The Future of Clubbing?

Here's a cool installation/nightclub.... _Many_ is the time I've wished I could affect the music in a nightclub through sheer force of dancing/will/infrared bodyheat ;)

Interactive Dance Club

Thanks to Synaesthesia

Man plays smallest MIDI Drumset EVER!

Excellent... the smallest MIDI drums in the world. Can't find too much info on these. He's using a Crest MMD 1000 Mini Drums and EZ dummer. The kick comes from a pedal. Check out a few more demos HERE.

RAI Studio of Musical Phonology

A look into the Phonology studio in Milan. Phonology was designed in 1955 by Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

"In 1951, the first electronic music studio was conceived from scratch at the WDR Radio of Cologne (Germany) to enable the composition of electronic music sounds.
Briefly, the concept of studios evolved up to the 1955 design of the Phonology studio in Milan by Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna. With nine oscillators, various filters and other sophisticated equipment , the presence of a technician/musician (Marino Zuccheri), the studio was the best equipped in the world at that time. (more)"
excellent clip thanks to usoproject

Robot Love

Just cos I went to see Transformers and cos I figure we all love robots here... ;)
Have a listen to: Solid Steel Radio

United Visual Artists

Interactive AV art team behind visuals for Massive Attack and U2 among others. These 2 pieces were shown at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Monolith
The LED monolith plays harsher sound and light the closer one gets to it until standing right in front, when the viewer is bathed in white light.


Volume
Allows viewers to wander through the sculpture which reacts to their presence with light and sound.


Nice interview with them too over at PingMag

More kinetic sculpture

Love the Xylophone/Marble combo in this!
(thanks to BruceGray)

Mark Applebaum

Lil' video of Stanford Proffessor Mark Applebaum playing his sculpture/instrument the Mausketier. Piezo transducers pick up banging/scraping/plucking and feed them into his processing rack.
More at Mark Applebaum

Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello gives a tour of his studio

"Jimmy Tamborello, the all purpose beat genius and mastermind behind Dntel gives a tour of his home studio where the magic sounds of the postal service, figurine, james figurine, and dntel all come to life." - From: subpoprecords

A very modern analogue electronic studio. Is this the vintage gear of the future?

The Tardis Is Out Of Fuel Again Delia!

another one...

The WP-20 is an old Ray Wilson design. Sonique Chef has a good few more vids on his blog and he will appearently build them to order."

" Many moons ago Ray Wilson and Ron Romeo created a small company that sold PC boards and kits. We called it "Waveform Processing" The WP-20 Mini-Synth was our premier product. As I look back at it now I see many things I would do differently today but I wanted to leave it as it was 25 years ago. It's a great project and it makes some very cool sounds. I hope you have fun if you decide to build it. This would make a great junior-high or high-school electronics project." - LINK (for schematic etc)

The Colosso-Synth 3000

I made my mixer into a synth. - By: Dr. Colossus

Not 100% sure how he did this. Usually you feed the headphone out back into the mixer to create a feedback look and then tune it with the e.q's. It doesn't sound like this when I di it though.

Sleng Teng Riddim

Sleng Teng Riddim played on the Casio MT-40 thanks to mkscholar.

"Under Mi Sleng Ting" by Wayne Smith is known as the first Reggae record to use a completely digital riddim. Of course there were others before it but this is the first to get mass public acceptance. "Sleng Ting" was recorded by Prince Jammy in 1985 and is credited with kick starting the dancehall sound. It's big tune for such a small synth.

You can pick up MT-40's off ebay for about $30/40... cheap as chips :)

Mouse on Mars Interview (from Salon Magazine)

Mouse on Mars Jan + F.X. live at the party of "a-musik" Andi's Studio
place: koln, dusseldorf/Germany (more). They mostly talk about the misery of technology addiction :)

NetzpolitikTV: Interview with Peter Jenner

Peter Jenner, British rock band manager, record producer and A&R man talks about copyright law in the digital age. With Andrew King, he was part of Blackhill Enterprises, which managed Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett's solo career, Marc Bolan, Roy Harper (whose records Jenner also produced), The Edgar Broughton Band and The Clash. He also managed Ian Drury, Billy Bragg and the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy among others. Basically he's been around the block and he seems to be worried about the current state of copyright law enforcement.

