Synth Rorschach #18: Kitten on the Keys

via CatSynth

This one reminded me of the Bahn Sage (see label below) meets The Schmidt. It's kind of interesting to think The Schmidt is real.

SMS-2000 Synth Expansion Box Wood Frame for Sale

via the synth hoax king Ken Elhardt on the SDIY list, the frame of the SMS-2000 is for sale. If you don't know what the SMS-2000, click here, scroll to the bottom of the page, click older posts and scroll down to the first SMS 2000 post. Don't miss the Bahn Sage while you are there. Some truly amazing work.

Notes via KH on SDIY:
"SMS-2000 Synth expansion box wood frame. If you build DIY electronics projects and want something a bit nicer than an ugly, unfinished looking plastic or aluminum box to put knobs/buttons on and electronics inside, then pictured below is a nice wooden frame. It fits a 10.5" by 7.75" piece of metal or whatever material your panel will be. See pictures below. Note that my router took a small chip out of the upper left corner as barely seen in the bottom image in the first picture below. Only held together by wood screws, so it can be taken apart and a refinished or laquered up for a glossy shine if one desires. $20 plus $7 postage for the lower 48 states, Paypal." More images here.

Kinetic Sound Prism Demo?

Remember the Kinetic Sound Prism? Title link takes you to a 3.99M demo according to Elhardt. The question mark? Well Elhardt is the man who brought us the Bahn Sage, and is suspect number one on the SMS 2000, so...

"The following excerpt is a mp3 I recorded off of the Prism demo tape. As
can be heard, it's probably a better advertisement NOT to spend $30K on this
synth. It doesn't seem to be making any kinds of sounds that couldn't be
done on something like a Prophet-5, except that with the polyphony and
multitimbral capabilities, maybe it can be done without multitracking. And
by the time the Prism appeared, NED had added sampling to the Synclav, and
there was the Fairlight. Both with demo tapes that made you want to buy
them. If I can find somebody to host large MP3 files, I can record those
demo tapes too.

I should point out also, that bubble memory was not a useless or obsolete
technology. It maintains memory on power down without battery backup, just
as my Apple ][ bubble memory card has been doing for the past 25 years, and
might be able to do so even with an EMP from a nuclear bomb. Bub mem was
still being sold up into the 90's in the form of RAM Disc computer cards.
Maybe still is."

Synthesizers.com History

Title link takes you to an interesting bit of synth history. When Synthesizers.com first came about people questioned whether it was real or another hoax like the Bahn Sage.

"Monday morning I woke up to many dozens of emails with 'synthesizers.com' in the subject. Wow, something has happened - but what? As I start reading them, some are not very nice. This is a unexpected slap in the face for 3 years work, but why? Come to find out, a few weeks/months earlier, a prankster had posted a professionally created set of graphics depicting a new synth which had duped many people. Not being a reader of the Analog Heaven mail list, I missed the story. Paul Schrieber of Synthesis-Technology who lives nearby told me about it at lunch one day but I had no idea it was such a big deal and caused such a big stink. Anyway, this caused many folks to assume my work was another plot to overthrow the analog synth world. They began by pixel-picking the Q119 Sequencer picture which caused me a lot of grief to create. This was compounded by my whimsical depiction of a synth monolith linked to the home page. And I was so proud of my new found PhotoShop abilities too! On top of that, there were even questions about the photographs I had taken on the About Us page which were only cropped before placing on the website."

It's a fascinating read and it really makes you wonder about the SMS 2000. Another manufacturer that was questioned was Cwejman. I remember when renders first appeared of the S1. People questioned whether it was yet another hoax.

Elhardt even had a little fun:
"Just like the Cwejman and Dotcom, I kind of wanted people to suspect me. I
even faked a picture of a Cwejman sitting in my rack to just lead people
into thinking it was a hoax. That makes it more fun. I prefer to just keep
quiet and make people suspicious."

