wire to the ear

ADACHI Tomomi is a Japanese poet, performer, composer and installation artist. He writes music for a “punk style choir called the “Adachi Tomomi Royal Chorus”. He also makes synthesizers and Theremins out of Tupperware!

ADACHI’s self-made instruments are consists of simple electronic circuit, almost case built in Tupperware. They never can make precise pitch, but have good sound and noise, easy to operate and carry and worked by battery. Of course the funny and pretty looks are important aspects. - www.adachitomomi.com

via Gizmodo

Musikmesse is one of the best music gear trade shows. It takes place in Frankfurt Germany this week. There are many websites covering Musikmesse down to the very last detail. I’d like to only list here what I personally think are the most interesting new products. So without further ado here is Wire to the Ear’s MusikMesse 2008 hot picks:

Korg DS-10. This is a Korg MS-10 synthesizer for the Nintendo DS! This is a fully sanctioned product from Korg itself. You use the DS’s touch screens to control parameters. There is a sequencer and you can sync several units together via WiFi. I am really looking forward to getting this and using it live! link

Melodyne Direct Note Access. This has to be on top of the list because it’s a revolution in the audio tech world. This fall when the next version of Melodyne is released you will be able to edit individual notes inside polyphonic sounds! There is no doubt about it, what Celemony has done is amazing. To grasp this concept head over to Celemony and watch the videos on their site. link

MFB Synth 3. Manfred Fricke from Berlin (MFB… get it?) has a new synth ready for 2008. I really like the MFB stuff because it’s affordable and sounds good. These units are a lot smaller than you think. You could throw everything MFB makes into a backpack easy and head to a gig. The new Synth 3 will make sound without you patching any cables into it. But of course the fun starts with wires! 3VCOs, full analog, 37 patch points, midi and CV for only 580 euros! link

Rob Papen RG. Dutch sound designer turned software developer Rob Papen makes really useful synths. I find myself turned to Blue quite often. His new release looks interesting and my guess is it will find it’s home in an unintended market. What do I mean? Well it’s a virtual rhythm guitar plug-in matched with Rob’s synth engine and sequencers. So will rock n rollers be using it? I doubt it, my guess is whatever sounds this thing churns out will be in dance clubs by October. link

Solid State Logic Matrix Superanalogue Mixer. When you think of 16 Channel mixers of the 8-bus type the you think of Mackie or Soundcraft maybe? Imagine a small sized console from SSL? Each channel strip would represent a boutique quality strip. You know the class-A vintage looking things you lust over? Now imagine that small SSL with a digital output for about $25k. Come on your car costs more than that right? This is the kind of gear monthly payments were made for. link

The Nord Lead Anniversary Model Ltd. Edition. The Nordlead really made me believe that software could emulate hardware in a convincing way. To top it off the Nordlead was built like a tank and had a wicked cool stone mod wheel and wood pitch bender. There’s nothing new feature wise on the Anniversary Model. It is essentially a Nordlead 2x but those reverse keys are pretty. There will be only 299 of these so run to Sweden now and get yours before it’s to late. link

OrangeVocoder 10th Anniversary. What? Anniversary edition software? Sure why not. I must have used Prosoniq’s vocoder on twenty songs or more over the years. The new version finally brings us an Audio Units, new sound modes, voiced/unvoiced detection linked with a noise synthesizer, a filterbank freeze option and a HF passthru mode. link

So what are your Musikmesse picks? Anything hot you think I missed? The show’s not over so by Monday I think I will update this post a little.

There’s a new synthesizer thats coming in May 2008 called the Rozzbox One V2. The thing thats got me personally impressed is the fact that it actually sounds different than 99% of what’s out there already. That says a lot in the over saturated synth (soft or hard) market.

It’s polyphonic with 5 voices, which is enough to make chords. It sells for under 10k because it’s using digital oscillators. But these sound sources are matched with digital, analog and oh yeah baby a tube filter! When you hear “tube” and “synthesizer” you probably remember the Metasonix Wretch. But to me the Rozzbox has put it’s tube to a better use because unlike the Wretch the Rozzbox can be easily musical. I like complete noise but I also my mayhem paired with some musical sensibility.

The oscillators have 16 waveforms to choose from. There is an FM engine, ring modulator, noise source, bit reducer, sample rate reducer, modulation matrix, digital hard cliping, “Hacker Mode” which introduces artificial aliasing, and a “Chaos Mode” for the digital filter. Oh man.

Need things moving? The Rozzbox has 2 LFOs, wave tracking, 2 ADSR envelopes, envelope follower and 4 sequencers each with there own settings. It’s hardware (yay) and so it has Midi, 5 individual outputs, an interesting blue graphic screen and 56 knobs and sliders!

Maybe you could compare it to a Dave Smith’s Poly Evolver Rack? The audio and video samples of the Rozzbox have me happy. Head over to the official Rozzbox website to hear some audio: www.rozzbox.de

For videos check Big City Music which is selling the Rozzbox has some cool videos up: click here

Of all the modules you can buy for a modular synthesizer my favorite is the Zorlon Cannon. This nicely named module comes from “The Harvestman” based out of Michigan (USA). What separates this module, and in fact all The Harvestman modules is that they are based on vintage digital electronics not analog components. Here is the objective statement from The Harvestman website:

The development of these synthesizer modules fulfills four major personal goals:

1. To enable a voltage-controlled deployment of traditionally “digital” signal generation and processing techniques.

2. To produce a series of synthesizer modules that aid my personal compositional aesthetics: aliasing, quantization, and severe signal distortion are not traps to be avoided, but valid sonic processes to be controlled and enjoyed.