Doepfer Mogli

Saw this on the Doepfer Forum. The Doepfer Mogli... never seen this one before. ebay link

MOGLI (Midi Output GLove Interface)

Using the Power Glove by Mattel, MOGLI translates the movement
of your hand into MIDI signal. Scan rate is 10/s

Developed for and used by Kraftwerk in the 90's.

Tired of Synthcakes?

The nice chaps over at MusicThing have had an on-going thing for cakes shaped like synthesisers...in a fit of geeky one-upmanship, we bring you:
Circuit Snacks! You can see a few more tasty circuits HERE.

Brazilian non-interview with Florian Schneider - 1998

"My favorite Florian moment
(I guess it's already published somewhere here on youtube but i couldn't find it)" thanks to Nafoute

Kraftwerk - Die Mensch-Maschine / Tv Docu

Part 1

part 2

"This is a 1982 TV-Documentation about Kraftwerk produced by Austrian television (ORF). It's the last vis-à-vis TV-Interview with Ralf Hütter. For anglophone viewers I`ve subtitled the interview. It was aired on the occasion of the release of Kraftwerk`s Album "Computerworld" and their following World-Tour. This part contains Kraftwerk live performances of: Nummern / Computerwelt, Taschenrechner

NOTE: I´m not a professional translator - it is just supposed to be a little help." - thanks to Nagelbrett

Synesthesia, Colour Hearing & Electronic Music

I thought with this post I'd have an extended look a the relationship between synesthesia and electronic music. So first up let's look at this short clip explaining was synesthesia is and how it affects a persons understanding of music.

What is synesthesia? Synesthesia is a neurological condition where two or more senses become conjoined. Typical synesthetic's see numbers and letters as having colours, or the sounds of words evoking tastes. Using neuroimaging or CT Scans scientists can see the separate areas of the brain, such as the centre for sight and sound, are active when a synesthetic sees a letter or number. This means when a synesthetic sees a number or letter or hears a sound it evokes joined sensations such that they can hear colour, see sound or taste words.

The numbers given for people with synesthesia seem to vary fairly widely. They range from one in every 2000 to one in every 100 or 1% of the population. Professor Daphne Maurer of McMaster University’s department of psychology has found that at one time we all lived in a world in which sights had sounds and feelings had taste. At the annual meeting of the American Synesthesia Association November 6, Maurer discussed evidence that all infants are synesthetic.

“Toddlers perceive higher pitched sounds to come from white balls and lower pitched sounds to come from black balls, just like adults with synesthesia,” explains Maurer. “With development, the connections underlying synesthesia are inhibited in most individuals.” - link

So what has this to do with electronic music? Well I can make some tenuous links by looking at the early instigators of electronic music - proto-electronic music if you like. The Futurist movement, as most of you probably know, is credited with starting the artistic movement that led to electronic music. Futurists advocated the use of new instrumentation, the rejection of traditional scales and notation and the introduction of noise into music.

The picture across was painted by Luigi Russulo one of the founding fathers of the Futurist movement and author of The Art of Noises. "Russolo's painting might suggest a belief in correspondences of colour to music. The clearest clue is provided in a manifesto on "The Painting of Sounds, Noises and Smells", by his comrade Carlo Carrà: - "...rrrrrrreds that shouuuuuuut, greeeeeeeeeeeens that screeeeeeam, yellows, as violent as can be.". link

Also the form or shape that the music takes in Russulo's painting is quite interesting. It adheres to one of Heinrick Kluver's basic visual patterns. In 1926 Heinrick Kluver carried out experiments on candidates using mescaline. He was interested in categorising the various hallucinations into groups of related visual patterns. He found all the visions fit one or more of four possible forms tunnels and cones, grids and crosshatchings, central radiations and spirals.

This is remarkably similar to how many synesthetics see music. According to Richard E. Cytowic, one of the leading researchers in synesthesia, "When a synesthetic listens to music they don't see a pastoral landscape with sheep gambling through it. They see geometric shapes zig zags, grids, blobs, angular forms." When looked at in this way we can see that one of earliest creative aesthetics in electronic music was driven from the point of view of colour hearing or Sound Art.

A basic introduction into how this might look can be seen in the video clip Synesthesia Synthesizer - thanks to somesecret



Another link I can find between synesthesia and the early development of electronic music is in the work and musical methodologies of Olivier Messiaen. It is difficult to overstate Messiaen's influence on early electronic composers. He was one of the first modern composers to incorporate electronic instrumentation into orchestral music, using the Ondes Martenot in Turangalîla-Symphonie. He taught Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and for a brief period Iannis Xenakis. Also i've often thought that his idea's on serial music and tone rows can be seen as early examples of sequencing; copying basic patterns, reversing them, turning them upside down, randomizing them. Messiaen had synesthesia and often talked about the relationship between sound and colour.