Well, Cwejman and Synthesizers.com are most definitely real. The SMS 2000? Time will tell. The one thing to note is that with both Synthesizers.com and Cwejman, the manufacturers and others came out relatively quickly, putting the rumors of a hoax to rest. That hasn't happened with the SMS 2000 yet. Anyone out there know anything? : )

Seekers SMS1000 and Update on the SMS 2000

It just gets better. Check out the updates on the SMS 2000 post. I think we finally have a contendor to the Bahn Sage. Is the SMS 2000 real or not?

Click here for more on the Seekers SMS1000 pictured. Also check out this site.

SMS 2000 - New Flickr Shots

Update: Be sure to read the updates below and do not miss the links. Looks like we finally have a contendor to the Bahn Sage. Elhardt, you have some competiton. Is it or isn't the SMS 2000 real?

flickr set by synthfanKH.

Looks like we are on a "dream synth" roll this week.

Update: Click images for much larger shots.
Update: Looks like these shots got traction on AH. Word is that it's a fake which I guessed as well. Via Mike Fiction on AH: "As a photographer I can tell you the second photo is 100% a fake. The depth of field is way too great. It's an indoor shot, light would have been low so even with a fast iso it would have been impossible to get such great depth of field with a fast enough shutter speed to have frozen things like the womans hair. There would have been motion blur. The A in alesis is just as in focus as the black pole at the far side of the tent."

Update: Some still think it could be real. If you blow up the second shot you will see the name tag reads, Mr. Kirikax (click for more info).

Via Nick on AH:
"I'm still of the opinion that it's some new prototype synth by Seekers, the Japanese company (formerly Sky Soundlab) who made the Voice Spectra vocoder (seen on the left in the photo with mics attached). They were trying to build a full featured and pricey monosynth about 6 years ago.

CLICK FOR MORE »

The Nahb Egas

Title link takes you to the full print.



Bahn Sage
: )

The Bahn Sage Makes a Come Back!

Remember the Bahn Sage? Word has it it's featured on page 14 of the April issue of Keyboard Magazine. Can't wait to get my copy. BTW, the same Elhardt that does the insanely impressive emulations, like the Jupiter 6 covering Freebird, was the man behind the Sage.


Shot via Sequencer.de

TC Electronic Quintet - Elhardt Sings

From the man who brought us The Bahn Sage and some of the most amazing samples from the Alesis ION and MOTM & Andromeda A6, a demo of the TC Helicon Quintet vocal processor. Click here for small 1.4M demo. Trust me, it's worth listening to. Enjoy. : )

Elhardt on Synthesis

Elhardt. Some of you may recognize the name. For those of you that do, it might conjure up a number of reactions, some good some bad. : ) He has been the source of a number of controversies and one grand spectacle in the synth world - the Bahn Sage. The Bahn Sage was probably the biggest synth spoof ever. I remember spending weeks with others trying to find more on this mystery synth. A photo showed up on the net and it quickly spread, followed by more, and finally a brochure that had people whipping out their Photoshop skills to analyze in detail. In the end it was a fake; a brilliant hoax.

Now Elhardt has be showcasing his amazing programming skills by conjuring up some of the most realistic acoustic examples of real life instruments with an Alesis ION, Andromeda A6, and MOTM modular. Is it real or is it another hoax like the Sage? Who knows. I'm inclined to believe these samples are real given the attention to detail with the Bahn Sage, and replications of real world instruments by synthesists such as Wendy Carlos in the past, but you never know, do you. His samples are pretty awe inspiring (check out the links to some of my previous posts below for some examples, specifically the realistic drum set).

Another controversial perspective on synthesis from Elhardt? Knobs are not performance controllers. They are used to edit and create sounds. That's it. If you want to control sounds while playing, use the dedicated performance controllers on the synth like the mod wheels and keyboard. : ) I like to play outside of the box myself. Regardless I am impressed by Elhardt, and I do appreciate his dedication to synthesis.

