Not much to say. It's a 256mb flash drive, shaped like a really ugly guitar. Comes with a very cute tiny guitar case and stand, and costs €55 from GeekStuff4U. (Thanks, Mikey)
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Lots of people say things like 'RARE legendary' in eBay auctions for DX7s and Casio VL-Tones, but eBay item #300001522431 doesn't go for hype, just saying "prototype VOCODER of german 70´s Electronic Pioneers". What's on offer is Ralf & Florian's vocoder, built to order by a local electronics company, and later used on the intro to 'Autobahn'. No bids so far at $3,800, with ten days to go. (Thanks, Kaden)
On Wednesday (28th June), Peter Gabriel's Real World studios is launching a remix competition, based on the multitrack from 'Shock The Monkey.' Stef from Real World says: "The sample pack is pretty much a who's who of your fave retro synth
and studio tech including Fairlights, Prophet 5's, Linn Drums, Ground
Hum and Headphone Bleed etc..." Shock the Monkey was recorded in 1981-2, and was the first thing Peter made with his new Fairlight CMI: "I'd been dreaming for some time of an instrument that could sample stuff from the real world and then turn it, make it available on a keyboard. Larry Fast told me that he thought he'd heard rumours of such an instrument. It was £10,000 which seemed an unearthly amount of money, got very excited with this thing, it's called the Fairlight. I spent a lot of time then collecting sounds going to factories and the university, getting interesting samples that were then used on that record and the ones after, it was really one of the key things that gave that record a different sound." Here is a QT clip of Peter talking about recording the track.
Eric from Metasonix writes: "One of the German members of the Tube Collectors Association has built a Nixie tube clock. But it's not a typical Nixie clock. The guy decided to make ALL the electronics out of tubes. I estimate about 90 tubes. Some people have far more time on their hands than I do. Text is in German but the photos will make your jaw drop." Tonnes of pictures here, and this coming from a man who builds synths from tubes. Makes this look even lamer, doesn't it?
Is there anything more joyful than a huge, massively over-engineered effects pedal covered in LEDs, tiny switches and retro synth knobs? The Ultron is a filter, very loosely based on the Mutron III (celebrated at this wonderful site). The signal path is all analog, with digital circuitry to control the analog components (a bit like a modern Moog synth). It has endless features - High, band and low pass filter, an LFO, CV control, multiple LFO waveforms. Delightfully, it has a truly old school DIP switch inside, to tweak various features. The Ultrem is a tremelo, with every bell or whistle you could imagine. They're $425 and $375, with more info here
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David writes to let me know about Droon, a breakcore musician from Antwerp who also makes cool games. He plays live (at clubs like Breakcore Gives Me Wood) with a homemade keytar, built around a normal ASCII keyboad. Unfortunately, this image sort of illustrates everything that's wrong with playing live music with a laptop...
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I was browsing through the always wonderful Miniorgan.com when I stumbled across this (relatively) new addition: The Tomy Voice-Corder, a very expensive and rare toy from Japan, released in 1972 and presumably discontinued soon afterwards. It's a tiny, portable dub-plate cutter. For kids. No, there' isn't one on eBay right now... (previous coverage here)
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Paul writes from NYC to tell me about a fantastic project he's running with kids from various high schools across Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. They build guitars and tin-can amplifiers, then record the results to make a radio show which you can download from the site. Paul says: "They spent a lot more time making the instruments than learning to play and record, which shows in the mp3, but the guitars sound good." Why didn't I do this at school when I was 14?
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These are the new toys licensed by Blue Man Group (and developed by ToyQuest). They'll be launching in July with a big TV ad campaign in the run up to Christmas. The keyboard is $79.99, the percussion tubes are $69.99. I don't yet have pictures of the intriguingly named 'Drum Suit' and 'Air Pole'. All the instruments use "new proximity sensor technology, pre-programmed songs[and] interchangeable instrument sounds" to "enable kids to mix and layer music with a simple wave of their hands." Entertainment Weekly played with them at Toy Fair: "While the keyboard is interesting, it's the motion-sensor instrument that responds when you wave your hand over the tubes that floored me. But the best part? The ability to hook your iPod up to them and mix over your favorite songs.".
... [HERE]
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It's long been established by relevant authorities that white synths are cooler than black synths. However, there's always someone who wants to take it too far and spoil it for everyone. In this case, it's Madonna's keyboard player Marcus Brown, a Roland endorsee who shows off his customised Fantom, SH-201, V-synth and V-Synth XT (in the aquarium) while keeping slightly quieter about his Nord Lead 3. They were all painted white by the legendary Forat, (more about him here) who is the proud-looking guy in the picture above. There's an interesting thread about the whole thing at Harmony Central, which concludes that: a) Marcus is a nice guy, despite his experimental facial hair. b) Clavia were mean for not sending Forat the logo artwork for the Nord c)The tricky things about playing keyboards for Madonna are getting the patch changes right, not being knocked off your podium by backing singers, and the arpeggios in 'Lucky Star'.