"Messiaen had synesthesia that worked in both directions. Usually it's a one way street, so it's sound to vision. But Messiaen when he saw colours he heard music and when he heard music he saw colours. So when he was commissioned to write 'Des Canyons aux Etoiles' or 'From the Canyon to the Stars' he was in Bryce canyon and he said ' my eyes went up the coloured cliffs of the wall and the music just wrote itself'.

He invented that whole system of modes of limited transposition to convey the colour of the chords... In Messiaen's (mind) it's the vertical intervals between the notes (that triggers colour) that's why you have all those big chord clusters in him and that produces the colour." - Richard E. Cytowic

Synesthesia has been found to be more prevalent in creative people. Obviously people who can see, as well as hear music are much more likely to be musicians than those who can't. So it would be incorrect to claim that the link between colour and sound is unique to electronic music. It might be possible to say it is more fundamental to electronic music.

I can make other links between synesthesia and electronic music like Iannis Xenakis' connection with Kalindinski and his use of polytopes or compositions of sound and light. Also Morton Subotnick's desire to evoke musical images of the electricity fizzing and zapping in the connections between nuerons in the brain. At it's core electronic music deals with sound in terms of shape, structure, density and colour and whilst these are in all forms of music I think in electronic music much of the structural baggage of traditional forms has been striped away in order to express these sensual connections more vividly.

Lets look at one last clip of synesthesia in action. This one is from Streeta it's called Dissociative Fugue and was sent my way thanks to matrixsynth. This one is a little more complex than the last and shows the fluidity of the colours and shapes as the music changes. You can see that Streeta's basic visual patterning is based on crosshatching, the melody is a wiggly line and different instruments have different colours. "This was an attempt to visualize some of the abstract noise that goes on inside my head when listening to music." - Stretta



Well that's it. My longest most coherent post ever :) If you got to the bottom I hope you enjoyed it. I haven't really proven anything and like I said earlier the link to electronic music is tenuous but maybe you have something to think about just before you go to sleep and those visual patterns start floating around in your mind.

If you want more information definitely check out Richard E. Cytowic's roughly 30 minute talk on youtube. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Also look at a more in-depth review of synesthesia in music from the very beginnings of western music at Therminvox.

Music With A View - Flea Theatre (Joshua Fried)

Part 1


Part 2

Joshua Fried playing old shoes, a steering wheel and a radio! - thanks to RitsuKatsumata

Excellent.... well worth the watch. Takes a minute or two to warm.

Music With A View - Flea Theatre (Nick Didkovsky)

Nick Didkovsky composes music live with audience participation and a computer program. Nick's software was written in JMSL. JMSL was created by Nick Didkovsky and Phil Burk, www.algomusic.com

Pretty cool piece of software that uses algorhythms to generate music, such as pitch cycle, density of notes, invert, retrograde, randomise.

Juan Atkins in his Metroplex Studio

Just a picutre and a link to an interview with Juan Atkins the originator of Detroit Techno. He talks about why he disliked MIDI on computers, the equipment in his basement Metroplex studios, synths and the state of techno music. It's not a new interview but it's a good one.

"The Pro One is my heart. I'll use that Pro One until it falls apart, and then I'll probably still use it if it makes any sounds. "These new synthesisers now, I think they're scaling them more to interface with the consumer. Synthesisers used to be synthesisers that a synthesist could play. Now manufacturers are going for presets and they make it really hard to get beyond those presets to program your own sounds." - Juan Atkins

Stevie Wonder demonstrates an Arp 2600 to David Frost.

"Come on work thing"


thanks to Synthfool and analoghell

West End: History In The Making" Documentary (Extended)

An extended clip from the forthcoming documentary about the history of one of the most important disco labels West End Records. You can check out a good few clips and interviews from the documentary thanks to westendrecords

"West End Records was formed in 1976, by Mel Cheren & Ed Kushins and according to Mel - West End Records was one of these things that just happens... He and Ed were colleagues at Scepter Records and when Scepter was closing down in 1975 they had to do something and they decided to start their own business - West End Records was born!

