More from Moog: Chick Corea on Analog Synths live
Chick Corea took a moment from his 2011 tour with Return to Forever IV to talk about the role of various analog synthesizers in his on-stage sound.
Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea (born June 12, 1941) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.
Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis’ band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett, he has been described as one of the major jazz piano voices to emerge in the post-John Coltrane era.
His career has been driven by his will to operate as a free agent and compulsively explore different avenues of music making. This hunger has positioned him as an important catalyst in the world of serious, mainstream acoustic jazz, and he is one of the most influential and widely studied figures in the last 40 years.
New mighty soft synth from u-he – DIVA 1.0 Analogue synth
u-he has announced the release of version 1.0 of Diva, a virtual analog synthesizer instrument for Windows and Mac.
Diva‘s oscillators, filters and envelopes closely model electronic components found in some of the great monophonic and polyphonic synthesizers of yesteryear. Modules can be mixed and matched – build hybrids of those classics!
What really sets Diva apart is the authenticity of analogue sound. Diva is the first native software synth that applies methods used in industrial circuit simulators (e.g. PSpice) in realtime. We think she‘s a game-changer.
Diva is fully functional until December 31st – your ideal distraction for the holidays!
Diva for Windows and Mac (VST/AU) includes more than 1200 presets and is available to purchase for the introductory price of $119 until January 15th 2012 ($60 off regular of $179 USD).
More information: u-he Diva
Rhythm Studio Updated With New Gemini Synthesizer
Pulse Code has updated Rhythm Studio, adding a new virtual analog synth and more.
Here’s what’s new in Rhythm Studio 1.05:
- Gemini Synthesizer included – 2 oscillators modeling analog waveforms – 24db resonant filter – oscillator sync – ring modulation.
- New FX, including:
- Phaser
- D-Verb
- S-Verb
- Amp Distortion
- 2 band Equalizer
- Auto Filter
- Improved navigation with a zoom button and panning which snaps to each device.
- Full multi-touch enabled. Now you can control and move as many knobs and switches as you like!
- Optimizations and bug fixes.
Rhythm Studio is a virtual studio app for iOS. It’s currently $.99 in the App Store. Additional devices are available as in-app purchases.
Time machine – ROLAND SH-5 Analog Synthesizer 1976
Time for a new vintage synth to enter the stage, this time it is the classic Roland SH-5
The Roland SH-5 from the year 1976 is a excellent, serious analog synth from Roland. It has the beautiful early Roland sound. The SH-5 is equipped with almost everything what you could wish from a analog monophonic synth:
2 VCOs, 1 resonant multimode filter (highpass/bandpass/lowpass), 1 resonant bandpass filter, 2 LFOs, Sample & Hold, ring modulator, oscillator synchronisation, noise generator (white and pink noise), ADSR and AR envelopes. Also there is a nice signal mixer with routing capabilities.
More details below:
The SH-5 is a classic yet very advanced monophonic synthesizer rivalled mainly by its successor, the SH-7. The SH-5 has just about two of everything. There are two analog VCOs with triangle, ramp, square and pulse waveforms, two LFO’s, two filters, two VCA’s, white and pink noise generators, and more.
The oscillators can be modulated by the LFOs or the ADSR envelope generator. The two LFOs include controls for rate and waveshape: ramp, reverse ramp, triangle, sine, square, delay; and there is also a Sample + Hold feature. The two multi-mode filters include hi-pass, low-pass, and band-pass filtering with cutoff, resonance, keyboard tracking, envelope sensitivity (AR, ADSR or preset) and modulation (ramp, sine, square, s+h) controls plus an additional band-pass-only filter. The two VCAs offer Attack/Release and ADSR envelopes which can be triggered by the Sample + Hold, LFO #2 or an external audio trigger input.
Extra features include the standard SH-type Mixer section with 5 sliders to adjust noise, VCO1, VCO2, ring mod and an external signal levels. Each of these 5 signals can be individually sent through the VCA, the multi-mode filter, the band-pass filter or both. The SH-5 even has stereo output with panning controls in the VCA section and portamento! The Ring Modulator alone is enough to wet your appetite for this synth. A serious analog mono-synth with lots of flexibility for creating serious electronic and dance music.
Astronauta Pinguim – live at CCSP (intro)
Astronauta Pinguim and Ramiro Pissetti live at CCSP (Centro Cultural São Paulo) on december 11th, 2011.
Rob Papen updates Predator virtual analog synth to version 1.6.2
Here’s what is new:
- New oscillator modulation types: PM, Sign, Max, Min, S&H Mix.
