Listen to the new synth from MFB – Dominion 5
Here’s some early information on a new synthesizer, the MFB Dominion 5, that’s expected to be released this summer.
Features:
- 5 voices each with 3 VCOs, SED multimodefilter, 2 LFOs, 3 Envelopes, VCA.
- One main LFO, Mod Delay, Voice Panning, Arpeggiator/Seq(poly),
- Joystick, Ribbon Mod, Split Mode, Patch Memory,
- 4 Octave Aftertouch Halfweighted Action Keyboard,
- Big knobs and quality pots/sliders/Switches, Midi In/out/Thru, Some CV/Gate Connections,
- Steel Chassis with Wooden Walnut Panels.
The price is expected to be 1790 Euro, via MFB. You can preview the sound of the MFB Dominion 5 below.
Time machine: Roland Jupiter 4
“This is a little demo i’ve made with the Jupiter 4. Since the first two albums from The Human League, this synth is well known. And i can say, this synth has a very special timbre. The Jup4 is not midified. All lines were played by hand. Only the bassdrum, snare and the HiHats are sampled from the Jupiter 4 and were played by a sampler. I’ve also used the internal JP4 arpeggio. As always a multitrack recording with some fx.”
The first Jupiter synth. It was among one of the first poly synthesizers (4 individual voices which could be synced together for one fat monophonic lead), it had a pitch wheel that could be assigned to the VCA, VCF, VCO or all together, there are 8 memory locations and a cool arpeggiator – the arpeggiator can in the Duran Duran classic, “Rio”. It also has a very slow LFO for those ever-so-long filter sweeps. Pretty good for 1978!
Not so cool however, are the 10 preset sounds which sound nothing like the piano, brass or strings they claim to be. The placement of all the preset buttons below the keyboard can be inconvenient, especially while playing it. And as with most old analog synths, the Jupiter 4’s tuning can go out often. Still it is a nice analog synth for creating weird trippy analog sounds.
Time machine: Sequential Circuits Prophet VS
A voyage into the heart of the SCI Prophet VS from the year 1986.
Exploration by Marko Ettlich
Here’s a very cool keyboard from Sequential. Notice the joystick for controlling your sound modeling. The Prophet VS uses Vector Synthesis as its revolutionary new means of sound creation. It uses a total of four oscillators per voice with 127 waveforms (32 user) and dynamic waveform crossfading via the joystick. This was Sequential’s first digital synth, and it was also their final synth unfortunately. But after Sequential was gone, Vector Synthesis technology went into the popular Korg Wavestation and Yamaha’s SY-22 and TG-33. The ProphetVS is still a very sought after instrument because it has an incredible range of sounds! Its only problem is that there’s practically nobody left that can fix it if something went wrong.
The Ghost of Faffner Hall “Thomas Dolby”
Thomas Dolby Explains Synthesizers on Kid’s Show
When Farkas buys a robot to help him get rid of the musicians of Faffner Hall on Make a New Sound Day, the gang borrows some parts from the robot to construct a synthesizer so they can make all kinds of new sounds. Fughetta doesn’t understand how a synthesizer works so the Wild Impressario turns to his best source, Thomas Dolby, to explain it to her.
Casio XW-P1 Tutorial: Basic Navigation
In this video we take you on a quick tour of the front panel of the Casio XW-P1 Performance Synthesizer. Selecting Performances and Tones, making quick edits, using the arpeggiator and phrase sequencer. This is the first in a series of videos on the XW-P1.
Daniel Fisher plays the XW-P1 using a preset that he created. A quick tribute to Shine On by Pink Floyd
Human Resistance Synthesizer
http://www.handmadeelectronicinstruments.com/
This is a lo-fi synthesizer that is played by bridging a connection between the two large contact handles. The pitch is controlled by the amount of resistance. The more resistance or lighter touch produces lower frequencies. This oscillator is then modulated by a LFO, giving this device very nice throaty, almost vocal sounds. It can also be played through multiple people creating a human chain.
The three large knobs control the speed of the LFO, a low-pass filter, and volume. It is powered by an included 9volt battery. A green LED indicator flashes in sync with the modulation. A standard 1/4″ output makes it perfect to connect to amps, effects, or recording equipment.
“This is the second of a matched pair of these I built using repurposed cigar boxes, salvaged handles, and new as well as salvaged components.”
WaveSynth for Android
WaveSynth for Android is “easy and full-fledged musical instrument app”, a wave table synthesizer application for Android devices with 128 preset sound tones and 1 drum set defined by General MIDI (GM) specification.
“Roland Jupiter 80” Distorted Polysynth
Short description:
What’s even more apparent is that the Jupiter 80 is not based on any conventional synth architecture, because it eschews the conventional patch and performance structures that have dominated synth architectures for the past 20 years or so. The lowest level (or so Roland claims) is the ‘Tone’, and there are two distinct Tone generators: Supernatural Acoustic (which, confusingly, also contains the APS sounds) and Supernatural Synth. The next level up is the ‘Live Set’, which can comprise up to four Tones in ‘Layers’. The top level is the ‘Registration’, which comprises four ‘Parts’: a single Tone in the Perc Part, a Live Set in the Lower Part, another Live Set in the Upper Part, and another Tone in the Solo Part.
CASIO XW Synth on stage
CASIO new synth presented by a cool band
Zira Demonstration
A quick run through of Zira and it’s features.
A quick summary of it’s features;
- Two oscillators, each with 48 waveforms
- One Sub oscillator
- Hard Sync of oscillators
- Two ADSRs, one VCF, one VCA
- One LFO
- Multiple routing options
- 64 patch memories
- MIDI updatable firmware
Background info from Vaco Loco:
Zira came out of an idea I had to see how small I could build a synth and still get it to sound good. The prototype is based on the Korg NJM2069AD Filter/VCA chip, the reason for this being I had 8 lying around I bought a while back from Korg to build a polysynth with.
There are a small number of these being made, I will be selling these as fully assembled modules with a case.
However, I fully intend to try and replace the NJM2069AD with a discrete filter and VCA of some kind (currently a 2 pole State Variable Filter based VCF and simple VCA is looking good) and turn this into kits in much the same way as I did with GorF.
DATAMASKIN