Mel had been the Head of Production for Scepter Records and he was actually one of the guys who started the Disco Era... Some other stuff he "invented" was to put an instrumental version of the song on the B-side of Scepter's singles, for this new idea Scepter won Billboard's Trend Setter Of The Year Award.
Besides this, and even more important - He created the first 12" single!.
This was still at Scepter and as he says himself; "The idea came from Tom Moulton, because he suggested that if we put the record on 12" we could spread the grooves and make it hotter for the club DJ's. We were the first company to put it out for DJ's. SalSoul put their first 12" record out at about the same time on commercial with "Ten percent" by Double Exposure. That's how it came about to the fact that you could spread the grooves and make it hotter than in the 45 records."
We all know how important the 12" single have been to DJ's all over the world ever since...
- check out the rest of this interview HERE.

Noise-Ode to the Neptune Audio Mixer

"This is one third a tribute to the mysterious and wonderful Neptune 610 Audio Mixer, one third a despairing melodrama of noise/music angst, and one third a documentary on the dynamics of ebay at the dawn of the 21st century. You may think this is rather self-indulgent, but I can assure you it is not, sir or madam!" - thanks to ashfordaisyak

League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots presents :

The League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR) presents algorithmically-generated percussion music played by modular percussion robots.
thanks to BleakMonk

Copyright Criminals : This is a sampling sport

(work in progress)
as found on http://copyrightcriminals.com/

Make sure to check out the freely downloadable documentary Good Copy Bad Copy.

Gardner Baby Grand Master

I remember THIS post on MusicThing looking at some real expensive ugly piano's... does this one count. This is the Gardner Baby Grand Master and at €50,000 you'd want to be into it :)
Ugly or cool?

Sent my way thanks to Dusty.

J.C. Judd - 60's Electronic Soundtrack

I put up an earlier post on an early 60's sci-fi program called Space Patrol. The completely electronic soundtrack was created by J.C. Judd. I happened to have one of the book's he published "Electronics In Music" and in there was a picture of him using a small synth he designed and built around 1964. I'm guessing it was this or something close to this he used on the Space Patrol soundtrack.

It seems to have 2 oscillators controllable by keyboard. The oscillators look identical to a similar type of synth used in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Obviously the one at the BBC was bigger with 12 oscillators. I wonder did Judd build them or have something to do with it's design? Wouldn't surprise me.

Lee Perry At Black Ark

Rare footage of the master at work in the legendary Black Ark Recording Studio mid 70s. - thanks to Akira

This clip comes from the excellent 70's documentary Root's, Rock, Reggae. "Ghetto music always drum and bass" - you can catch a link to it over on the right sidebar under DVDs.

A London Something: Drum & Bass/Jungle

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

thanks to arcon2

A very early rare documentary covering the early Dn'B Jungle years. I think I remember seeing this on BBC back in 1995. You can download the full thing and get a tracklisting HERE. The YouTube compression really does the audio no favours so if you want higher quality go for the download.

1963 series "Space Patrol"

"The futuristic 1963 series "Space Patrol" ("Planet Patrol" in the US) was an extraordinary, but not widely distributed, puppet show set in the year 2100.
As a kid I could never get into Thunderbirds, but Space Patrol fascinated me. This was mainly due to the soundtrack - no music at all, just weird electronic noises, way ahead of their time in 1963." - From: auspeteFrom: auspete

The electronic soundtrack was created by F.C. Judd. Frederick Charles Judd was born in 1914, and became a pioneer of electronic sound and music in the 1950s and 1960s. As well as writing books on the subject (Electronic Music and Musique Concrète, 1961... which oddly enough I happen to have) and producing records of stock effects and atmospherics (such as Haunted House, Mystery Sounds & Music). There just happens to be one of his soundtrack on Ebay right now. Click the picture to have a look.

The ebay link references Moog synths but I think it was more likely it was home made electronics. For one the series was released in 1963 and Moog didn't show up at the AES convention till '64. Also he has a book on electronic music circuits so I guess he liked building his own.

