A real analog kick processed by some monster hardware boxes. Record it 65 ways and give it away free. That’s what Wave Alchemy just did. Hey, it got me to their site to look around.
“65 24-bit 100% royalty free kick drum (Jomox AIRBase 99) samples which have been recorded through an A-grade signal chain including devices such as the Thermionic Culture Vulture, Empirical Labs Distressor and API 512c pre-amp.” – wavealchemy.co.uk
Get your free samples here: http://www.wavealchemy.co.uk/club_kicks_2/pid60/fr
via Synthtopia
This entry was written by , posted on March 3, 2010 at 5:58 am, filed under sounds and tagged Airbase, API, API 512C, compressor, Distressor, drum machine, Empirical Labs, free, Jomox, kick drums, samples, Thermionic Culture Vulture. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The NAMM Show acronym stands for “National Association of Music Merchants”. The event takes place twice a year. There is a summer event in Austin, Texas but the bigger of the two happening this week in Anaheim, California. There are many websites covering NAMM 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 Winter NAMM 2010 hot picks:
Soundcloud Integration With Audio Software. I’m a full on web junkie and I like my stuff in the cloud. I think redundant servers spread out around the world are far better places to store my precious files than my own home and Lacie hard discs. I also love to share. That’s the point of being a musician no? Soon you will be able to render and send a file from Ableton direct to SoundCloud. My music from me to you faster than ever. I like it! link
Mungo Enterprises State Zero. A giant hardware interface full of knobs. 8 voice polyphony. Anything to anything patching. Patches store in memory. If this is real analog and less than a price of a car I’m sold. If it’s digital or crazy expensive I’ll play with the one you buy. link
Jomox M.Brane 1_1. Wicked snappy sharp analog snares and percussion. I have the Jomox Mbase 01 kick module and it’s wonderful so as soon as the M.Brain is available it’s mine. I’ll trade gigabytes of snare samples for one real analog snap. link
Dave Smith Instruments Mopho Keyboard. (photo credit: Synthesizers) The spiritual descendant of the Sequential Circuits Pro-One has arrived. The Pro-One was the main keyboard used by Vince Clarke on the amazing Yaz albums so you know the Mopho’s got mojo! Why waste desktop space with a empty Oxygen 8 or like controller when you can slap one of these new Mopho’s in its place? Thanks to internet nagging the price will be right on this new guy too. link
Akai iPK25. A real hardware piano keyboard for the iPhone. If other Apps can access the keys then this is nice. If not it’s a full on dud. link
Teenage Engineering OP-1. Here’s a product that looks like special care has been baked into it’s DNA. A small super stylish hardware TAPE sampler with a FM receiver, G-Force Sensor (Wii), OLED display, speaker and USB connectivity. TAPE mode is awesome. The graphics on the display are awesome. If you’re a musician with a sole you have to want one. If you want to show up your hipster friends with microKorgs this is the guy to do it with. The bad? It’s still away off and who know’s what the price will be. link
So how are you going to spend your money in 2010? Do any of these or other NAMM new releases tempt you?
This entry was written by , posted on January 17, 2010 at 8:33 am, filed under hardware and tagged Akai iPK25, Dave Smith Instruments, Jomox, Jomox M.Brane 11, Mopho, Mungo Enterprises, NAMM, OP-1, Slate Zero, SoundCloud, Teenage Engineering. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Pure analog electronic snares, snaps and crashes are what the new Jomox M.Brain 1_1 is all about. If your like me and have spent countless hours searching for the snap sound in Soft Cell’s Tainted Love (iTunes link) then this seems like this box is for you. I know I’m going to grab one to sit next to my MBase. If you haven’t already seen it be sure to check out my visit to Jomox and interview with Jürgen Michaelis: click here
Audio demo: MBrane11Demo-01Master.mp3
“Analog Membrane Modeling. Two analog T-bridge oscillators become electronic membranes. Why? Because they can be coupled. And because their dampening can be controlled. Then add a little noise, add a little envelope, and the brand new electronic percussion synthesizer of Jomox is ready.” – Jomox.de
For more info: Jomox.de
This entry was written by , posted on January 11, 2010 at 5:38 am, filed under hardware and tagged drum machine, Jürgen Michaelis, Jomox, noise, snare. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
See more of the Steinberg Messe09 episodes: click here
Our friend Jürgen shows Sonic State the new Mbase 11: click here
Nick from Sonic State visits Sherman: click here
A look at the Focal booth (these are great speakers): click here
A bit of German chat at with Dieter Doepfer: click here
If you can speak German check out Musotalk’s look at the new Waldorf Largo software synth: click here. These are just a few of the videos I found that peaked my gearlust antennae. There’s no need for me to repost too many here as you can troll tons of show videos with a few simple searches in the usual places. Hit me with any links to videos if you find something you thought was extra interesting!
