FIRST PRODUCTION MATTSON MINI MODULAR SYNTH DEMO MINUET IN A MINOR

YouTube via redmartian
Update: I originally had the VIMEO version up, but it wouldn't play, so here's the YouTube one.

"This piece showed up as being by anonymous in Apollo's Banquet (1670) but is actually by Henry Purcell. A sounds/noises made by the MMM production model number one. The pictures are mostly taken from the 2007 PNW Synth DIY with the original MMM Pre-Production Prototype. Last photo is of Seattle at dusk on Saint Patrick's day."

Note this is demo number eight of the Mattson Mini Modular by Red Martian. I thought I'd put up demos one through seven for reference and a look back in time. Some of these originally went up as YouTube videos so the quality here is better. The following is in order starting with the first.

FIRST PRODUCTION MATTSON MINI MODULAR 07A-0001 SYNTHESIZER from RED MARTIAN on Vimeo.

"Here is the first production model Mattson Mini Modular analogue synthesizer serial number 07A-0001.

All sounds in this recording were produced on the MMM using the production run modules.

The percussion sounds were sampled and arranged on an Akai MPC-1000. The bass line was sequenced in Logic and the saw leads were recorded as performed.

The bass and lead sounds are produced using three oscillators in tune with various setting differences. The Jim Patchell filter is run with both LP and BP outputs run into stereo VCAs.

The only effect used is reverb from a t.c. electronic M-One."

CLICK FOR MORE »

CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES Cover by Red Martian

Follow-up to this post. Red Martian's cover of The Cure's Charlotte Sometimes is now available as a free download on Bandcamp. Every synth sound you hear on the track is the Rev 1 Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 which featured SSM based filters vs. the CEM filters found in the later Rev 3. All drums are the Roland TR-626. For guitar and bass the track features a Rickenbacker bass and Fender Jazzmaster, which was Robert Smith's guitar of choice throughout his early career.

via @sdf_pubnix

"Red Martian - Charlotte Sometimes free download #indie #music #musicmonday"

gear used: Rickenbacker bass, Fender Jazzmaster, Prophet-5 rev 1 and TR-626.

Red Martian Covers Kraftwerk at the Living Computer Museum Seattle

Uploaded on Aug 15, 2015 matrixsynth

[1st track in the set is actually Isi by NEU]

Red Martian covers Kraftwerk at the Free Play event at the Living Computer Museum in Seattle Washington, Saturday, Aug 15, 2015.
The Seattle Retro Gaming Expo was going on and Red Martian played.

http://redmartian.com
http://www.kraftwerk.com
http://www.seattleretro.org
http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org

Gear:
Realistic Moog MG-1
Roland GAIA
ARP AXXE
Sequential Circuits Prophet-600
acidlab MIAMI
Roland SVC-350
Texas Instruments Language Translator with German & English

BTW, if you do not recognize the name Red Martian, do a quick search for them on the top right here on MATRIXSYNTH.

A few pics before the show:

CLICK FOR MORE »

RED MARTIAN: RETRAILING (Featuring Ichabod) - Release Event in Seattle Tomorrow!

Published on Sep 18, 2015 Redmartian

Red Martian is having their album release event at the Seattle Living Computer Museum this Saturday. You might remember their recent performance there where they covered Kraftwerk. The track above was composed on Ichabod when Stephen Jones of Red Martian was helping George Mattson test Ichabod during its construction. Note Ichabod will not be at the event as it currently resides with Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins, but you are sure to see a great live performance with synths.

Video Description:
"A new album of 13 electronic pieces. The first 100 will be given away as gifts at SRGE: Arcade Armageddon September 19th, 2015 at the Living Computer Museum. Red Martian performs at 8:30pm on the main stage.

Track listing:
[Tracks 09 and 10 were composed on Ichabod, 03 on the Syntar, 04 on the MMM, and 07 on the Solaris.]

01 cowboy and the vocoder [see this post - great track with a sad story]
02 nedan omloppsbana
03 närmar snöblandat regn
04 av död (delorean)
05 retrailing
06 flytta hav av is
07 känner mig så låg
08 風の谷のナウシカ
09 utan hjärta *
10 bedövande en översvämning *
11 ひょろり
12 se io m'accorgo
13 ett vykort

improvised live on the custom Mattson Mini Modular named Ichabod."