MIDI Scrapyard Challenge

-
The MIDI Scrapyard Challenge workshops are workshops lead by
Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki since 2003. They
more...are intensive workshops where participants build simple
electronic projects (both digital and analog inputs) out of
found or discarded "junk" (old electronics, clothing,
furniture, outdated computer equipment, appliances,
turntables, monitors, gadgets, etc..). So far the workshops
have been held 22 times in 10 countries with 3 different
themes including the MIDI Scrapyard Challenge where
participants build simple musical controllers from discarded
objects and "junk", DIY Wearable Challenge where they create
wearable tech projects from used clothing, and the DIY Urban
Challenge where they work on public space interventions and
other projects. The MIDI Scrapyard version includes a mini
workshop where participants build simple drawing robots or
"DrawBots" with small, inexpensive motors, batteries, and
drawing markers that can also be connected to Serial or MIDI
interface. At the end of the day or evening, the workshop
participants have a small performance, concert, or fashion
show (depending on the workshop theme) where they demonstrate
and preent their creations together as a group. No electronics
skills or any experience with technology is necessary to
participate in the workshops.

Cinco Midi Organizer

Organize your midis. This is from Tim and Erics Awesome Show Good Job. I thought it was funny :)

From: neomerge

Steve Reich - Piano/Video Phase (excerpt)

The original 'Piano Phase' for two pianos was composed in 1967. Both pianists play the same repeating pattern but one of them gradually increases tempo so as to slowly move one-eighth note ahead or out of phase with the other. This process is repeated with three repeating patterns that get shorter in duration. The video portion of this piece was created by David Cossin in 2000 and utilizes a pre-recorded video of him playing the piece on midi percussion pads that then trigger piano samples of the notes of the piece. Against this pre-recorded video, projected on a screen in front of him, he then plays the moving part that gradually moves ahead, or out of phase with the recorded part. The audience can then see and hear the process unfolding. - Steve Reich

Joyspring demo

A pretty cool idea... an oversized joystick with a spring and some sensors. I could see kids going for this kind of thing... simple and fun.

thanks to chikashimiyama poster and creator of the Joyspring.

Vintage Kitsch Space Drum Dub Disco Synth Sound Effect

"Freak Machine! This is a weird little sound effects box which dub dj`s used to use to toast with - has a little speaker built in and two screws at the back to wire an output to (I can do that for a coupla quid if you need). You`ll have heard the sounds on this thing used on various and nefarious rekkids from back in the day - generally manipulated in some way. True analogue & sounds it - get some Moorish Madess in the mix Bwana! Runs on 2 x walkman batteries (not supplied unless I can find a pair) all the way to Revolutionary Dub Heaven!" - Go Here.

The Story of the Birotron

Ker-Chunk! — A Hit-Making Keyboard Made of 8-Track Car Stereos? (The Believer). The story of the History behind the Birotron HERE. - thanks to astro_tiki over the VSE forums.

Rick Wakeman of the band "Yes" invented and developed this instrument along with help from David Biro. Wakeman formed the company Birotronics, Ltd. which made just 35 Birotrons. Like the Mellotron, the Birotron "sampled" instruments and uses 8-track tapes for the various sounds. This was necessary before digital sampling became available. They were mainly used for strings, choirs, brass, and flutes; sounds not easily reproduced on the synthesizers of that era.

Interview with Wakeman in 1999 where he talks about the Birotron

Is there any chance of hearing your old Mellotrons & Birotrons again?

RW: Oh no!, I don't have any of them!

YM: They're missing?

RW: Yeah!, I believe there are six Birotrons left in the world. I heard that one was sold in America last year for $ 35,000.

YM: Wow!, you could be rich now! You only made about 30...

RW: 35. I had four, but two were stolen, and two were damaged beyond repair. So we believe there are six left, and one is in a museum, it has been just bought by Hard Rock Cafe in America, I believe also for a lot of money because they bought the very original one. I don't have one. I would like to have one, I must admit, I'd love to have one. The Mellotron... I used to have two single Mellotrons, and a double special Mellotron. And the two single ones I had, I was so frustrated, because of tuning problems, and the tapes... And full of anger, I took the two Mellotrons into a field, a put petrol over them, and I fired them.

YM: You really did that? I can't believe it!

RW: Yeah. And all of them, all the wood, burnt and all the metal just...

YM: Did you enjoy that?.

RW: At the time, at the time I enjoyed it, because they had ruined so many sessions through going wrong and breaking, but afterwards I regret it. Oh, of course I regret it! - - from 8TrackHeaven

This instrument was used on the YES album, "Tormato: Remastered & Expanded" and Rick's solo album "Criminal Record."