3. To raise awareness of archaic digital sound processing techniques often overlooked in the context of analog synthesizer nostalgia.

4. To aid the musical efforts of those committed to the ideals of nonlinearity, discontinuity, and quantization

The Zorlon Cannon module is a take on the Atari 8-bit machines such as the 2600 and 5200 range. The best way to get a grip on what the Zorlon sounds like is to see it in action. Take a look at this video interview with Scott Jaeger at NAMM 2008 from sonicstate.com. The Zorlon kicks in at 9:00 minutes:

photo credit: nakedintruder

Do you remember one of the first posts on wire to the ear titled “Would you work at Guitar Center?“. A few weeks ago I was in New York and stopped by the flagship Guitar Center Store on 14th Street and took some photos for you. My friend Dan works there and he says he loves his job.

They do have a pretty well stocked Pro-Audio department including some interesting pieces like the Chameleon Labs 7602 Preamplifier/Equalizer (a Chinese made inexpensive Neve clone). There are times when you need to see and hear something in person before you buy it. I spent a good amount of time playing with the Moog Voyager. I’m getting close to getting one of these amazing synths.

The Chauvet LED-EQ visualizer thing was pretty nice. You have to see these in person to appreciate how bright and flashy it is. They have a ton of nice microphones, a decent speaker room and scattered around are posters of vintage gear including this one which shows the history of Eventide.

Please click here to enjoy the full photo set from Guitar Center. Please note I put a Creative Commons license on these images so feel free to use them as long as you link back to this article.

Last night I finished a remix for 80s Belgian EBM band Absolute Body Control. The lead singer is Dirk Ivens from The Klinik and also Dive. The keyboardist Eric Van Wonterghem can be found today in several projects including Detune-X. Most of the music they recorded together was over two decades ago and they recently got back together to re-release material and perform at some of the huge festivals in Germany such as Wave Gotik Treffen.

The song I was asked to remix was Neverseen. It usually takes me about a full week to do a remix but Eric was on a deadline and I was able to get this done in four long days. The original song was recorded on a 4-track. I was given the vocals and the full song.

One key part of the remix is when I combine my Yamaha CS-5 and a clip of the vocals in Ableton Simpler with the start time automated and have them micro-tune against each other. You can click the screenshot above to see my Ableton screen in full size.

Here is a clip of the original song:

The Horrorist remix of Neverseen:

Look for an interview with Eric from “ABC” in the upcoming issue of Sonic Seducer Magazine. I also answered a few questions in the same interview explaining how I met Eric and how the remix came to be.

I used to own a blue Roland SH-101 with the cool modulation handle and shoulder strap. These days I use the Powercore01 which is a SH-101 emulation. There is a new free emulation for Mac and PC called TAL-Bassline. Not much more say here because this one is totally free so go an try it yourself! Here’s the details:

• VST Mac (Universal) and PC
• Band-limited oscillators (saw, pulse)
• Sub-oscillator: square -1 oct., square -2 oct., pulse -1 oct, pulse -2 oct
• -18 dB/octave low-pass filter (resonant/self-oscillating)
• LFO (frequency: 0,1 .. 30 Hz, waveforms: sin, tri, saw, rec, noise)
• Very fast nonlinear envelope (A: 1.5ms..4s, D: 2ms..10s, S: 0..100%, R: 2ms..10s)
• Simple Arpeggiator (up, down, one octave mode)
• 2x Unisono Mode
• Panic button
• MIDI automation for all sliders and pots
• Precise fader control while holding down the “Shift” button
• Supports all sample-rates
• 2x oversampling
• 23 presets
• Tutorial PDF
• ~2.5% CPU (Intel Core 2 CPU 6700, 44.1KHz, 24Bit, buffer-size 1024 Samples

via futuremusic

Did you think I would go to the coolest analog synth store in the world and not take a few photos? To go along with my last post here is a photo set from Schneiders Buero. Berlin, Germany. Feel free to tag and add notes to the photos if a synth or module isn’t labeled. I dare you to even attempt to label the Doepfer Modular!

To view the full set: click here

Last week I took a walk to my favorite store in the world Schneiders Buero. Herr Schneider is a really cool Geschaftsfuher (store owner). When you enter his palace of new analog synthesizers for sale a Theramin greets you by sounding off as you enter the door. Scattered around the shop there are postcards and adverts from some of our favorite gear. I grabbed some of them and scanned them for you. Remember when viewing images in flickr you can click “all sizes” to see larger versions of the scans.

To view the full set: click here

Analogue Solutions is a wonderful UK company who creates new analog synthesizers. If your not aware of what they offer head directly to their website and check out some of their cool toys. This week they released a new rack mount monophonic synth called Leipzig.

• Pure analogue voice circuitry.
• Fat Moog style filter.
• 2 VCOs with Glide and Sub-VCOs.
• Plenty of modulation routing possibilities.
• Extra tone controls and circuits for more sound variety e.g. LFO, CrossMod.
• Rugged steel construction and ‘vintage’ wood design.
• MIDI In for software sequencer control

It’s in stock and ready to ship for £549 +vat & shipping.

For more info click to: www.analoguesolutions.com

via Matrixsynth