This entry was written by , posted on April 4, 2009 at 8:31 am, filed under hardware, video and tagged Focal, Jomox, Musikmesse, Sherman, video. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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.
Berlin is the undisputed center of electronic music. A few times a month friends and blog readers come to visit. I’ve decided to make a Google Map with the locations of many of the great record stores, labels, synthesizer manufacturers, audio software companies and nightclubs you can check out upon arrival.
Ableton, Tresor, Hard Wax, Native Intruments, Schneider’s Buero, Neumann, MFB, Gigolo Records, Berghain, JoMoX, Sugar Bytes, BPitch Control, SoundCloud… what more do you want?
If you do come to visit don’t forget you will be in a gorgeous city full of historic places and green parks. Don’t spend all your time dancing. See it all!
Remember Google Maps is feature rich. You can get point to point directions, zoom way in, see satellite views and create your own map of places in Berlin you want to see (click a pin and select “save to my map”).
To view the map full screen and also see the complete list of great places: click here
This entry was written by , posted on October 11, 2008 at 8:47 am, filed under business and tagged ableton, Berghain, Berlin, BPitch Control, Germany, Gigolo Records, Google, Hard Wax, Jomox, map, MFB, Native Intruments, Neumann, Schneiders Buero, SoundCloud, Sugar Bytes, Tresor. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
What’s my secret to making music? I let my Gummi Bear friends do it for me! Normally they are camera shy but today they let me take photos of them recording a song. There are 10 photos and captions in total so be sure to click “Continue…” to see them all!
Red and his twin brother (also named Red) team up to add more noise into the signal chain of an Electrocomp-101 vintage analog synthesizer.
Green helps Orange change the Control Mode to Envelope 1 on an Electrocomp-101 synthesizer.
Green and Red need some inspiration before they go back to making music so they lie down for a bit on a Roland SH3 synthesizer keyboard and stare at the studio’s acoustic cloud.
Yellow and Red team up and jam on a Vermona DRM1 MKIII drum machine. Yellow changes the resonance on the snare while Red messes with the highpass filter on the lazer zap.
This entry was written by , posted on September 11, 2008 at 11:32 pm, filed under Ableton Live, apple, hardware, song writing and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, candy, drum machine, Electrocomp-101, Gummi Bear, Gummy Bears, Jomox, Korg Legacy, Korg MS20, M-Audio, Oxygen 8, Roland SH3, studio, synthesizer, Things to Come Records, Vermona DRM1, Yamaha CS5, Yamaha NS10M. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The next release on my record label is by French DJ and producer Stamba. I am remixing one of the songs called Deviation. All the tracks on the release are what you would call darkwave, ebm, techno. Don’t you love all these sub-genres? Take a listen:
I recreated his original song in Ableton Live, keeping his vocals but using all my own sounds. Some of the gear and plug-ins used include a Jomox Mbase-01, Vermona DRM1 MKIII, Audiorealism Bassline, Korg Legacy, PSP Nitro, Fabfilter Volcano 2, assorted TC Powercore dynamics and Sugar Bytes Effectrix.
We have released the remix samples under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. If you want to grab the samples for your own fun head to the discography page for this release at Things to Come Records:
thingstocome.com/discog/TTC-017
The full release will be available on August 4, 2008.
