Since I lean toward the synthesizer slash software side of things the best music gear “fair” in the world is Germany’s Musikmesse. Each spring or “Frülings” as the German’s say, gear geeks, music software wizards and pro-audio companies from the States to Japan all meet in Frankfurt. This year’s shibang is from April 1-4 which if you’re reading this post today means it’s on now. Will any new product convince you it will improve your songs? Nothing I’ve seen so far is making my head explode but there are some nice new toys on the show floor.
One of my favorite instruments, the Persephone, has been upgraded to “Mark II” status. It’s big new feature is the addition of a second oscillator. To love a Persephone is to play one. It’s a nice feeling high end instrument. The best way I can describe it is something in between a Theramin and slide guitar. Doepfer steps away from the Lego – build your own mindset and released the Dark Energy. The Dark Energy is a mini 100% analog synth with a built-in USB/Midi interface. At 400 EUR what’s not to like? Tascam seems to have noticed Mackie’s troubles (their Chinese factory went out of business) and released a new line of inexpensive analog mixers including the M-164, M-164FX with built-in digital effects and the M-164UF with built-in USB.
SSL released a new version of it’s Duende which has an improved audio engine and includes a new reverb called X-Verb. Novation hit us with there new versions of their popular controllers, the Zero and SL now at MKIII status. I have some friends who were disappointed by earlier versions of these. Most of the complaints were in the “faders are too cheap” category. Nevertheless, Novation added more pink lights on the new babies so I can’t help staring. Akai seems to be on a mission the past few trade shows and Messe09 is no different. They have a new basic Pad box, the MPD18 and a new 88key weighted controller the MPK88. What really has my mouth ready to scream “Reactivate!” is the new Miniak synth with built-in vocoder. I always thought Akai made the best software vocoder (D.C. Vocoder) but alas it never went OS-X. If the Miniak sounds as good I’ll grab one for sure. Presonus released a DAW called Studio One. Are they crazy? Why isn’t everyone using Ableton at this point? Oh yeah, in case you didn’t hear Live 8 is out of beta and ready to buy.
Update. So a few more niceties have crossed my radar. Jomox has updated it’s popular analog kick drum module the MBase now called MBase II. I believe the compressor is the new add on in this highly recommended box. I love mine: video. Rob Papen has a new software bass synth called SubBoomBass. I doubt SubBoomBass will break much ground sound wise but I constantly go to other Papen synths when Im doing certain styles of music and want to troll a zillion presets. MFB must be reading my mind because the only thing I love more than drum machines are semi-modular drum synthesizers and that’s exactly what they just announced. They call it Schlagzwerg and I’ll be buying that (680 EURO) before you can say Berlin!
More Musikmesse 2009 round-ups here: SonicState Create Digital Music Synthtopia
photo credit: joaquinenriquezbeltran
This entry was written by , posted on April 3, 2009 at 8:22 am, filed under hardware, plug-ins, synthesizer and tagged Dark Energy, Doepfer, Duende, Jomox, Mbase II, MFB, Musikmesse, Persephone, Rob Papen, Schlagzwerg, SubBoomBass, Tascam. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
First night with the PLL from Peter Speer on Vimeo.
Peter Speer of Colonial Recordings USA shows us his first night with a Doepfer A-196 Phase Locked Loop Module. I enjoyed following the signal path around in this video. I also think these are some of the types of sounds have that slight edge you don’t get with plug-ins.
–Voice of Saturn Sequencer CV Out to Freq CV on Plan B ELF LFO
–ELF LFO Square Out to Trig In on Doepfer A-160 Clock Divider.
–ELF LFO Triangle Out to In 2 on PLL–/64 Out on A-160 is triggering the first channel on the A-143-1 Complex Envelope Generator (all channels set to AD mode)
–Mix Out on A-143-1 to Gate In on A-140 ADSR
–/32 Out on A-160 is retriggering the A-140–Output from A-140 sent to CV In on A-132-3
–Comparator Out on A-196 to Input on 132-3
–Output from A-132-3 to computer
For more info on the Doepfer A-196: click here
Related post: The Voice of Saturn Synthesizer & Sequencer
This entry was written by , posted on March 7, 2009 at 11:40 am, filed under synthesizer and tagged Doepfer, modular, synthesizer, Voice of Saturn. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
It’s some sort of ice raining today in New York so this is perfect “stay in the studio time”. If you’ve been following my life through this blog or Facebook (my profile) or Twitter (follow me) you know my studio is in a container somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean coming from Berlin. Therefore, I can only daydream, watch videos of other people’s studios. Luckily, Vimeo always has something for me to gaze at when it comes to synth gear. Here’s two videos I found this morning I think are tasty…
Patch Tutorial 1 from Elan Hickler on Vimeo.
“The envelope controlling the lowpass filter is set with high attack, decay, sustain, and release. The pitch VC to the lowpass filter is inverted but heavily attenuated. I used no resonance and the notch filter was turned all the way down.” – Elan Hickler
stop_motion_synthesizers from Alex Inglizian on Vimeo.