Red Martian ROLAND SVC-350 VOCODER

via this auction

"Rackmount unit, one of the best sounding vocoders ever made
Controls operate smoothly, unit works great
USA 120v
owned and used by a non-smoker
Free shipping in the USA, $75 to elsewhere
Used on Red Martian - Your Computer (1993) and Cowboy and the Vocoder"


RECORD PLAY LISTENING OF ACETATE DUB COWBOY AND THE ROLAND VOCODER - RED MARTIAN
YouTube Uploaded by redmartian on Mar 5, 2010
Some of you might remember this one.
"Listening to Cowboy and the Vocoder (1 of 10) acetate dubs. b/w MMM demo number four.
The record is a thick aluminum disk with a coat of dub lacquer. It was a heated cut on a modified 1949 Presto cutting lathe using fairchild and ampex equipment for the mastering and RIAA curve."

RED MARTIAN - YOUR COMPUTER [1993] - ROLAND VOCODER

Uploaded by redmartian on Nov 8, 2008

"Recorded at Hot Traxx (Garland, Texas) in 1993. Yes, I brought everything into a heavy metal recording studio in the back of an El Camino (thanks to Brian Rogers). Here is the equipment list:
- Roland SVC-350 Vocoder
- Roland Alpha Juno (bass line)
- Sequential Circuits Prophet T-8 (additional bass and solo)
- Sequential Circuits Six-Trak (lead)
- Sequential Circuits Prophet-600 (lead)
- Ensoniq Performance Sampler (ERROR 144 - REBOOT?)
- SDF-3 running BSDI BSD/386
- Telebit Trailblazer TB+ plus (calling 'adaptex' over UUCP)
- Pascal Blin (Official French Guy)
- Drums sampled from Kraftwerk's Computer World record
- Vietnamese vocal by Hoang Oanh from Hon Vong Phu

The Telebit was sampled live in the studio because I did not have a SCSI interface on the EPS. The song was supposed to be released on an 'Analogue Heaven' compilation that never materialized and sat on DAT until 2004 when I remastered it and added Pascal Blin's vocal to fill in what I felt were empty spots. Pascal did not know what the words meant but was very concerned about pronouncing them correctly."

Stephen Jones of Red Martian to Perform Live at PNW AES Meeting

Stephen Jones of Red Martian will be performing seven tracks at the upcoming AES Synth Meeting previously posted here. In case you missed it, George Mattson of Mattson Mini Modular, James Husted of Synthwerks, Kevin O'Neill of Flight of Harmony, Scott Rise of Division 6, and Sebastian Jaeger of The Harvestman will be presenting. If you are in the Pacific Northwest, don't miss this event.

Some previously posted videos of Stephen Jones:

GEKIGANGER - THE TRANSFORMATIVE JOURNEY OF THE FIRST PRODUCTION MATTSON MINI MODULAR PART II from RED MARTIAN on Vimeo.

FIRST PRODUCTION MATTSON MINI MODULAR SYNTH DEMO SIX SE IO M'ACCORGO from RED MARTIAN on Vimeo.

Click here and scroll for more videos of and from Stephen Jones.

Red Martian at Bear Creek Studio with Mattson Mini Modular System - Cowboy to Be Officially Released

via Red Martian [bandcamp]

"Working with Scott Jackman and Gordon Raphael at Bear Creek Studio processing drums and other instruments using a guitar has a controller."

And for fans of Cowboy (featuring the Mattson Mini Modular), the single will finally be officially released after sevent years of making it's debut.

via @distillerpromo:

"Hey Radio folks, this retro lookin' synth-tastic record by @sdf_pubnix (Red Martian) goes for RPM ADDs on 7/12!"

via @somnambulist:

"Great music, THX @distillerpromo ! 5" floppy disc promo feat. Mattson Mini Modular synthesiser by Red Martian. #MMM"

Floppy disk pick below. See this video for what they look like when opening.

Details coming: http://www.sanfordco.com

Pacific Northwest Synth 2009 - Red Martian

YouTube via matrixsynth.

This is my video of Red Martian's performance. More details here.
http://redmartian.com
http://mattsonminimodular.com - MMM and Syntar
http://www.division-6.com - Midified Skulls
http://acidlab.de - Miami

Note this is the last of my videos from the PNW Synth Gathering this year.
click here to see all posts in the series.

Cowboy and the Vocoder and the MMM

A tribute to the dog Cowboy who passed away.

YouTube via redmartian. Note this is via redmartian and not AnalogVocoder1 (click for the reference).

"A song written for a dog who likes to listen to the sound the Roland SVC-350 vocoder. This song features the MMM as well as a Sequential Circuits Drum Traks and a Roland Jupiter-6.

Here are the lyrics:

Do you know Cowboy
and the SVC-350?
Do you know Cowboy
and the Roland Vocoder?