This entry was written by , posted on July 23, 2008 at 12:42 am, filed under Ableton Live, hardware, music, plug-ins and tagged Audiorealism, Creative Commons, darkwave, EBM, Effectrix, fabfilter, Jomox, Korg Legacy, PSP Nitro, remix, Stamba, Vermona DRM1. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m happiest when creating songs for fun. Music that doesn’t have to fit anyone’s expectations. Constantly those recordings are my best. Remixes fall in the “oh man why am I doing this” category. I really pull my hair 
out trying to bend someone else’s vision into my own. For the most part if a song is great to start with it won’t need a remix. Sure there are super rock or melodic songs that need to be made into club hits but most of the remixes I get offered are already electronic.
Today I’m remixing a guy named Satronica. He’s one of my good friends from New York. He’s working on an album for Lenny Dee’s Industrial Strength Records. The song titled “Revenge Plan” is vocal heavy. The way he sings is pretty weird, almost an Arab chant style. I’m still trying to figure out how to mash the vocals into a tight grid. I may end up cutting each word up and throwing it into Reason’s NN-XT.
Because the vocals are so strong I don’t feel the need to keep his original music so I fired up some new toys and here’s a clip of what’s on the machine today.Keep in mind it’s just the synths and basic beat at this point. Purely amateur time so far:
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The kick is Jomox Mbase 01, the main synth is the Voice of Saturn being sidechained with the key using Ableton’s compressor, later I add in another two copies of the Voice of Saturn channel but detuned left and right. The lazer zap’s are from an Audiorealism ABL. The drum roll is D16’s Drumazon and Devastor also sidechained with the Mbase 01. The snare is loaded into Native Instrument’s Battery 3 and if from a freebee disc I got with Computer Music magazine a few years ago.
It’s not nearly where it will end up but I thought you’d like to check in on the process. Writing this post gave my ears a few minutes break.
This entry was written by , posted on July 4, 2008 at 1:09 pm, filed under Ableton Live, Propellerhead Reason, hardware, plug-ins and tagged ableton, Jomox, Lenny Dee, Reason, remix, Satronica, sidechain, Voice of Saturn. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Wire to the Ear takes you to Jomox. from wiretotheear on Vimeo.
Last week I decided to buy a Jomox Mbase 01. It’s a 100% analog kick drum module. It gives you kicks that range from a small click to complete bass insanity. It can convincing do any 909 or 808 kick drums plus many more variations. Honestly it’s the best kick drum I ever heard. I will be doing another post with samples and a full review. Take it from someone who performs live every weekend: having a killer perfect kick drum is vital!
My first go to place for all things analog boutique is Schnieder’s Buero and since I already have a Vermona DRM1 MKIII on order with them I thought I would just add the Mbase onto the order. Unfortunately they said 
they were out of MBase’s and didn’t know when new ones were coming in. Next I walked over to Sound & Drumland and they told me it would be about a month. A month? Come on man! I have money there must be a way right?
So I did what any American born capitalist would do and emailed the manufacturer direct. Just a few minutes later Jürgen Michaelis the owner and producer of all the Jomox products emailed me back saying he had one left and I could pick it up from him. I knew if I was going to Jomox I had to bring my camera.
I got on my bicycle (it’s the best way to get around Berlin) and made my way to Neukolin to Jomox headquarters. What I did not expect was Jürgen being so open and friendly. He could see I was seriously interested in what was going on and he put aside a good hour of his day to show me his workshop and toys. I’m very pleased to be able to show you the video above.
Do you see that Mbase 01 he signed? That one is mine!
Here are a few bullet points I picked up from my conversation with Jurgen Michaelis:
Besides the video I took a few still photos. Check them out: click here
| www.flickr.com |
This entry was written by , posted on April 28, 2008 at 11:44 pm, filed under hardware, interviews, synthesizer, video and tagged Jürgen Michaelis, Jomox, Mbase 01, SunSyn, T-Resonator, Xbase. 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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