2. Minibrute thru Mode Machines Wasp Filter – Band-Pass
3. MS20 thru Mini Mode Machines Wasp Filter – Band-Pass
4. TR-606 thru Mode Machines Wasp Filter – Band-Pass
5. Rocket thru Mode Machines Wasp Filter – Band-Pass
Mode Machines Wasp Filter – High-Pass Filter Demo
for more infos visit www.modemachines.com
The rare ARP 2600 Blue Meanie S&H 01
The (ultra) rare ARP 2600 Blue Meanie/Blue Marvin is under control of S&H module: EGs are fired from S&H Clock; VCO1, VCO 2 and VCF are S&H modulated. Audio signal goes straight into 2600’s spring reverb. A copy of the VCA out signal (dry) is hard switched left/right with Electronic Switch. A great synthesizer, pretty different in sound from the standard 2600 B/W and B/O.
The three square waves from (ultra rare) ARP 2600 Blue Meanie. Keyboard has a long log portamento curve. As usual, (spring) reverb from synthesizer, no external effects.
Kommand + Kontrol – It Hz
Kommand + Kontrol’s brand new EP “It Hz”!! Available as download & limited digipak CD from 17 November 2012.
The tracks will soon be available via CDBaby, iTunes, Amazon etc, but initially from Bandcamp & directly from the band.
http://kommandkontrol.bandcamp.com/al…
Backing video created by Steve Nine (Hi Def version to be uploaded shortly)
Twelve Tones – an introduction
This video is a nice introduction to dodecaphonic music theory
Twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition devised by Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951). The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any one note through the use of tone rows, an ordering of the 12 pitches. All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key. The technique was influential on composers in the mid-20th century.
Schoenberg himself described the system as a “Method of Composing with Twelve Tones Which are Related Only with One Another”. However, the common English usage is to describe the method as a form of serialism.
Schoenberg’s countryman and contemporary Josef Matthias Hauer also developed a similar system using unordered hexachords or tropes—but with no connection to Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique. Other composers have created systematic use of the chromatic scale, but Schoenberg’s method is considered to be historically and aesthetically most significant.
Capacitive Paint Touch Controller
Using Bare Conductive paint and Arduino as a musical interface for my modular synthesizer.
I have been playing with Bare Conductive paint since it came out a little more than a year ago. It’s great stuff – a heavy acrylic paint that can be used as a resistor, touch sensor, paintable wire – and I keep coming up with new uses for it. This idea stemmed from wanting to utilize my modular synth in more of an installation setting than a performance music setting.
I think of this as a sort of “sonic self-portrait.” Two 10″x10″ canvases painted yellow with my hand prints painted in conductive paint. A small piece of copper tape is attached to the back of each canvas and connected to Arduino. Code on the Arduino turns the canvases into capacitive sensors and sends two channels of 0-5V PWM voltage out through RC filters into the modular synthesizer. In short: touch the painting, send modulations to the synthesizer.
The Arduino sketch uses Paul Badger‘s CapSense library. I had to use an older build of the Arduino programmer (alpha 22) in order to get the library working. You can find the most recent version of the code here: GitHub. Circuit and patch descriptions below the audio.
Project information here: jimmymhughes.com/capacitive-paint-controller/
Extended audio here: soundcloud.com/soundelectronics/capacitive-painting-controller
Experimental music: Smomid – String MIDI device
This is a quick demonstration of what Nick has been doing with his Smomid project:
In this video he’s playing his latest Smomid (String Modeling Midi Device) which is about a year old and two of his pyramid interfaces which are in the background and mostly just used as light boxes that interact with what he’s playing. He’s currently working on some other interfaces as well.
Here is a web page dedicated to this project with more info, music and videos:
DATAMASKIN
