Here’s a wonderful Christmas song especially if you plan on drinking a lot. Happy holidays everyone!!!

“It’s Christmas morning. Mama drink your drinking… It’s an invitation for us to conduct this occasion. You can just imagine we drink until New Year’s Morning. Drink a Rum….” – Lord Kitchener

For more info: wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kitchener_(calypsonian)

Let’s get this Christmas weekend started in 1982. The PPG Wave is such a pretty blue Wavetable joy. Imagine finding one under your tree? Thanks to Retrosound for posting so many wonderful old synth videos!

“merry christmas and a happy 2012 ! all sounds: PPG wave 2.2 Synthesizer from the year 1982.recording: multi-track (internal sequencer/arpeggiator & software)” – Retrosound

For more info: vintagesynth.com/misc/wave

photo credit: Nigel Bates

Well Merry Christmas from Native Instruments! Stephan Schmitt the “father” of Reaktor put together SKANNER which combines a sampler and synth. Two oscillators ‘scan’ a sample to sort of scratch it. It’s free and will work with Reaktor or the free Reaktor Player. It comes with samples but you can also load in your own. Thanks NI! Go download.

“SKANNER ingeniously mixes sampler and synthesizer. The two oscillators ‘scan’ a sample; at low frequencies you get the ‘scratch’ sound of the sample being read back and forth, while at higher frequencies the dominant force is the oscillators being shaped by the sample waveform. The resulting sounds are raw, dirty and highly unpredictable – from simple sine waves to walls of noise. Two views offer different levels of interaction: The ‘A’ view features four macro controls that are mapped to multiple parameters – even subtle tweaks can create dramatic changes.” – Native Instruments

For more info: native-instruments.com/powered-by-reaktor/skanner…

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah!!

“And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia” – Wikipedia.org/Messiah_(Handel)

For more info: Wikipedia.org/Messiah_(Handel)

Ok it’s December 11. Let’s get this X-Mas season going with Roxanne Versus The Red Nosed Reindeer.

Another Yuletide Derangement. Putting the ‘Ho back in Ho Ho Ho. – mojochronic

For more info: santastic4.com

Christmas is around the bend and a theme this year is pro-audio software bundles. Linplug and Sugar Bytes are two companies that make goodies worth making noise with so they get some space here. The LinPlug offer gives you CronoX 3 Sample Synthesizer, MorphoX Synthesizer, Rob Papen Albino 3, Octopus FM Synth, Alpha Classic Synth, ElementP Percussion Synth, Ian Boddy Soundset for the Alpha, Summa Soundset for the Octopus (altogether more than 5500 preset sounds) for $399 which is less than half of what you would buy them for seperately. Sugar-Bytes is selling their Sugar Bundle which consists of Guitarist, Thesys, Consequence, Effectrix, Artillery2, Unique, WOW, Vogue and Robotronic for $499.

“This year we celebrate the most insane christmas deal we ever had!” – Sugar Bytes

For more info: Linplug and Sugar Bytes

photo credit: Steve Rhodes

Ho ho ho… I hope you got lots of electronic toys that make noise under the tree!

Most people don’t have homes with a stereo with a FM Tuner in it anymore. Most people aren’t disturbed enough to have 50+ Christmas music CDs lying around. Here’s two ways to listen to FREE streaming Xmas tunes this year. Remember to hit play while putting your tree up, cooking and opening gifts.

Grooveshark/search/songs/?query=christmas: click here
Last.fm/listen/globaltags/christmas: click here

Every year my mind decides some cheesy Christmas song is the best song ever. Unfortunately for me this year it’s “We Need A Little Christmas” by Johnny Mathis (iTunes link).

Any X-mas song stuck in your head this year?

via Tech Blog

We set up our pink X-mas tree today. For some photos: click here When I was a little kid there was a store in Rockland County called CostCutters my mother used to take me to to buy me school supplies. Before the store closed down last year I bought the Frosty Ornament you see above. If you want a way to get into the spirit why not try the SoundCloud Christmas song contest? You can win a Premium account. They have a thing against the band Wham too. Read all about it: click here

“The SoundCloud staff will then listen to every submitted track and select one winner who will receive a yearly Premium account and see the track featured with an own blog post, tweet, Facebook, Tumblr… just in time for Christmas. The winning track will be the one that knocks our red socks off.” – blog.soundcloud.com

Frotsy the Synthman was a jolly happy soul, with a glass body and a Yamaha CS5… lalala…

Everyone has a favorite Christmas song right? Whenever I hear Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” I get stupid happy for some reason. Imagine this song with different lyrics and it would still be pretty kick ass. Something about this song is punkish and in your face. It says to me, “Yeah whatever… it’s Xmas so freak out!”. See that pink tree below? That’s a photo of my tree.

“”Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is a Christmas song, written by Johnny Marks and recorded by Brenda Lee in 1958 on Decca 9-30776. Although Decca released it in both 1958 and again in 1959, it did not sell well until Lee became a popular star in 1960; that Christmas season, it hit #16 on the Billboard pop chart and turned into a perennial holiday favorite. It continued to sell well during the holiday season, hitting #5 on the Christmas chart as late as 1984. Brenda Lee’s recording still receives a great deal of airplay. For decades, Brenda Lee’s recording was the only notable version of the song. Radio stations ranging from Top 40 to Adult Contemporary to Country Music to Oldies to even Adult Standards played this version. The song has been covered by numerous artists, with one of the most successful versions being recorded by Amy Grant, Ronnie Spector with Darlene Love, Dion and a version by Kim Wilde and Mel Smith featuring Pete Thomas. It reached #3 on the UK Singles Chart during the 1987 Christmas season. Today there are dozens of different versions of this song with about half a dozen versions being heard on the radio but Brenda Lee’s version remains by far the most widely played.” – Wikipedia.org

Now sing along kiddies: Rocking around the Christmas Tree at the Christmas party hop. Mistletoe hung where you can see. Ev’ry couple tries to stop. You will get a sentimental feeling When you hear voices singing. “Let’s be jolly; Deck the halls with boughs of holly” Rocking around the Christmas Tree. Have a happy holiday. Everyone’s dancing merrily. In a new old fashioned way. Rocking around the Christmas Tree. Let the Christmas Spirit ring. Later we’ll have some pumpkin pie. and we’ll do some carolin. You will get a sentimental feeling When you hear voices singing “Let’s be jolly; Deck the halls with boughs of holly”. Rocking around the Christmas Tree. Have a happy holiday. Everyone’s dancing merrily. In a new old fashioned way.

Do you have a favorite?