wire to the ear

Over at the Ableton forums Kent Williams has posted a link to a nice set of Roland TR-727 samples he recorded using four different methods. I own a TR-707 and love it’s sound and design. It’s quite a lot of fun flicking the little mixer’s channels up and down.

The TR-727 is, of course, the ‘Latin’ version of the TR-707 — same hardware, but Latin percussion samples instead of a trap set.

Many sample sets have been made of the TR-727, starting with the ‘Music Machines’ set at Hyperreal.org, which is nearly 10 years old, and 16-bit only. see http://machines.hyperreal.org/manufacturers/Roland/TR-727/

I was inspired to do this set by the guys at Goldbaby — http://www.goldbaby.co.nz — who have done some obsessively loving sampling jobs on many old drum boxes, through a wide variety of gear.

I don’t have as snazzy a studio as GoldBaby but I think I’ve done pretty well with what I’ve got. - Kent Williams

His recording method is included in the readme.txt file that accompaniments the sample pack. To download click here: 727_Samples.zip

“Hey can I be in it?” - the little sister

“Yeah you can dance.” - underneath0skin

“That’s like your basic techno beat right there.” - underneath0skin

Yes it is kid. Your already better than 90% of the fools out there. This brings back a lot of memories playing with the first bunch of music gear I got. My little brother and I used to rock out in the basement. There are cassette recordings of it all somewhere. Someday I’ll find them and be amazed.

Vermona DRM1 MKIII - Drum Machine from wiretotheear on Vimeo.

About two weeks ago I purchased a brand new Vermona DRM1 MKIII from Schnieders Buero in Berlin. I’ve had some time to play with it and am ready to report to you. These things are in demand and back ordered. It took almost three weeks for Vermona to deliver my DRM1 to Herr Schnieder. There is a good reason why: these sound smashing!

There is nothing like the Vermona DRM1. It is a fully analog drum machine done right. The super fast attack time on the kick and snare make them snap and crack in a way that will make you say “YES THIS IS IT!”. The hi hats are so smooth, bright and shimmer without any EQ needed. The DRM1 has a real spring reverb built into it and when turned up on the clap and snare channels the clock turns back to 1980. There’s are also multiple extra drum channels for lazer zaps or toms which can be manipulated to the extreme with FM. If I had to describe it’s overall tone in one word I would say: chrome!

It uses standard midi but you can not record knob changes into your DAW. You will need to put your hands on the controls, start recording it as audio and capture your movements in real time. You can’t save presets. Thank god for that. The main point of all those knobs is to focus in on each song your doing and tune each sound, the hi hat decay level, the snap of the kick. There is a pan control for each sound and individual outputs for each channel.

Vermona DRM1 MKIII. No effects or other sounds. Pure DRM1 (320kbps mp3):

The unit is metal and feels very well built. Vermona is from East Germany. The reason you buy something like this is the sound.

D16’s Drumazon and Devastator. from wiretotheear on Vimeo.

Here is a screencast I put together showing a few features of D16’s incredible Roland TR-909 emulator Drumazon and their new distortion plug-in Devastor. I really like both of these. After watching the video I encourage you to head over to the D16 website and download the demos.

I’ve owned a real Roland TR-909 for many years. In fact I bought mine from Chaka Kahn! I can honestly say Drumazon is a better replacement. It’s a joy to use and you get all the nicesties of software (presets). You also get features a real 909 doesn’t have like random and automation. When you add a quality multiband distortion unit like Devastor to it you can’t help but smile. This is audio software at its best.

http://www.d16.pl/

Do you own any of D16’s products?

If you listen to my music every now and then you come across a song that could almost be hip hop. Songs like It’s Goes Like This and of course One Night in NYC are good examples. The reason? Well before I became a New Wave, EBM freak was into classic Hip Hop.

I used to break at my local bowling alley. I had pinstriped Lees and Puma’s with fat laces. I even had a white cap that said “Fresh” (unfortunately thats not a lie!). I have a giant Conion boombox which is the size of a car door (thats a photo of it today in my father’s office). I bought it at the Spring Valley flea market. Every Friday and Saturday night I recorded DJ Red Alert on Kiss FM and Marley Marl’s Rap Attack on WBLS. I still have a huge box of those cassettes waiting to become digital! The video above shows how popular breaking became and its infiltration into every suburb in America.

Even though I moved on quickly past the genre I’m glad I cut some of my teeth there. Learning hip hop vocal styles and drum machine programming at such an early age has really helped throughout my music career. You would be surprised how much skill goes into simple worded verses. How you can really change the feeling of the message by swinging your voice around. And drum machine programming…

So what got you started in music?

Also read…
Cassette tape nostalgia. Rewind: click here
Beatsource for Hip Hop has launched: click here

Here is an interesting plug-in. It’s been available for PC for a few months but now that I can use it on my Mac it’s worth a post here. It’s a four channel drum machine plug-in that uses samples (PCM) and analog modeling. What’s unique is the fact that this virtual machine has been “virtually” circuit bent!

