Synthorama - Synth Museum Walkthrough - Parts 1 - 5

YouTube via matrixsynth.

This is the walk through of the Synthorma synthesizer museum in Luterback Switzerland. Before you watch this video I want to make a few notes. First of all, be sure to click on the synthorama label/link below to see all posts on my visit to the museum. Second, this set of five videos is literally walk through the museum. If you have been following the posts you will know that the majority of synths are hooked up to headphone amps. There is a very good reason for this - you are encouraged to explore and listen to the individual synths without the disturbance of others doing the same. Because of this there is obviously no synth audio in this set of videos. The purpose of this post is to give you an idea of what is there and to give you a sense of what it would be like to walk through and see all of this before you put the camera down and start playing. :) There is no background track as you walk along. Just a ton of synths you want to explore.

For those of you that get camera sick watching videos like this, apologies ahead of time, and there are plenty of shots of the museum in my prior posts if that works better for you. Hopefully the vids aren't too bad.

That said, enjoy this set of videos, or not. Remember you can mouse over the video and click on the forward and backward links to move on to the next video if you do not have the time to watch all five in one shot.

Thanks again to Martin Hollinger for hosting such an incredible synthesizer asset for the community and a special thanks to swissdoc for not only driving me to the museum with the great synth talk, but also for dropping by the music shop and brockenstube on the way there. I couldn't have dreamt of a better synth fix on my vacation. Thank you.

Synthorama - MISC Shots

click here for the last set of images of the Synthorama synthesizer museum in Luterbach Switzerland. The set includes that last random shots I took of the museum after completing a tour of all the synths. Next up, the video tour of the musuem. Click on the synthorama label below to see all the posts of my visit.

workstation/playstation

flickr by chiasticon
(click for more)

"has a bit of light coming in, at least"

full size

FC-303 - Roland TB-303 Famicon

Famicon as in Nintendo SES. Gizmodo has a post up on various cartridge art. noisesource spotted this one of a Roland TB-303 and sent it in.
"Rounding out our Nintendo news trifecta today is the annual Famicase art exhibition. It's like many other art exhibitions from around the world, made infinitely cooler by the fact that the artwork is composed of imaginary games pasted to old 8-bit Famicom carts."

That said, I'm guessing this is not a TB-303 for the NES. If anyone knows more about this one, feel free to comment.

RobbleGrobble, babbling patch on the modular

YouTube via dkimcg
"PlanB generates sound and processes timing from 2 envelopes I borrow from the Paia and uses the model 10 a secondary envelope. The main swell in volume is the Paia's adsr envelope rising slowly and cutting out. the model 24 generates the randomness in the patch. The triple time pulls it's weight on this one. Watch it's LEDs blink timing out 2 envelopes. The model 24 processes 2 LFOs from the Filtered Coffee unit and one of the envelopes from an AR envelope from the Paia. It the nsend out modulations to the filters and ocillators. It's a pretty complicated patch, but most of it was trying to get the Model 17 triple timer to time out events where you really see and hear it in action.
The space echo is turned on about 1/4 of the way in to fill out the sound a little. All analog on this recording, no processing in the computer at all."

Alesis Micron VS. Waldorf Micro Q

YouTube via Gtechture
"This is a song created on the Waldorf Micro Q accompanied my a Micron"

Testing the Waldorf micro Q multimode

YouTube via trom69
"All sounds are coming from the micro Q (4 timbres + drums). Paterns sequenced using Cubase."

ARP 2600: Sample and Hold

YouTube via AutomaticGainsay
"Here is a demonstration of the sound and functionality of the Sample and Hold circuit of the ARP 2600."

scope + planb + frequencies + expressions + After Effects

YouTube via dkimcg
"I combined a bunch of analog sequences I recorded from my PlanB modular synth to make a "song". I shot the waveforms of the song through an oscilloscope. I did some simple expressions and overuse of the kaleida plugin. Just a sketch. But it looks trippy if you're into trippy things. Go hippie go!

But if you're prone to seizures, this may not be a good one to watch. Seriously."

Oberheim DMX Kick EPROM

via this auction

Circuit Bent Yoda Glitch Ambient Synthesizer

via this auction
" * This is a glitch synthesizer
* Comes with two glitch pushbuttons
* One On/Off switch
* 1/8" MONO Output
* Runs off of 4 AA Batteries (Not Included)
* This sounds like a Furby how he glitches out but he says his Yoda stuff (just how you like it)
Please visit my page at: WWW.MYSPACE.COM/GlitchedOut"

Univox Mini-Korg

images via this auction
"MINI-KORG ELECTRONIC KEYBOARD SYNTHSIZER SERIAL NUMBER 2580 117VAC 50/60 HZ INCLUDES FITTED FLIGHT CASE WITH "CRISPELL FREE-FLIGHT" STENCILED ON."