Recently Elhardt sent an email to AH on his perspective on synthesis. I asked him if it would be ok for me to post it and he said yes. Enjoy. Or not. : )

Elhardt on Synthesis:

"Following are all the reasons I like to do realistic emulations of reality.

1) There is nothing interesting about playing samples. Everbody is doing that. Buy a $200 Casio and it does it. The skill of synthesis is completely missing. An artist paints a landscape, he doesn't just snap a photo of it. Sample libraries make everybody sound the same. If everybody synthesized their own acoustic sounds, everybody would have a different style.

2) Sample libraries are so insanely huge and can't even be fully used in real-time. I'd have to spend weeks sifting through 35 Gig of string samples and articulations and go through days of intense sequencer/midi programming to get them to play in a realistic manner. I'd have to use them from a computer with bug-ridden software. Major sample libraries are never complete, and constant updates suck money from you for the rest of your life. It's all going in the wrong direction.

3) I want instruments that play like physically modeled instruments. I just call up one patch and play it expressively in real-time. Simple. I also want to do instruments I can't buy samples of, or create brandnew instruments never heard before.

4) BTW, I have a lot of sample libraries, and some of the instruments suck, sometimes it's just a few notes that suck, sometimes the attacks are too slow and they can't be played fast, there are mistakes made (like clicking noises in garritans trombones, or a mono sample within stereo samples and so on), there's the repetative nature of hearing the sample recording played everytime the note is played, and so on.

5) Synthesis died in the 80's, before anybody ever pushed it to its limits. That is unsatisfying to me. When I first heard Tomita, I thought he was synthesizing virtually everything. Through the years, I found out he was using real instruments, mellotrons, and other acoustic methods in places. I want to do what he didn't. When I do a CD, I want to say I created all those sounds. As synthesists, aren't we supposed to show those snobby acoustic musicians we don't need them or their sounds?

6) Acoustic sounds are complex and hard to synthesize. It demonstrates extreme skill, knowledge of sound, and totoal control over a synthesizer to accomplish the advanced and difficult programming to acheive some of those sounds. It requires coming up with new techniques and tricks which are challenging and have never been done before. We've been hearing awful string patches, corny brass patches, cheesy drum patches for decades now. I want to push subtractive synthesis to its limits to see what it can really do, even if it were for no other reason than to say, "see", it really can be done.

7) Doing spacey synth pads and sequenced bass lines and that stuff is all nice and good, and I create many patches like those myself. But those things are relatively easy to accomplish. They don't force you into extreme patches of a 100 modules or into using a 42 band filter bank and spending weeks to acheive something nobody else can seem to do. You can't do this stuff on a Minimoog or OB-8. So as Matthew pointed out, it's mostly unexplored terrain. And doing something for the first time is more motivating to me than doing things already done.

BTW, my latest Nord violin I believe sounds better than the Synful one over certain ranges of notes. After I make two more passes through the 42 band filter bank refining it, I think I may have a better sounding violin over the entire range. Though it still won't play as smoothy. I'm also back to working on my additive string synth for the winter. The one I started working on before Synful hit the market and took some of the wind out of my sail."

Some previous posts on Elhardt:

http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/08/bahn-sage.html
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/12/alesis-ion-ralistic-drum-kit.html
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/11/alesis-ion-demos-by-kenneth-elhardt.html
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/11/alesis-andromeda-a6-and-motm-demos-by.html
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/11/alesis-andromeda-a6-samples-by-kenneth.html

Bahn Sage

Here's a beauty. I remember when this started making its rounds. People were going nuts over it. Slowly more and more info came out only to find it was the biggest hoax in synth history. If you know of a bigger one please share. Thank you Elhardt for an amazing time and congrats on a master prank well done. You have made it into synth history. : ) BTW, this hoax had such an impact on the synth community that when the first pics of the Cwejman S1 appeared people were reluctant to believe it was real, thinking it was yet another one of Elhardt's pranks. A few people were admitedly a little surprised to find the Cwejman was real, including myself.