You get four pads and individual outputs. Each pad allows the usual stuff like pitch, decay, tone, pain and volume. You also have chaos and chance sliders. Chaos sets is the amount of bending and chance sets how often chaos occurs.

Inspired by a combination of several old school beat boxes and the circuit-bending culture that revolves around cheap, and old, hardware musical instruments (such as the “toy” Casio and Yamaha keyboards of the 80s), Broken Drum Machine brings the lively, “ever changing”, circuit-bent drum machine sounds to your DAW. - NUsoftting.com

You can use your own samples and even alter the GUI. When you do so you can save your changes in what NUsofting calls “Modpaks”.

Here’s a few audio samples of BDM in action from the NUsofting website:

This plug-in is 35 euros/about $50. There’s more audio samples, demo songs and a demo version of BDM at the NUsofting website: click here

On my “must get in 2008″ list is the Vermona DRM1 MKIII. It’s one of the very few analog drum machines being manufactured new today. It sounds similar to a vintage analog machine, somewhere in-between a Roland TR-CR78 and TR-808. The tuning pots for each sound allow it to reach a wide range of sound. The new MKIII version does away with the Distortion Effect and replaces it with a Waveshaper. It does not sound like a 909 or Jomox. Take a listen:
Vermona_DRM.mp3

After the fall of the wall, the inventors from the GDR-label for electronic instruments, Vermona, founded a new company named HDB audio. Based in the east German Vogtland near the Czech border, they have been recognized throughout the years for their OEM, quality, production for well known brands of tube amplifiers, mixers, splitters and other gear. During the past ten years they have been financing their love of electronic instruments by working for these other manufacturers who respect their quality and on-time work. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that the founders could buy their label back from investors. Now they are in full throttle with HDB for pro audio and Vermona for pro synth and effects. (The stuff they truly desire to create!) - www.schneidersbuero.de

Each sound has an individual output and there is a stereo out and headphone jack. For a little extra money you can get it with silver knobs, blue LEDs and wood side panels. There’s not too much more to say other than this thing sounds really nice! In a recent trip to Schneider’s Buro in Berlin I picked up the advertisement for the DRM (MKII version). I scanned it for you to check out. If you click the image above it will take you to the full size scan.

Musikinstrumente & Design is a small vintage music instrument shop in Berlin. In fact, it’s directly three doors down from where I live. This means everyday I walk by and have to force myself not to buy anything! It’s a typical Berlin “Geschäft” meaning it opens “whenever” and there is usually three or four people just hanging around drinking and smoking cigarettes.

Please click here to view a small photo set from inside Musikinstrumente & Design. I’ve never seen some of these pieces so please feel free to comment or tag the photos in flickr. 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.

Robert Green has been circuit bending instruments for about 7 years. If your not the type to pick up a soldering gun and risk electric shock but need a bent device definitely take a close look at what Robert has to offer.

Besides the usual Speak N Spell and Casio SK modifications, Robert specializes in digital drum machines including the Alesis HR-16, Roland TR-707 and Yamaha series. Some of his bends use a patch bay modification and others metal switches.

This Alien-Devices modified Alesis HR16 drum synthesizer features 28 sound modifications which are controlled by 14 three-way switches. The modifications can effect the drum sounds in subtle or drastic ways creating beat mutations, digital filtering, distortion, synth tones, envelope warping, overload, bizarre beats and electronic textures. These units are excellent sample sources as well as stable live instruments and are fully MIDI capable.

If you want to get your hands dirty and try some modifications yourself there is a CD-Rom video tutorial for sale on Amazon called Circuit Bending for Beginners. I personally have not seen it but I’ve heard good reviews. There is of course plenty of free stuff to start watching on YouTube including “Circuit Bending Workshop” by Ben Goldstone. The comments under that video are pretty interesting.

A few years ago I went to the Bent Festival in New York. It’s a nice geek fest of circuit bending. My favorite “instrument” was a old dot matrix printer rigged to play audio notes depending on which key you pressed. Here are the upcoming dates/locations for 2008:

Los Angeles Bent Festival - April 17th-19th, 2008.
New York Bent Festival - April 24th-26th, 2008.
Minneapolis Bent Festival - May 1st-3rd, 2008.

Do you own any bent instruments?

What do you call the guy who hangs out with the band? The drummer! I always seem to find that joke funny for some reason. Anyone who reads this blog knows how much I love drum machines. Well people, soon we can take the drum machine to the next level! Imagine the new Roland TR-2010: Fully robotic drummer! Come on Roland we want it! We are all bored with your new Grooveboxes, we want robots!

More Robot Drummer videos:
Fredy Fantastico
DrRythm55
Mindstorm Robot Drummer

I speak for everyone right?