Oberheim Xpander

images via this auction

Crumar Stratus

images via this auction
"Recently discovered at a 40+ year old music store where it has been in storage since it left the factory. Everything works. It is an extremely versatile and powerful 49 key 2 oscillator 6 note polyphonic analog synth that uses CEM chips, the same type inside the most sought-after vintage analog polysynths, so there's a very similar sound. The LFO can be routed to the VCOs, the VCF or the VCA. Available waveforms are square and sawtooth. There is a knob controlling rate and depth, and a simple ramp generator, controlling how fast the modulation affects the sound, with knobs for slope and delay. There's also an organ section with 4 drawbars and separate volume controls to determine the volume of each of 4 octaves, which can be used simultaneously with the synth sounds. The filters sound really great - the very desirable warm analog sound. The LFO can do FM, wah or tremolo. The LFO section also has adjustable slope and delay, which many similar synths didn't have. There's a button that causes the LFO to automatically do 1 octave square wave pitch modulation, which is a really useful feature. The oscillator glide can be set to single or multi trigger. There's an oscillator pitch envelope as well. Otherwise, it has all of the standard polysynth features. One unique feature is the ability for the voices to alternate between square and sawtooth waveforms at the same time. This is a cool synth that can sound really nice and would make a great addition to a vintage synth collection, as it is in pristine cosmetic and working condition. Includes the factory demo templates for Honkye Tonkye Strings, Brass Poly Decay and Filter Sweeping Inverted Envelope.
Check out the original factory demo and spec info at: link"

OBERHEIM OB-1

images via this auction

Sexy

Roland MC-202

flickry by ebaysour

via this auction

Human League - Path of Least Resistance (live BBCtv 1979)

YouTube via spacehopper70. spot the synths
"Top clip of the original line-up performing a song from the first album on some programme called "Mainstream". Repeated as part of the "Sounds of the Seventies" series, hence the daft bookending with Paul Darrow and Patrick Troughton."

Polygomé demonstration

Polygomé demonstration from stretta on Vimeo.
"A quick tour of the polygomé application I created for the monome. The software can be downloaded at stretta.com."

Alan Haven and an Arp2600

flickr by ☆eightbaII☆

full size

"www.myspace.com/officialalanhaven
www.vintagesynth.com/index2.html
'The ARP 2600 is without a doubt one of the finest analog synthesizers ever.'"

Metunar's Psychedelic Modular Movie

SonicstateTV by Metunar
"# Happy Knobbing 2008
Modular Synthesizer Meeting Germany
# Link http://www.metunar.ch/musik/diverses/hk2008.mp4"

YMO Technopolis Live - 3 Years of MATRIXSYNTH

YouTube via matrixsynth.

OK, it's the day after my official three year anniversary on the blog. I wasn't going to mention anything but I figure why not. As for this video. Someone just commented on how it was their favorite. I of course watched it again and realized how good it was. I also noticed that out of 34,470 hits on the video, only 35 came from this site. I usually get a heck of a lot more, but I realize this is because I put up this post back in August of 2006. The obvious observation is I have a heck of a lot more visitors today versus back then so people are missing a LOT of old content. My recommendation is to visit the archives every now and then, but... there was an article I read on the guy that is credited with starting blogs and he gave a few rules on what a blog should be. First, posts should be very short, two they should capture and send people to other sites, and three you should actually post the same content more than once! I used to have a rule that I only post things once. I'm not about to go crazy posting things I already put up, but considering what a "blog should be," I'll be putting stuff up that I might have put up in the past (like this video) should it strike me. If you've seen it already, just ignore it and appreciate that others are now enjoying it as well.

As for numbers, this is post #17,087, the site has had over 2,958,261 visits, 880,569 visitors and over 5,253,505 pageviews. We have not yet conquered the world. Click the world map image below. The green countries have visited MATRIXSYNTH. A bit crazy when you think of it, especially when you consider Iraq and Afghanistan. Anyone into synths there have my utmost respect. Thank you and of course thanks to everyone else that has visited. The white countries however, have not yet visited! I'm guessing either I'm banned in those countries or internet access is of course very sparse. Not sure what the North Koreans have against me though... they do have a kick ass website. Anyway... to those of you that appreciate the site and to those of you that have contributed, THANK YOU!!! I've mentioned it privately to a few people but my goal is to have somewhere for people to be able to reflect on what was coming through the synth waves in this day and age. The site is a repository of everything synth, every day from the inception of this site until I finally stop posting. I'm hoping this will be an interesting look back in time 30, 40, 60+ years from now. It's far from perfect, but IT IS a slice in "synth time." Whether you appreciate it or not, it exists and will continue to exist. To those that support the site: you get it, you know who you are, and THANK YOU.

Synthorama - Yamaha Room

click here for images of the Yamaha room at the Synthorama synthesizer museum in Luterbach Switzerland. Click on the synthorama label below to see all posts in this set. An EMS Hi-Fli is also in this set.