“671 still frames shot with Nikon D70. Sounds made with Roland Juno-60, TR-909, Omnichord, Yamaha CS-5, & hand made synth.” – cliplead.com
I’m fine making music with my Macbook Pro and Ableton Live but I can’t wait to get my fingers on some real knobs again. Which one of these videos did you like the most?
photo credit: 1Sock
This entry was written by , posted on January 7, 2009 at 10:17 am, filed under Uncategorized and tagged cliplead, Doepfer, Elan Hickler, Omnichord, roland, Roland Juno 60, Roland TR-909, synthesizer, Vimeo, Yamaha CS-5. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Remember one of my MusikMesse 2008 picks the MFB Synth 3? It’s been renamed the Kraftzwerg and it’s been out for a few months now. For 579€ you can have one of these interesting noise makers. Visit the official MFB (Manfred Fricke Berlin) website here: mfberlin.de
“Some clueless noodling on my small modular. MFB Kraftzwerg and some Doepfer modules. No effects.” – mancio1
Buy a Kraftzweg: SchneidersBuero or analoguehaven
This entry was written by , posted on January 3, 2009 at 8:11 am, filed under hardware, synthesizer and tagged Doepfer, Kraftzwerg, MFB, video. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
“Snore” patch from Peter Speer on Vimeo.
I am definitely still feeling last weekend and it’s Tuesday night! This synth patch in the uber cute Doepfer Mini Case explains what I should be doing right now: zzzz.
“I was trying to make a breathe-in/breathe-out snoring sound with the Mini Case… Moog Rogue (audio only), Doepfer A-119, A-140 and A-132-3, Plan B ELF LFO, Frostave Resonator and Blue Ringer, DIY multiple.” – Peter Speer
If you have not been to the Doepfer site your crazy: click here
This entry was written by , posted on October 7, 2008 at 9:14 am, filed under hardware, sounds, synthesizer, video and tagged Doepfer, video. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
There is a fantastic new Doepfer module expected to be released in May. The A-189 Voltage Controlled Bit Crusher / Modifier makes some serious noise. It has a A/D converter which 
takes your incoming signal and makes it digital. Once in the digital realm it reduces and shuffles the bit order of the incoming sound.
It offers several voltage controlled algorithmic functions like voltage controlled bit crunching, bit shifting (with/without carry over), bit exchange, rectifying, absolute value and calculating operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. – Doepfer.de
Because it’s part of a modular synthesizer system it has various inputs. You can send an LFO or ADSR into the module to effect different parameters. Voltage control over the bit crusher and sampling rate is awesome! Analog control into this digital module is xxxx. The digital module has 16 different modes which all sound different from each other.
Here are two audio samples from the Doepfer.com homepage:
A1891_sampling_rate.mp3
A1891_playing_around_01.mp3
To see a great video of Dieter Doepfer at NAMM 2008 head to Sonic State. The A-189-1 show begins at 4:55: click here
The projected price is 80 euros (no brainer!). For more audio samples click to: www.doepfer.de
photo credit: kedasc
This entry was written by , posted on January 29, 2008 at 12:11 pm, filed under hardware, synthesizer, video and tagged bit crusher, Doepfer, modular. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
A few weeks ago I walked out of my apartment in Berlin and down Schönhauser Allee to Alexanderplatz. At Alexadnerplatz sits one of the coolest analog synthesizer stores in the world called Schnieders Buero. It’s full of amazing toys and Herr Schneider loves to show them all to you.
At Schnieder’s I got focused on the Doepfer R2M Midi Ribbon Controller. It consists of a control box and the Ribbon Controller itself. The Ribbon Controller is fantastic. It’s rests nicely inside a sculpted metal bar. The “position sensor” as Doepfer calls is a substantial 50cm long. The sensor is also pressure sensitive. The control box allows you to hook the Ribbon up to any Midi sound source such as a hardware synth, software synth, or effect plug-in. Being that this is a Doepfer product it also allows the Ribbon to control things via CV hence any real analog synth with such inputs.
You may have seen the R2M in a magazine review or on the Doepfer website but oh baby to touch it is to understand. This thing is really fun. It feels great and the pressure sensitivity works as you would want it to. It turns any decent sound source into a nice playable “instrument”. The control aspect and concept reminded me a little of the Perséphoné by EOWave which was also sitting in Schneider’s office.
I began to realize the R2m could breathe new life into my workflow. It can see myself arming a long track in Ableton Live’s arrangement view and rocking out an extended solo part. The control unit allows you to set up different modes such as Trautonium.
“Trautonium” mode: in this special mode only a single note on message is generated when the position sensor is touched. After that only pitch bend messages are generated until the finger is lifted off.”
You can also adjust the Ribbon’s scaling, Pitch Bend resolution, Pitch Bend width, quantization and Gate parameters. Are you getting some ideas yet?
More and more desk and laptop musicians are looking for new fresh ways to interact with there music. I highly recommend trying the R2M out.
This entry was written by , posted on December 6, 2007 at 11:23 am, filed under live performance, song writing, synthesizer and tagged Doepfer, EOWave, Persephone, ribbon controller. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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