Cassette Jam from Jesse England on Vimeo.

Apparently today is the 30th anniversary of the Cassette. Create Digital Music has a great walk down memory lane worth checking out: Happy 30th, Sony Walkman: Your Memories and the Best of Cassettes on CDM

Related post: Cassette tape nostalgia. Rewind.

808 drum machine clone test from Danjel van Tijn on Vimeo.

There’s no drum machine like the Roland TR-808. It has kick that goes from a sharp click to boom and snares and hats that sound like chrome lightning. Since Roland never released the 808 and used prices are up and up it’s no wonder clones are arriving. We already have the Miami from Acidlab and as you can see above the MB808 from intellijel could be coming our way. I say yay.

More info: intellijel.com

The BBC has a great story titled, “Giving up my iPod for a Walkman” in which a 13 year old named Scott swapped his iPod for an original Sony Walkman. I often think what must young kids think when they play with old cassette decks and such.

“Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn’t is “shuffle”, where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly – effective, if a little laboured.” – Scott Campbell

Scott also is late to discover there another side to a tape and that “metal” doesn’t mean “metal band eq”!

Read the full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8117619.stm

photo credit: Rosa Pomar

If you’re looking for a very good sound analog synthesizer you may want to check out the new Analogue Solutions SEM clone Telemark. I can think of a long list of main brand synthesizers that cost around the same price ($1250) or higher than the Telemark that don’t have 1/10th of it’s character. Check out the video and audio sample below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rv_ftljSWo

Telemark audio clip: click here

For a history lesson concerning Oberheim’s SEM (Synthesizer Expander Module) head over to vintagesynth.com: click here If your about to go shopping keep in mind Tom Oberheim is also preparing to release a new version of his own classic. Read about the new SEM and check out a video over at Matrixsynth: click here

For more info: www.analoguesolutions.com

Who’s the Big Dog now? from Calvin on Vimeo.

Here’s a nice video that drove me to discover Calvin Cardioid from Toronto, Canada. Besides this nice video he’s got a nice blog called cl516. It’s full of original content with a synth slant. Here’s a nice set of sounds of a Frostwave Resonator, modulated by Freqbox and Sherman Calvin posted over at SoundCloud:

For more info: http://cl516.blogspot.com/

velosynth+003 from velosynth on Vimeo.

A bicycle with a synthesizer attached to the wheels. This thing would have been perfect in Berlin.

For more info: velosynth.com and twitter.com/velosynth

I love the sound of spring reverbs. The Ekdahl Moisturizer is a pre-amp (with 100 x gain), spring reverb with wet/dry slider and a filter. There are two absolutely brilliant things about this unit. First, the springs are exposed for you to smash. Second, the Ekdahl Moisterizer is only $300. Needless to say I put my order in for one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g86o5FkwiM

“Basically, the Ekdahl Moisturizer is a spring reverb where the springs are exposed so they can be played/hit/fiddled with. As well as being capable of creating sound in itself, you can of course also play sound through the springs like a regular spring reverb – this makes for happy-fun-time finger-modulation of the reverb on whatever audio that’s going through it. On top of this there’s an analog multimode filter that can be used to attenuate or exaggerate certain frequencies in the sound, this is real handy while playing the springs as you can – for instance – cut all the highs and just make thunderous doomy sounds or do the opposite; cut all the lows and make that ear piercing high frequency special love. Also, it incorporates an LFO that’s internally routable to the filter and that also has some external routing-stuff. The Ekdahl Moisturizer has tons of CV / Expression pedal options on the back for even more hillarious moments. The Moisturizer is a mono unit. ” – sdiy.org

The “E.M’s” designer Karl says he’s a bit backlogged so I’ll have to wait until September for my unit so if you want one you better get on the list. Be sure to also check out “Bob’s atomic experiment” on their website for some old USA style industrial music. For more videos and audio samples of the Ekdahl Moisterizer: http://www.sdiy.org

