Have you seen FARTBARF 20130926 ?
FartBarf Live at Studio Hermosa Sept. 26th 2013 (3 songs) (the show was actually on the 25th but they didn’t come on till after midnight so you figure it out…)
Hardware treat: Minimoog and Source
Slow improvisation on two classic Moog synths – the Moog Minimoog and the Moog Source
Novation Bass Station II vs. TETRA/MopHo Dave Smith Instruments
Bass Station II is an analogue mono-synth based on the classic original Bass Station but re-worked for the 21st century. It has two filters, two oscillators plus a third sub-oscillator, patch save and a fully analogue effects section. Add a step sequencer, arpeggiator, full sized keys and a powerful modulation section and you have the makings of a synth that is built for bass, but capable of so much more.
Enjoy
MFB Tanzbär & Tinysizer
This time the Dancing Bear is sequencing the Tinysizer!
Tinysizer ANYWARE-INSTRUMENTS ANALOG MODULAR MINI SYNTHESIZER is a fantastic complete mini analog modular synthesizer system.
The MFB Tanzbär analogue drum-computer has a tight step-sequencer and 16 instruments.
Recorded in Ableton Live – no additional effects.
“Fashion Pack” – and a synth expedition
Background story:
In the beginning of July I saw this synthesizer in the second hand pages for the equivalent of 65US$. The seller lived in the other end of the country but I decided that if it was still for sale when my summer holiday began then I would go and buy it.
Three weeks later it was still for sale and I went on the long trip up north. So this time the video is a sort of very short road movie. The synth is broken but I expect to be able to get it playing again. It could be an interesting winter project.
The music is something I made back in my tape-days. “Fashion Pack” was a hit for German singer Amanda Lear and here I play it on Yamaha HE-8, Viscount RBX-850, and Technics SX-C600 organs, Roland JX-8P synthesizer, and Roland CR-1000 drum machine. It was recorded on my Fostex model 80 8-channel tape recorder.
MacBeth: Pre-Factory Final Test – Touch Keyboard
Seen here- Prototypes of MacBeth NEXUS and INFERNO synthesizers.
“On the left I am playing a 1 Octave final test Touch Keyboard Assembly. I have this setup to check everything! The repetative rhythmic sounds are coming from the INFERNO prototype- the more lead/wash is coming from the NEXUS!”
Yamaha FB-01 Bundle – vintage synthesizer sounds for Native Instruments Kontakt
TW-Sounds has announced the Yamaha FB-01 Bundle, a collection of vintage synthesizer sounds for Native Instruments Kontakt.
The samples are recorded from the old vintage FB-01 FM Synthesizer from Yamaha. The Bundle include 46 Instruments mapped in Kontakt 5 with a GUI for manipulation of the sounds.
The bundle is currently available to purchase from Sampleism for £7 GBP.
TW-Sounds is also offering all Sampleism users a free copy of the SampleWiz Sound Library as part of Sampleism’s Summer Sale.
Interview: Karl Bartos talks Kraftwerk, synths and his latest album
Here’s a new interview with Karl Bartos where he discusses everything from vintage machines to his latest album:
Never meet your heroes, or so the old maxim goes, but FM is delighted to report that our recent encounter with bona fide Electronic music legend Karl Bartos put paid to the notion that meeting one’s heroes is inevitably doomed to end in disappointment. In the flesh, Bartos is a charming, erudite man with a philosophical take on Electronic music that reflects itself in the pristine synthesized contours of the music contained on his latest LP, Off The Record.
From his time as a member of seminal German Electro Pop purveyors Kraftwerk, through his consequent Electrik Music project and collaborations with Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr on their Electronic albums, Bartos has been a key figure in the synthesised music story. Off The Record, released in March, saw Bartos revisit his ‘secret acoustic diary’ of musical sketches and ideas built up during his Kraftwerk days and fashion them into an album that manages to simultaneously sound contemporary and timeless. With trademark vocoded vocals to the fore and his keen ear for a digital melody line still intact, we met with Bartos for a whistle-stop tour of the gear he employs to such stellar effect in his ergonomic Hamburg nerve centre.
How did you set about the Herculean task of trawling through your digital media archive to begin creating Off The Record?
“Well, I’m over it now but it was a hell of a job! There were tons of cassettes, 1/4″ tapes and various other stuff. I moved my archive when we went from Düsseldorf to Hamburg and there was boxes and boxes of it and various rooms full of it along with old synthesizers. I always avoided going through the archive to put things in order until Gunther from Bureau B [Bartos’ German record label] said, ‘Karl, do you have any old recordings?’ I refused initially but finally gave in… I’d always wanted to do it, and knew I had to, but it took me several weeks and the sound quality was rotten with many tapes broken. Eventually, I managed to get most of it into the computer. I saw that everything was dated 1977, 1978, etc, and I thought, ‘That’s a diary. An acoustic diary.’ So I made it a concept. You do that kind of thing but usually just inside your brain – you refer to the things you’ve done before. It’s the way we organise our brains. I also had to write about the concept and where the songs came from.”
Were you quite meticulous about correctly marking or naming ideas back in the days when you were building your archive?
“You do what you do. I’d come up with a name, ‘Neon Piano’ or whatever, and I’d sometimes write the date. Sometimes not. Most cassettes had a name or a date on them. I also found a lot of stuff on Zip and Jaz drives but even some of those were damaged or didn’t work. Between all the different media I pretty much managed to retrieve everything eventually, though.”
Were there a lot of nice surprises?
“It was all such a surprise and funny to hear a song I’d done without a trace of emotion sitting beside something like Computer World [Kraftwerk, 1981]. It made me feel a little sentimental at times. Once I had them in order, it was easy for me to collate and collage them.”
Your first computer set-up was the IBM XT running Voyetra Plus sequencing software. That must have felt like going supersonic after using tape?
“It was a real revelation. We were recording Electric Café [Kraftwerk, 1986] at Kling Klang [the band’s private studio originally located in Düsseldorf, Germany], then we took it over to Right Track Studio in New York where François Kevorkian and Fred Maher introduced me to the Voyetra Plus software he had running on a laptop.
The full interview from Music Radar can be found here >>
Close encounter with Dave Smith Instruments Prophet 12
A second Prophet 12 demo from INHALT, details below:
For this next installment of demonstrations, I’ve recorded the more atmospheric, etherial, vocal, and ambient patches from the Prophet 12. What’s wonderful about this synth is the fact that envelope times have been designed to give a wide range of times. This means anything from the most percussive sounds to absurdly long release times are possible. As such, making evolving tonal beds is a breeze and they are sure to find a home in any sound designers tool box when working for film, television, and experimental sound.
Just like the previous demonstration, no sequencing nor external effects have been used. Everything you hear was recorded through a Neve Portico Pre Amp into a Digidesign 192 HD io and assembled in Pro Tools.
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…
DATAMASKIN