Moog Taurus II Synthesizer (Part 1 - 3)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

"Here is parts 1 to 3 of the Moog Taurus II Synthesizer. You can hear patches from this synth from 1979-83." thanks to christinag856

joySYNTH

"This device is a self contained synthesizer built into an IBM joystick (circa 1984). Because of the simplicity of the original construction, it was quite simple to 'hack' the joystick control to interface with my circuit. Essentially the two axis of the joystick controls two 1 mega-ohm potentiometers. There is also a momentary button which triggers the amplitude envelope. It's fun to play and has lots of expressive potential." - sent my way via Alex.

Check out his blog http://cliplead.blogspot.com/

DJmag M-Audio Torq Xponent Midi DJ Controller Review

"This DJ Midi controller comes with software to DJ with and the hardware has a soundcard built in. It's a the final word in DJ control." - From: djmagtv


From: pyb81

IMO there's still a lot to be said for a set of 1210's and Penny&Giles faders :)

MUNK ROCKER - Circuit Bent Chanting Machine

"This is my first attempt at circuit bending. Made from a Buddhist chanting machine (as seen). Recorded with analog rev/delay. Final version. Created by Kevin C. " - thanks to asmhaxor

As far as I can make out the box he is circuit bending is called the FM3 Buddha Machine. It sounds great, would be useful in a live situation to have something that could chant, make sound effects and degrade into digital noise. I love their advertising picture so I had to post it. I wonder is there a disclaimer "Buddha Not Included" :)

Kidtronics Drum Machine

This is a circuit-bent Kidtronix toy drum machine from the late '80s/early '90s. I added a 555-based timing circuit from a led display to make it a kind of automatic drum machine. thanks to michaeluna

From Sound Synthesis to Sound Retrieval and Back

A 55 minute lecture on sound retrivial techniques being used in sound synthesis. Also a little on Freesound.org. This is part of the Google Tech Talk series.

"In this talk I will go over the technological and conceptual ties that exist between some ... all » of the current trends in sound generation for music and multimedia applications and the techniques for content based sound retrieval. This is because quite a number of the techniques being worked on for sound retrieval come from the field of sound synthesis and at the same time the new developments in retrieval are being applied and are inspiring new directions in the development of sound generation systems. To explain all this I will use examples from the research carried out in the Music Technology Group at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, Spain. In particular I will go over our research on spectral based concatenative synthesis and our work on sound and music retrieval. Also I will link it with the online community that we have developed for sharing sound files, Freesound http://freesound.iua.upf.edu, showing the potential that this open and shared resource has for the research on sound retrieval and for experimenting with new sound generation systems. "

Roland TR-808

A quick look at the Roland TR-808. thanks to losme

The Buchla Easel

Luther Rochester generates some nice organic tones on his Buchla Music Easel at AHMW 2007.
Recently a Buchla Easel was stolen from the Music Technology Labs at The Evergreen State College so if you happen to come across one for sale check for an Evergreen etching and a metal label on the power-supply also it was stolen without its lid.

From: therealretrosynth & ahmwsynth

Edit: Just noticed Matrixsynth had this under a different heading. Go HERE where you can find a link to over 30 clips from the 2007 AHMW meeting.

Theremin BBC clip

"Theremin Bruce Woolley
http://theremin.org.uk
Hands off Theremin event 27th of July 2007 in Watford (near London) UK don't miss it" thanks to 42hz

Pollard Syndrum Quad

a friend of mine suggested me, when legendary pro drummer Steve Houghton was looking for someone to unload his syndrum set onto. I was glad to help. You can see lots of high quality photo's HERE.

Milton Babbitt on the lure of technology

Click on the picture or HERE to go to a video interview with Milton Babbitt where he talks about the lure of technology. You know he does look a little bit like Yoda.

Milton Babbitt Interview

Just a picture and a link to THIS interview with Milton Babbitt - line to watch for "Remember, all of this is analogue. We were not working digitally, for which I am most grateful." :)

Babbitt Yoda Morph

Morph of composer Milton Babbit and Yoda from Star Wars.
thnaks to rpatersoncomposer
Hmmm?