Hey there Cowboy
I see you there
Lazy gazing
Gazing lazy
Whos my sweet boy?
You know its you.
I like to vocode and you do too.

No Poly-800 to drive the SVC
So I use an MMM as my carrier wave
No Poly-800 but Cowboy doesn't mind.
We all know its the Roland SVC-350 vocoder time.

Audio version can be found here:
http://redmartian.com/napster/Red_Mar..."

And the first track from this post:


FIRST PRODUCTION MATTSON MINI MODULAR DEMO NUMBER FOUR from RED MARTIAN on Vimeo.

"Here is a fourth demo which features a LP and HP triangle wave arpeggiation nearly through out and a quick EG three oscillator bass. The drum kit is the same as in the other demos with no pitch changes or other processing, just dry sounds out of the VCA. There are two leads one is just two oscillators (saw) and the second has a square and a saw with the saw slight modulated by an LFO with high resonance on the filter.

The bass and arpeggiation were played and quantized in logic. The leads were recorded as played."

JOHN BOWEN SOLARIS SYNTHESIZER PROTOTYPE DEMO NUMBER THREE

JOHN BOWEN SOLARIS SYNTHESIZER PROTOTYPE DEMO NUMBER THREE from RED MARTIAN on Vimeo.

"This features percussion sampled off of the Solaris using an MPC-1000. I did not alter those sounds to try to leave them as pure as possible. The flanging/phase shifting is actually the excellent Comb filter on the Solaris itself."

JOHN BOWEN SOLARIS SYNTHESIZER PROTOTYPE DEMO NUMBER FOUR

JOHN BOWEN SOLARIS SYNTHESIZER PROTOTYPE DEMO NUMBER FOUR from RED MARTIAN on Vimeo.

"The opening of this demo is John's own original demo that he did for the Prophet-5 in 1978. This tune uses the same Solaris generated drum kit from number three as well as more use of that excellent Comb Filter as well as Vector Synthesis using a realization of one of the Prophet VS factory patches."

Previously posted...

JOHN BOWEN SOLARIS SYNTHESIZER PROTOTYPE DEMO NUMBER TWO

JOHN BOWEN SOLARIS SYNTHESIZER PROTOTYPE DEMO NUMBER TWO from RED MARTIAN on Vimeo.

"This is the second 'All Solaris' demonstration made up of 5 separate tracks sequenced and played manually. The pseudo Deep Note was done using two virtual CEM VCOs with about 5-6 seconds of exponential glide and a virtual SSM filter. The long resonant filter sweeping is done on the SSM model."

Demo 1

Red Martian at the New Wave Modular Synthesizer PNW AES Meeting

YouTube via matrixsynth.

Note his comment on orchestrating it. The laptop plays the sequence while Stephen edits the four voices in real time - listen for the subtle tweaks. The laptop only plays MIDI notes. The patches and editing are done by Stephen. In later videos he plays the Syntar. Be sure to see this post for more classical pieces featuring the MMM by Stephen and of course try a search here on MATRIXSYNTH on Red Martian or redmartian for more.

http://redmartian.com
http://synthwood.com
http://mattsonminimodular.com
http://www.myspace.com/bluelightcurtain
http://www.facebook.com/bluelightcurtain

"Stephen Jones of Red Martian, Blue Light Curtain, and Synthwood performs the PMS Syntar and Mattson Mini Modular at the New Wave Modular Synthesizer PNW AES Meeting at MS Studios."
Be sure to click on the PNWAES label below for all posts covering the event.


Don't miss the Syntar demo in the video set above.

CLICK FOR MORE »

Red Martian

One of the people I met at this year's PNW meeting was Stephen Jones. You might recognize the name from this post on the custom wood case for the Sequential Circuts Pro One. You can find more info on the case and other custom work on Synthwood. I actually need to put a couple of posts on the custom T8 and Multi-traks there.

For this post, however, I want to focus on Stephen's band Red Martian. If you like Severed Heads, you will like Red Martian. I asked Stephen what his music was like and what bands influenced him. Not only is he influenced by Severed Heads, but one of their tracks was actually remixed by them. Pretty cool. BTW, you know my policy on only posting music if it showcases a given synth. Well the track "Behind the Mask" features a Prophet 5. Details:

"On behind the mask casey recorded his drums with live bass and keyboard. I then went back and tapped out a gate track along with his human tempo and used that to trigger the backing sequence. All of the synthesizer sounds were done on the Prophet 5. I got the mono lead sounds by killing voices and playing it it unison. "no moogs here". The vocals were done with a SVC-350 vocoder along with the Prophet 5."

