Depeche Mode – Delta Machine – Concert review Copenhagen 2013
We had a guest writer watching DM’s huge Delta Machine tour as the band made a stop at Parken in Copenhagen, DK.
P. Lindstrom, with a long track record as as synth connoisseur, gives us his personal thoughts, and the set list, of last week’s main event in the Danish capital, enjoy:
I had low expectations on the Depeche Mode concert in Copenhagen somewhat due to the renown horrible acoustics of the arena Parken. But how wrong I was, Depeche Mode showed once again that they somehow can overcome even a major obstacle like Parken. Even after 33 years they are still one of the greatest band on the earth. The bland concrete arena and the terrible acoustics could not hold back the energetic Dave Gahan, who showed us once again how professional and totally committed they are.
A characteristic slow start with Angel and Walking in my shoes started of the concert and already in the beginning of the show did David take off his jacket hinting of what’s to come.
The concert was a perfect mix of new material, well blended with a lot of old classics. An audience of 42.000 totally agreed, with carefully picked songs and a complete roar was heard when Black celebration as song number 5 started, and that set the standard for the night.
The audience was totally consumed of the band’s performance and joined David Gahan singing in most of the songs making the evening unforgettable. Even the minimalistic stage show enhanced the performance, letting the band show that they still perform best just as they are. You only have to look at David Gahan and feel his energy to be spellbound.
Depeche Mode performed a kicking hard core version of Personal Jesus as well as a best ever version of Enjoy the silence – I hope we can look forward to a live album as well as a dvd of this tour.
The encore songs really made the evening complete, here they brought in the heavy machinery and made slowdown version of Halo just before they rip of a long sought after Just can’t get enough. To round of the 134 minutes of marvel they play a raw extended version of Never let me down again, and what could be better to finish of a perfect evening with the greatest band on earth.
Set list
1. Welcome to My World
2. Angel
3. Walking In My Shoes
4. Precious
5. Black Celebration
6. Policy of Truth
7. Should Be Higher
8. Barrel of a Gun
9. Higher Love
10. Judas
11. Heaven
12. Soothe My Soul
13. A Pain That I’m Used To
14. A Question of Time
15. Secret to the End
16. Enjoy the Silence
17. Personal Jesus
18. Goodbye
Encoure
19. Home
20. Halo
21. Just Can’t Get Enough
22. I Feel You
23. Never Let Me Down Again
SynthDrum Pad – a free pad-controlled drum synthesizer for the iPad
DesignByPaul has released SynthDrum Pad – a free pad-controlled drum synthesizer for the iPad.
Features:
- Virtual Analog Drum Synthesizer
- 4 Pads
- 4 Voices
- 3 Signal generators per voice; Noise, Click and Tone
- Modify pads 3 & 4 with Frequency Modulation
- 4 Save/Load slots
- Delay unit (with infinite looping capabilities)
Here’s an audio demo:
Capable of creating vintage drum sounds such as the 808 to contemporary percussion for modern electronic dance music. SynthDrum Pads can also make melodic tones for warm bass and interesting tones.
Todd Barton – BEMI Music Easel Jig
Here’s a little improvised jig on a prototype of the new BEMI Music Easel.
“Whoo-Hoo! I was lucky enough to borrow a prototype BEMI Music Easel the other weekend and give it a test drive. Though my flipcam mic doesn’t do justice to the full range sound — know that this is the cleanest, crispest and full bodied sound in all my sonic arsenal. The integrated keyboard is so intuitive and expressive. The oscillators are deep and rich — great analog sound and feel. Hope you enjoy this little compilation — maybe more to come with a different set of sounds. It is in the production pipeline! Cheers! Todd”
History of the Easel:
The Music Easel is a highly evolved electronic musical instrument. It maintains many of the design philosophies and functional characteristics of its predecessors, the 100 series Modular Electronic Music System and the 200 series Electric Music Box. The Music Easel introduces some substantial innovations in electronic instrument design – innovations that make it a truly expressive real-time instrument for composition and performance.
The Music Easel contains many of the elements commonly used to generate and process sound: a keyboard, sequencer, pulser, preamplifier, envelope detector and balanced modulator; oscillators, gates, envelope generators and filters; facilities for mixing, monitoring and reverberating. Many of these elements possess an unusual degree of sophistication. The keyboard is solid state, with touch sensitive, chromatically organized keys, accurate and reproducible pressure output, tactile feedback, octave shifting, and voltage controlled portamento. A complex oscillator, developed through computer aided simulation studies, is a rich source of complex audio spectra. featuring voltage control of pitch, timbre and waveform, this oscillator provides the Music Easel with a timbral range unapproached by other musical instruments.
The connectives are as important as the elements to be connected. Interconnection within the Music Easel is accomplished with a combination of switching and patching, a system which is flexible, expedient, and open ended. Logical, compact organization and color coded graphic feedback facilitate rapid and effective interaction. Multiple correlations between a performer’s actions and the Music Easel’s responses are readily implemented, enabling a degree of expressive articulation heretofore impossible with electronic instrumentation.