- New filter types: 12dB & 24dB LP/HP/BP and Notch (type 2), Comb – filter and two new formant filters.
- Filter 2 with all filter types added included Q control.
- Filter 2 panning moved into filter section (was advance panel).
- Tempo sync Free Envelope 1&2.
- New fx added: stereo tape delay, tape flanger and analogue phaser.
- Alternative GUI color (more light grey color).
- Optimized DC offset respond.
- Back panel offers global tuning and tuning scales (.tun files).
- Midi program change and midi bank select can be turned off.
- New classic synth music by SYNTH.NL: 30 Synth NL bank.
- New session presets with Gizeh (trance banks): 30 Gizeh Trance 2, 30 Gizeh Trance 3.
- New presets inside these banks: 02 Predator dance 02, 03 Classic synth 03 and 04, 04 HipHop RnB 02, 05 Trance and PsyTrance 03, 12 DubStep 02, 11 all SFX 02, 20 all basses 04.
Magic Touch
Electronic experiments with modular and analog synths
More of the same can be found here >>
Protoge – new virtual analog synthesizer
easytoolz has released Protoge, a virtual analog synthesizer instrument for Windows.
An „Emulation“ of the Analog-Synthesizer called „Moog Prodigy“ from 1976. Its based at the same Sound-Engine as our easy-muug XT with a different Structure: only 2 Oscilators and some smaller things but with the same analogysh fat sound, special for Leadsounds…
Protoge features
- 2 Oscilators with 3 Waveforms (Saw, Triangle and Square, in OSC 2 different PWM).
- Tuning over 3 Octaves (32´- 16´- 8´in OSC1 and 16´- 8´- 4 OSC2).
- Finetune Osc 2 – and Interval (+- 12 Notes) on OSC 2.
- Mixersection (Osc 1+2).
- Special Low-Pass-Filter with Cutoff, Emphasis and ADS Envelope.
- 2 ADS-Envelopes with Release-button (one for Filter – one for VCA-Amplifier).
- Additonal to the Original-Features: Host-synchron LFO (5waves) with several targets.
- Velocity – Reverb – Delay with Pan-LFO – Soft Overdrive and Analog-Drift.
- 100 Patches (mostly from Kujashi aka Schiffbauer).
- Midi-Learn-function – 6 voice polyphony.
Protoge for Windows (VST) is available as donationware.
More information: easytoolz
Free universal analogue mono synth for iOS
Anaphobia Mini (short: AnaMini) is a monophonic virtual analog synthesizer for iOS 5.0. It features a classical analog synthesizer setup using a VCO, LFO, VCA and VCF. Of course, none of it is really controlled by voltage, but rather by a 32-bit digital synthesis engine.
Features
- One oscillator with two wave types and scalable within the range of -1 and +1 octave.
- One LFO with fixed wave type (saw) and selectable frequency/rate and depth. LFO can modulate VCO frequency or VCF cutoff.
- One VCA with fixed ADSR envelope.
- One 24dB/octave VCF with three filter types and selectable cutoff frequency and resonance.
- A one-octave keyboard with support for portamento and legato play.
- 14 factory presets.
- 20 custom presets.
Time machine: KORG MONOPOLY Analog Synthesizer 1982
And here are the details:
The Korg/Mono Poly is a well equipped Synth: It has 4 oscillators, oscillator sync, cross modulation, PWM, noise generator (white noise), 24 dB Filter, 2 ADSR envelopes, 2 LFO’s with many waveforms, ARPEGGIATOR, CHORD MEMORY and portamento. The built in microprocessor makes many things possible: chord memory, arpeggiator, and polyphonic playing.
It is built around SSM chips like the Korg Polysix. I think, with the MONOPOLY Korg wanted to produce a synth as an alternative to the Minimoog and Sequential Circuits Pro One. Please don’t expect it to sound like a Minimoog. The Minimoog remains one of the best sounding analog synths, and the Monopoly (like many others) can not compete in terms of sound quality. However, it sounds great and gives a lot of inspiration. It is a flexible instrument with an amazing potential.
The most characteristic thing on the MonoPoly is the arpeggiator, when it triggers the oscillators in poly-mode. Every step of the arpeggiator triggers a different oscillator – unique patterns can be produced.
I played the Korg MonoPoly along with a Roland DC-30 delay, a Roland DEP-5 (delay) and and a Lexicon MPX-500 (reverb).
DATAMASKIN
