My Wife Rocks!

I wasn't planning on posting anything regarding my birthday today, but after an excellent lunch (Pho and some stir fry) we headed back home for presents! I got one of those Radio Shack 200 in 1 electronic kits which I've been wanting for some time now. Gotta start somewhere... and it just looks like some fun to be had building sirens and crap. After the gifts and cards she puts a blind fold on me and tells me not to peek. Her and my daughter come back singing happy birthday with this! I could not believe it. A Matrix birthday cake, green on black with my first and favorite synth, the Oberheim Matrix-6. So awesome... She has been 100% behind me, the blog and my synth habit since day one. They are out there guys. : )

I love my wife!

I of course took a ton of shots of the cake for posterity's sake. You can find them here.

And no, she does not call me Matrix on a regular basis. : )

John Foxx - Theres No One Driving Top of the Pops

YouTube via Elektrapunk. Via sequencer.de where you will find one more vid.
So are those Yamaha CS60s or CS80s? I see the ribbon so the CS50 is out. I don't see the two rows of patch bank buttons on the CS80, so I'm guessing they are CS60s.

The Frankenbox

"The Frankenbox is essentially an all-in-one synthesizer built for making distorted screeches, growls, and other awful noises. It includes two oscillators, a built in microphone, two audio inputs, a voltage controlled amplifier with ringmod capabilities, a voltage controlled lowpass filter, an LFO, and a sequencer. One oscillator includes a photocell and the other can be modulated by the LFO and the sequencer. There is a joystick that allows for frequency modulation of the oscillators. Each component was specifically designed with the intention of creating loud, rumbling sounds with crackling distortion over the top. The entire box, down the knobs, case, and LED color, was created exactly as requested. With 41 knobs and hundreds of ways to make the device interact with itself, an almost infinite number of sounds is possible."

Title link takes you to more devices including samples of The Frankenbox and others. Via Colin of Experimentalists Anonymous Custom Electronic Devices.

An Early Dave Smith

This is actually the cover to a DVD titled "Dave Smith: Synthesizer Pioneer." Title link takes you to more info on the Dave Smith Instruments site.

via sequencer.de.

The New Reason

As you all probably know by now, the new version of Reason is out, featuring Thor. Title link takes you there.

Guess the Synth

Title link takes you to more info and images. Click on the Gallery link on the bottom of the page when you get there. There are some great shots. I purposely went with the "wtf-is-that" teaser shot for the post. Don't click unless you want the answer immediately.

via Synthcat who spotted it on the planetz forums.

Jean Laurendeau and the Ondes Martenot

YouTube via unidaddy. Another great vid found by AudioLemon.
BTW, I just added AudioLemon to my Blogroll on the right.
For a current approximation of the keyboard with ring check out the Analogue Systems French Connection.

Yamaha CS-40M

YouTube via analoguecrazy4. via AudioLemon.

KORG Synthe-Bass

via this auction.
Details:
"This is a vintage analog synthesizer released around 1975 (Around the time of the Mini and Maxi Korgs). It's got 5 waveform choices a huge Sine, a buzzy Square, Fat Triangle, More buzzy Square, and then a Phaser setting that makes a sound that is similar to an old Moog Prodigy. It also has a "traveller" (filter cutoff). It is a very small and light Synth/ keyboard (17 keys) that puts out great analog bass tones"


Update: There was also a pedal version that looks like it could work as a desktop unit which you can see in this post.

Update via the comments: "RE: the update: the synthpedal isn't a pedal version, it lacks the VCO and more. The synthepedal is just a env follower VCF, an amazing filter but not a bass synth"

Emulator II

Title link takes you to a great Emulator II site I found via this auction (posted on Matrixsynth-b).

KORG Micro Preset M500 SP

Click here for shots via this auction.

Update: Some interesting bits on the M500 just in via The Most Underrated Synth post.
"It has one oscillator, 2 2-pole resonant LP filters (one for the synth preset, one for the brass preset), and four fixed (organ-style) filters. The 2 filters have VCAs built in, and each of the fixed filter circuits had its own VCA and (fixed) envelope generator. The brass voice and synth voice also had their own envelopes. The envelope attack and release controls affected the synth and brass VCA and VCF.

They could afford 6 VCAs because, for a fixed-voice, fixed-envelope monosynth, they could get away with one-transistor VCAs and RC (NO active component) envelopes, and the VCF/VCA chip I imagine was used in other synths as well.

OMD used this synth a lot on their first few albums. You can recognize it easily in their stuff before they got into samplers, which you can also recognize (Dazzle Ships onwards)"

ARP Quartet

Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.

Vintage Drum Machines

The following are all part of this lot for auction. The named links for each takes you to the individual auction.

KORG RHYTHM 55B
Shots saved here.

CAMEO
Shots saved here.

UNIVOX SR55
Shots saved here.

Hammond Auto-Vari 64
Shots saved here.

OLSEN XX-100
Shots saved here.

Side-Kick-er and Rythm Master
Shots saved here.

More vintage drum machines. And then there was this.

CLICK FOR MORE »

PPG

Click here for additional pics via intercorni.

There are some nice shots of the insides as well.

Pictured:
PPG PRK - blue
PPG 360 Wave Computer - black

the squarewave parade - SOFTCORE

resonant bandpass filter and dual distortion

"this is a new original analog design ( though inspired by the single bands of the korg P3100 filter ) with a few different things going on. the signal path flows like this - buffer - very high gain preamp with switchable clipping distortion - resonant bandpass filter with variable resonance that can self oscillate at higher frequencies and has an adjustable and switchable frequency range - variable heavy breakup distortion - and a violet ( or blue - i ran out ) level indicating led"

Title link takes you there.

"also Ty of dispyz.com has an enormous data recovery bill on the way due to a head crash ( 3 years of work gone ) so he is "regrettably" selling off his Amnesio SL-0.131 prototype. he said just original cost and free shipping i think. you can get in touch with him via email at: dispyz (at) dispyz.com or through his MySpace site he will probably also be posting this in the forum so you can ask him questions if you want ( its like new ) but be nice because he’s using a borrowed PSP the get online, crazy. just thought i would give him a much needed hand and see if anyone is interested. the 131 has 2 lo-bit looping samplers and a passive analog ring modulator ( its a mingrod minus the octave up) all in one box."