Further augmenting the Music Easel’s real time performability is the capability of permanently storing and immediately retrieving complete instrument definitions (patches) or portions thereof. (An “instrument definition” includes settings of parameters, degrees of articulation, switch positions and interconnections.) Storage entails the installment of resistors on program cards; retrieval is accomplished by plugging in a desired program card and activating a switch.
With its extended timbral resources, unusual expressive capability, and its facility for storage and recall of instrument definitions, the Music Easel opens new horizons to the composer and performer. To appreciate its potential as a new musical instrument the Music Easel must be seen, heard and played.
Power Intro to Kontakt 5
Here is a 38 Min look at what makes Kontakt 5 a monster power-house of a sample playback plug-in. Also showing how cool it is to take samples from other Kontakt 5 libraries and load them into the MegaMacho Drums Interface for tons of sonic mayhem! MegaMacho Drums comes out July 1st, 2013!
Radikal Technologies Spectralis 2, Virus TI Polar, Korg Radias ambient electro demo
Radikal Technologies Spectralis 2, Virus TI Polar, Korg Radias ambient electro demo
The Spectralis 2 hybrid synth, fueled by the latest DSP- and true analog technology, delivers maximum tonal capabilities and leads you into a radical new world of sounds full of life and animation. The Spectralis 2 oscillator section takes sound design to new extremes. The 4 oscillators offer continuously variable waveshapes plus time linearity modulation, FM, PM, oscillator synchronisation, bit reduction and independent pitch and volume envelopes. The self resonating filters, a 4 pole lowpass and a 2 pole multimode filter with LP, HP, BP and notch outputs, use two highly improved true analog circuit designs to overcome the restrictions of modelling based synths.
The way players can interact with the destinc-tive user interface makes the Spectralis 2 hybrid synthesizer a killer live instrument with unbeatable richness and stunning flexibility. The synthesis engine takes advantage of a sophisticated step sequencing system – 32 independent parameter control lines with up to 192 steps let you explore an universe of previously unheard rhythmic effects and atmospheric textures. Punchy high resolution envelopes, are the cutting edge of todays synthesizer technology. They are the perfect weapon for the creation of floor pounding kicks, state of the art sequencer staccatos and numerous percussion effects.
Ribbon Controller Test Coagula build
A test of the MIDI Ribbon Controller designed by Giuseppe Di Cillo.
“This is a prototype until I have all the rest of the project finished. The MIDI is implemented via an Arduino Uno R3 board and the sketch by Giuseppe. It is his first sketch prior to the more complex build with an LCD and menu dialog. Very simple and perfect for combining the MIDI output with a modular. I have since added a CV and GATE output to the modular panel which allows the ribbon controller to output analog and digital (MIDI) at the same time. This video doesn’t show the later use of the modular analog signals.”
The ribbon strips were made by Spectra Symbol and Interlink and were bought from Sparkfun dot com.
A detailed build guide and software for the Arduino can be found at Giuseppe’s wonderful blog. coagula dot org.
Synthrotek Eurorack Atari Punk Console Module
http://www.synthrotek.com
Cliff White gives a nice introductory demo of the synthrotek Atari Punk Console, APC, in modular Eurorack format. This product will be available in a kit and completed units. ALSO HAS FRAC +15 headers. Some fun hard syncs and chaotic noises. ~enjoy.
Daft Punk – Get Lucky // Jamstik & iPad Demo
Armed with only a JamStik, an iPad, a handful of apps, and a microphone – you can create some amazing music.
Check out http://www.jamstik.com for more info, or goto http://igg.me/at/JamStik/x/2880027 before July 9 to preorder via Indiegogo.
In “Get Lucky” we use:
Audiobus – http://audiob.us
Loopy HD – http://loopyapp.com
Animoog – http://www.moogmusic.com/products/app…
Sunrizer – http://beepstreet.com/sunrizer
Peter Vogel CMI – http://petervogelinstruments.com.au/ios/
Sampletank – http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/…
iVoxel – http://www.virsyn.net/mobileapp/index…
@JamStik
http://www.facebook.com/JamStik
“Get Lucky” by Daft Punk on iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/get…
SoundMorph’s Galactic Assistant Synthesizer
We’ve written about this interesting tool in a previously, but Soundmorph has decided to make it available outside of the library it is normally bundled with. $19 for a UI synth anyone? Check it out here.
Galactic Assistant is a synthesizer tool used for creating high-tech sci-fi interface sounds. It’s free for a limited time with the “Users of Tomorrow” sound effects library.
visit www.soundmorph.com for more details.
Gating the AS Spring Reverb with Defibrillator + Analogue Solutions Leipzig-s
Quick video demonstrating some gating f/x via the Defibrillator and Oberkorn sequencer. Some Leipzig-s is thrown in for good measure.
Utilizing the Oberkorn + Defibrillator can create some really interesting gate f/x when used with the AS Spring Reverb module.
No processing other than the spring reverb is used.
Synths: Telemark, Leipzig-s




