Check out their MySpace page to get to the track directly and check out their main site for more. This is good stuff.

Mattson Mini Modular Performances by Red Martian

You can find three new recordings of the Mattson Mini Modular by Red Martian here. Full details for each track are provided. Don't miss these.

MMM

http://mattsonminimodular.com

Thank You Rain

YouTube via redmartian

"Music by RED MARTIAN. More information at
http://redmartian.com

Recorded using an Acidlab Miami, PMS Syntar and Mattson Mini Modular."

Note Stephen Jones of Red Martian will be performing at the PNW AES meet this coming Wednesday. See this post and this post. Georg Mattson, creator of the Syntar and the Mattson Mini Modular will be presenting.

The Syntar Turns 32

Today marks the 32 year anniversary of George Mattson's Performance Music Systems Syntar. You might recognize the name Mattson. George is the man behind Mattson Mini Modular. The Syntar, conceived in 1978, was the first all-enclosed keytar synthesizer. Before then keytars were just controllers. You can read all about the history of The Syntar on Carbon111.com here (you'll find a pic of Bob Moog playing Syntar prototype #1), and of course check out the Syntar label for posts that have gone up here. Below are two videos of Red Martian with the Syntar at the PNW 2009 synth gathering.



Pacific Northwest Synth 2009 - Red Martian
YouTube via matrixsynth | November 03, 2009


YouTube via matrixsynth.

Overview of the Syntar comes in around 1:55.

RED MARTIAN ETT VYKORT EDISON PHONOGRAPH RECORD

Published on Dec 25, 2015

"2M Edison phonograph record"

RED MARTIAN ひょろりEDISON PHONOGRAPH WAX CYLINDER RECORD

Published on Dec 22, 2015

"Limited run of 20 Edison Phonograph wax cylinder records.
BUGHLT KL-27B"

Red Martian MMM Demo MP3s

You can find the MP3s for the Mattson Mini Modular demos by Red Martian here.
Comments disabled in this post to keep them with the video demo post.

Red Martian's Roland TR-808, COMMODORE SX-64 SID Prophet Synth, & 1974 Minimoog Model D

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

Just a heads up. Red Martian (don't miss this post!) wrote in to let me know his Roland TR-808, COMMODORE SX-64 SID Prophet Synth and 1974 Minimoog Model D have been re-listed for sale. Click through the links to get to them. You'll find videos and pics for each at the auctions and previously captured here, here and here respectively.

OBSERVER by Red Martian

OBSERVER

via Red Martian:
"The music was made with a synsonics drum machine (manually played), a Roland Jupiter-4 and a Yamaha CS-5. The video was shot in the small PNEACEA studio in Seattle, 2000 and makes use of video feedback and features some of the masks that were made for us by SERPENTINE."

Pacific Northwest Synth 2009 - Red Martian Performance

SYNTAR MMM and MIAMI LIVE SYNTHESIZER PERFORMANCE PNW SYNTH DIY 2009

YouTube via redmartian http://redmartian.com/.

Watch the skulls in the background.
"Here is a live performance of the MMM demo number four featuring the stack of MMMs behind, the Syntar (the father of the MMM) and the new AcidLab MIAMI in MIDI mode. The bass line, arpeggio and drums were sequenced in Logic. The Skulls were triggered via Logic (the percussion tracks) using Division-6's MIDIFY."

COWBOY (RIP) AND THE ROLAND VOCODER LIVE AT PNW SYNTH DIY 2009 FEATURING THE SYNTAR, MIAMI AND MMM

"This is dedicated to that old dog COWBOY who used to listen to his master's vocoder. The bass and some melody are handled by the MMMs behind. The Syntar is the carrier wave for the Roland SVC-350 vocoder. The Syntar also plays a sort of melody. The MIAMI is sequenced in MIDI mode from Logic. At the Pacific Northwest Synth DIY 2009"

Be sure to see this prior post for reference and lyrics. The third video is the studio recording of this track.
See demo number four in this post for the first track.

click here for all PNW 2009 coverage.

Pacific Northwest Synth 2009 - Stephen aka Red Martian

YouTube via matrixsynth.

see this performance for reference.

http://redmartian.com
http://mattsonminimodular.com - MMM and PMS Syntar
http://synthwood.com
http://acidlab.de

Don't miss the Syntar neck controller.
Some more info on a modern update will be coming up in George Mattson's talk.
Note, during the reference to the track Cowboy, I mistakenly stated the original cowboy videos were from Vocoderman, it's actually VoiceEncoder. You can see more of his videos previously posted here. Apologies to VoiceEncoder.

click here for all PNW 2009 coverage.