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We've covered instructional videos before, but this clip [QT video] from Curved Air is amazing.
About a week ago, I was thinking about my fellow bloggers, notably Matrix Matrix Synth, Chris Analog Industries and Peter Create Digital Music. I was wondering where they wrote their stuff, and what kind of gear they had themselves. I emailed them, suggesting a big show and tell. Predictably enough, they mostly replied "er...I'm kind of restyling my studio right now, can we do it in a month or so?" Well, I'm always just about to get my gear organised properly, and it's never happened yet. So here's what my spare room / office looks like right now, without any tidying up or dusting (I did move the big ugly red Ikea chair). The Flickr page has lots of notes saying what everything is. Right, chaps, I've shown you mine, now you show me yours...
Jesse writes: "Hi Music Thing, Thought you might be interested in my tabla machine as it has gone COMPLETELY INSANE.
Yesterday morning, at the Acoustical Society of America's 151st meeting in Providence, RI, Sophie Léger of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Université de Moncton, Canada, will be presenting a paper on "A New Family of Stringed Musical Instruments". She's one of the inventors of the Tritare, which has triple-ended strings - one string goes up the fretted neck, and the other two resonantes on the second, and third, fretless necks (which the guitar is standing on in this picture). Obviously, the interesting bit is the sound, and this page contains several samples, which are amazing. Presumably they're uneffected, but sound alternately like bells or reverb-covered 'Paris Texas' slide guitar. They're trying to market the Tritare as a product - there's a homepage at Tritare.com, and here is a report from the launch, in 2003 - but meanwhile, they're experimenting with networks of strings, which at the moment are more at the clanking and atonal end of things. (Thanks, Jeff)
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Here is a very entertaining series of tutorial videos, teaching the basics of dance music production, presented by Joseph Cornwell and Dave Braidy. My favourite line is "The waveforms are beautiful. They look rather like sheep. See, a tail there, and perhaps an ear. Or even a horn". Even despite the beards, the sherry, and the boring 'setting up' bit, this video made me briefly want to buy myself a drum kit and learn to play breakbeats...
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Here is a flikr set of Ezra Buchla, (son of Don Buchla) rocking his 200e with two Monome controllers and two laptops. Ezra is part of the Monome development team, and plays with Mae-Shi. Damn, those Buchlas are small and cute. (The 200e, not Ezra...)
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Ryan writes: "I work at a Hi-Fi distributor in **** and we just shipped out one of these. It's a Clearaudio Statement. The thing weights 770lbs, costs $125K, and has the same motor that they used in the Mars Rover! **drool**" There's more information, and lots of porno-style close up photos on this page which includes three short videos, in which you can hear the Hong Kong (I think) dudes who run the website groaning orgasmically and giggling hysterically while poking the platter with their fingers.
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Jonathan writes: "If you're interested in helmet instruments, you should check out this band Fat Day from Boston. They play synth helmets! No real information yet, but there are lots of photos here. I was kind of hoping for a baseball cap with a little keyboard along the brim, but there you go.
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Mike writes: "I thought you might enjoy this instrument that a friend and I built. I wasn't aware there were other helmet instruments out there until i saw the megaphone helmet on your site a couple months ago. Right now our helmet is 3 strings with one pickup and a volume knob. I mostly play it with an EBow for our noise music project. Thanks for looking." Thanks for making, Mike. Just don't come around my house at night dressed like that.
Way back when, I wrote about the Fostex MR-8. It had great specs (uncompressed .wav recording, XLR inputs, 8 channels, runs of 6xAA batteries). However, as I said at the time, it doesn't have phantom power, and "it's possibly the ugliest, reddest, cheapest-looking piece of music gear I've ever seen". Today, Cam wrote to me to let me know about the Fostex MR-8 Mk II. It now has full 48v phantom power, better A/D converters, better software, and is no longer red. But it's still $249. Result! For $150 more, there's also the MR-8 HD, with a built-in 40gb hard drive which is white. Double result! (Thanks Cam)
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Mark wrote: "Hey man. Love your blog. Have you ever considered doing a feature on all the *new* analog synths out there? Comparisons and so on? Might be cool." So I did just that for my Engadget column this week. I only did keyboard synths, so left out the mighty MFB Synth II, which is tiny and knobby and has MIDI, program storage and a sequencer, costs €480/£329, sounded pretty good to me at MusikMesse: review and product page. There's the much simpler Technosaurus Microcon II for roughly the same price if you include the step sequencer. Any others Mark should know about?
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I have a feeling that the M-Audio Midair system was announced at NAMM, but I completely missed it. It's a range of wireless MIDI keyboards. First up is
