Modular Synth Live Performance
Gregg Wilson shows off his nice modular in this live performance, enjoy!
“Live performance on my modular. No edits or overdubs. I adjusted levels and added some reverb and delay plugins afterwards to improve the mix. Let me know what you think.”
Wired magazine goes all wired
Here’s Wired’s own words about the I Dream of Wires documentary:
I Dream of Wires, an upcoming documentary about modular synthesizers, celebrates analog hardware in all its wild, messy glory. More than 100 prominent musicians, including Trent Reznor, cEvin Key, Gary Numan, Carl Craig and Morton Subotnick are in the process of being interviewed for the ambitious feature-length film, which is set to be finished in the fall.
Colorful masses of patch cables, rows of knobs and faders, and electronic sounds abound in the exclusive clip above, shot this month at the legendary MUTEK Festival in Montreal. In addition to interviews with several musicians, including Keith Fullerton Whitman, Container and Clark, the 15-minute clip shows intriguing glimpses of the synths in action, in a massive multimedia dome housing 157 speakers called the Satosphere.
The “dedicated and obsessive subculture” of modular synth fanatics across the world formed the inspiration for I Dream of Wires, said director Robert Fantinatto in an email exchange with Wired. “Years ago, I made a small documentary film about the urban-exploration subculture called Echoes of Forgotten Places…. I felt that this whole world of modular synths could make an interesting little film.”
The project soon grew massively in size and ambition. Fantinatto joined forces with Jason Amm, better known as the electronic musician Solvent. With Amm as producer of the film, Fantinatto was able to reach a large number of well-known musicians.
“The trip to see Trent Reznor was probably the most nerve-wracking,” said Fantinatto. “He lives way up on the top of a mountain in Beverly Hills and it [was] quite intimidating leading up to the interview, but Trent was supercool and had us all at ease very quickly.”
But the most jaw-dropping array of modular synth gear that Fantinatto and Amm uncovered didn’t belong to Reznor or any of the other stars they profiled. The best collection, hands down, belonged to a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles.
“He had the most extensive collection of gear I’ve ever seen,” said Fantinatto. “A huge studio with every modular synth ever made, literally every single one ever!”
Fantinatto said he met many modular synth collectors who have “devoted a significant chunk of their lives [to] buying, building and collecting these machines that sometimes take over their homes and their lives.”
“The mystery behind what motivates this irrational obsession is at the heart of the film,” Fantinatto said. “In the end, it is a longing for something authentic — something that has been lost in a virtualized world.”
First patch with Make Noise Echophon
I’ll be putting together a more thorough Echophon demo shortly. In the meantime, here’s the first patch I set up after the Echophon arrived a couple of days ago.
Cyclebox –> LPG –> Echophon. Two Maths channels control everything.
At the 2012 NAMM Show, Make Noise introduced several new Eurorack modules, including the Dual Prismatic Oscillator and the Echophone – developed in conjunction with Tom Erbe of SoundHack
MacBeth – test stylus keyboard
More from MacBeth:
Here is a very short video fearuring a small two octave stylus control keyboard! The outputs are Glide 1 (1v/octave), Glide 2 (1V/Octave), Standard 1VOctave, Negative (reverse going) 1V/Octave and finaqly +5V gate. The keyboard is driving the soon to be released MacBeth micromac analogue synthesizer. It’s a handy accessory for any modular synthesizer user! The copper plate that I’m using is highly reflective!
WebModular – free browser-based modular synthesizer
g200kg has released WebModular, a free browser-based modular synthesizer:
WebModular is a simple modular software synthesizer, written in HTML 5 + Javascript. Realtime sound generation with javascript While an interesting proof of concept, WebModular suffers from limitations that plague most browser-based music software. Most notably, it runs like your hardware is a lot older than it really is.
Make Noise DPO Dual Prismatic Oscillator. Wave forms and simple sequence
“Here’s a demo for the Wigglers out there who demand it. The new Make Noise Dual Prismatic Oscillator.
Disclaimer: I’m functioning on about three hours restless sleep. UPS man knocked on my door surprisingly early and well… I couldn’t bring myself to go back to bed.
What we have here is a quick demo showing the raw wave forms from both sections of the DPO. Then some tweaking of the knobs and the modes. Then I use the Make Noise Pressure Points/Brains combo to construct a very simple sequence. Only other modules in use are the Make Noise Optomix (Low Pass Gate) and a mixer. There is some wave folding and FM modulation going on during the sequence. I hope it’s pretty self-explanatory. I will be doing a proper tutorial when I’ve had time to spend with the DPO and hopefully borrow a nice HD camera. Until then enjoy!”
Modular and iPad: bengeseek-desktop
Here’s a nice demo of a Buchla working together with an iPad:
testing out little midi machine iPad sequencer with my buchla
see http://myblogitsfullofstars.blogspot.co.uk/ for more
Music Thing Random Sequencer
DIY shift register sequencer module for Eurorack modular synth. Full details: musicthing.co.uk/modular/?page_id=21
Music Thing Random Sequencer:
The Random Sequencer is a circuit that produces clocked randomly changing control voltages. These can also be locked into loops that repeat every 8, 16 or 32 steps.
This is an open hardware project – all the project files (Eagle CAD projects, Gerbers PCB files, a Mouser BOM and Illustrator/PDF front panel designs) are available on this page, covered by a Creative Commons Attribution Share-a-like license, which allows for commercial use.
This is a relatively advanced DIY project, and I’m not able to provide support. I am not selling PCBs, kits or finished modules, but hopefully all the information you’d need to get your own is here.
Moon Modular 553 – MIDI to Clock
A short run of Model 553 MIDI to ClockSignal Converter from Moon Modular: in the first half of the video, a DAW drives via MIDI Clock a 960 Step Sequencer; the fixed clock out drives the sequencer with 16 notes density; the variable clock out emits 8dot, 8, 16dot notes. In the second half of video, notes above C3 are converted in clock signal for drive right 960 sequencer and notes below C3 are converted in clock signal for drive left 960 sequencer.
BusyBox Synthesizer – like a modular Minimoog Model D
Grove Audio has posted information on their BusyBox synthesizer.
This 6MU module contains a complete synthesizer voice and an internal MIDI to CV converter. Internal routing is roughly based on the Moog Minimoog Model D.
An analog routing system controlled by a processor offers alternative routing schemes to extend the usefulness of the unit as a standalone synthesizer. A couple of extra features not found on the Minimoog have been added such as ring modulator, linear FM modulation of the VCOs, and voltage controlled amplifiers on each VCO and external audio sources.
The MIDI to CV converter can produce up to four CV/gate pairs and internal control voltages based on channel control messages from an external sequencer or keyboard controller can extend or replace internal modulation sources for the VCOs, the audio mixer or the filter.
The filter core is a 4 pole low pass filter which feeds a signal matrix and analog switch that allows one of sixteen possible filter modes to be selected. Two envelope generators can be used to modulate parameters of the filter and apply a contour to the main audio output VCA.
The depth of modulation can be controlled by the modulation wheel of a connected MIDI keyboard controller.
Pricing and availability are to be announced.
DATAMASKIN