Last Friday morning at around 7:00AM before I left for work I was checking email on my Macbook Pro. I shut the lid but then realized I forgot to check the weather so I quickly lifted the screen open again. The screen didn’t come back on which does happen sometimes if you open and close the thing too quickly. This time however I realized how late it was getting so instead of closing the lid, waiting for the computer to properly go to sleep and open it again I just shut it again and ran out. About nine hours later I came home and opened the computer. The screen was still black and the computer was very hot. I held the power button down for a few seconds to force the machine off. I waited a bit and turned it back on. Unfortunately I couldn’t get it wake up. I tried a few different things as recommended at Apple.com/support but nothing worked. Since I own an iPhone I didn’t really freak out too much because I knew I could check email if I had to leave my computer for a few days for repair. I went to the local Apple store and met with someone at the Genius Bar. In fact, because this specific Apple store (Palisades, NY) was about to be renovated they would ship my computer to Apple and then have Apple ship it direct to me when it’s repaired. I have AppleCare so hey all in all not a big deal.

Well… Monday rolls around and I’m at work at my partner Charlie O’ Donnell asks me if I am still making music in my free time. I tell him of course and then something horrible dawned on me. I’m booked to playing two shows in Europe this coming weekend and I have no computer! I know Apple is pretty quick with repairs but I started to sweat. As soon as I got home I checked the online repair status and it didn’t even show up in their system. I called Apple and they told me they just received the computer and the system would update itself shortly.

I decided I needed a backup plan just in case my computer doesn’t arrive in time. Luckily I have a friend Leslie who doesn’t need her computer as much as a supergeek like yours truly. She lent me her white Macbook which has a Firewire port (phew!) ready for my M-Audio Firewire 410. I created a user account for myself and plugged in my Time Machine backup drive. I didn’t know what to expect because I never had to go to this drive before. I was very happily surprised to see that you can simply click and open folders on the drive just as if it were a clone of my machine. I grabbed my Ableton live show files (and videos), downloaded M-Audio drivers and Ableton Live 8. Everything loaded up without a glitch! Win one for Apple.

So without any disaster looming I decided to call Apple and just see if there was any chance my own computer would arrive on time. I didn’t have to wait at all when calling the support line and spoke to a very friendly employee. He told me the computer was still in the process of being repaired. I told him I had a flight to Europe and it would be great if I had my own computer with me. I blabbed a bit about how I’d be onstage in Amsterdam and Barcelona and I really didn’t want to scratch up Leslie’s nice new Macbook. He put me on hold for a minute and told me he expedited the process and asked me to look at the online repair status. To my happy shock it said the computer would arrive by FedEx before 10:30AM this morning. I know it would have been a better scenario if my computer didn’t break in the first place but Apple deserves a pat on the back for making it so easy to grab files from a Time Machine backup drive and for superb service.

Catch me live this weekend at Defqon 2009 in Amsterdam and the Montagood Festival, Spain.

photo credit: wZa HK

I like drum kits made from analog synths. A band from Sweden called the Steelberry Clones have posted a drum kit created solely with a Minimoog Voyager. They wrapped the kit up neatly into a Drum Rack for Ableton Live 8.

“Unlike many classic analog drum machines, the Voyager with its dual filters can create wonderful stereo imagery.  I’ve taken the time to program detailed percussive patches & from these i’m creating sample sets.” – steelberryclones.wordpress.com

Go to the full post to download the set: click here Audio demo: click here

photo credit: allert

yr3wk48 moog & tonematrix from longcat on Vimeo.

A few posts back I compared Retro vs Future audio producing technique videos. Today’s video shows old and new working together. The Moog Opus 3 was released in 1980. Vintage Synth Explorer has the Opus Manual available for download: click here ToneMatrix, Andre Michelle’s Tenori-on software clone is pure 2009: http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

“With the ever wonderful moog opus 3, and the insanely addictive tone matrix from andre michelle… it’s freely usable so long as you have the most recent flash update, it reminds me of early software drum machines like hammerhead… it seems he is creating a whole reason-ish music creation world online all run with flash, it’s quite heavy on the CPU but very interesting x lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix the moog is still missing it’s string sound, but one of it’s faults allows me to just have the filter with no sound underneath which you hear at the beginning… i love this synth x” – longcat

Thanks for Robbie Knight for this video. Isn’t time shifting on a rainy (in NYC at least) Friday nice?

Related post: Thoughts and photos from the Tenori-on Berlin event.