Roland MC303 Groovebox

"I decided to sell my old roland mc303 so I fired it up and made this pattern to test it out. Then I drank a little to much beer and decided to video it. My wife thinks I'm hilarious and she is probably the only girl who will ever see this. The video stops short of the audio.
+ this mc303 has a gold tooth & custom knobs
+ this is a fast tempo for me" - thanks to spooloops

The Birth of Acid

Fantastic clip with DJ Pierre & Earl 'Spanky' Smith from Phuture talking about the first time they used a TB303.
From: tuneseeker

HEM - Home electronic modular

"synth made of home electronics. the osc's are just tape deck's that are making feedback noise and then there is also a clock radio theremin... (more)" - thanks to dnnny

Kramer & Luttazzi - Pazzi Per La Musica (1957)

"Gorni Kramer & Lellio Luttazzi
"Pazzi Per La Musica"(1957)- Liebig commercial ad -

A great piece of burlesque music performed by Kramer & Luttazzi, acordion and piano plus additional electronic sound effects, excellent sound/image synchronization and ... well, a lot of jokes !" - thanks to phantomoftheradio

Casiotone CT-410V little old Analogsynthesizer

"a short Rhytm Sequence through the real Analogfilter.This Casio Keyboard is very rare to find,and it is better then Casio MT 68,Casio MT68 because there are only Preset Sounds.
Many other Parts will follow.... (more) " thanks to jopachelbel

Blade Runner END TITLES theme

"Here's another piece from the Blade Runner OST, the most famous: End Titles.
All performed in REAL TIME with my synthesizers!" thanks to gattobus.

Same synths again Moog Little Phatty, Korg Radias, Korg Trinity.
Make sure and check out gattobus' Blade Runner Main Titles youtube vid.

New Blog Electric Kingdom

Kode9 & Spaceape - 9 Samurai
I've started a new blog called Electric Kingdom. I'm going to use this blog to compiles video's, music and interviews from the last 50 years of electronic music. If you ever find anything interesting just email me and I'll post it up. I'm going to label things by decade so as it builds up you should just by able to pick a decade an get music video's, interviews and documentaries about electronic music from that decade.

I've put a link feed from Electric Kingdom on my right sidebar.

Label: Hyperdub
Format: Vinyl, 10"
Country: UK
Released: Apr 2006
Genre: Electronic
Style: Dub, Downtempo, Abstract

Check out Kode9 - Memories of the Future

Herbie Hancock Rockit - the making of Interview

An interview with Herbie Hancock about the making of Rockit.

Alesis Andromeda mp3's

If you were ever interested in getting the Alesis A6 Andromeda AKA Andy, then head over to THIS electro-musician thread where they are posting lots of the presets as demo's. Makes for good listening.

Aphex Twin - Mathematical Equation

Richard D. James track from Windowlicker "DeltaMi-1=aSigman=1Di(n)(SigmajEC(i)Fij(n-1)+Fexti(n-1))" where a spectrogram on the audio displays his face. It kind of reminds me of a digital version of the Turin Shroud. Is Aphex Twin the new audio Jesus :)

sent my way via paxtronix.

Dub Down Babylon!! Sine Qua Non Sound Clash

Dub Down Babylon!! Sine Qua Non Sound Clash
Tribute to all the great Engineers/Producers and musicians of classic Jamaican Dub Reggae,featuring audio and video samples from the movie Rockers plus pics and video of classic Dub albums,shots of Studio One and Channel One recording studio,Sly and Robbie,Aggrovators,Soul Syndicate,ect.Original music by Sine Qua Non Sound Clash

From: illspektor

Check out Rockers - 25th Anniversary Edition

Blade Runner Main Titles Theme

"Here is a piece from the Blade Runner OST (Main Titles) performed with my synthesizers:
Moog Little Phatty, Korg Radias, Korg Trinity." - thanks to gattobus

Casio VL-Tone

Casio VL-Tone - thanks to analoguecrazy4

Analogue crazy has a good few synth demos so follow the link back to his YouTube account.

Buck Rogers Space Funk

Super cool space funk in the 25th century. I remember seeing this when I was nipper and wondering what the future would sound like... for me it's been electronic music ever since :)

Moog Little Phatty Analog Synthesizer

"Whoa. The Moog sound at an affordable price. www.moogmusic.com" - MoogMusicVideo

At 60'000 views it's hardly a new video but still may as well post it.

Electronic Music in Latin America

Short but sweet clip from Fussibles studio. - thanks to browncheco


Colores is a 22 minute documentary on the state of electronic music in Latin America. One thing is for sure they have some enviable equipment. Plenty of gear shots including the Oberhiem 4 voice and a Vostok being used live (only for glimpse though). - thanks to bulbotv

discoDSP Discovery Pro

discoDSP announces Discovery Pro. It's a fairly powerful synth with 12 oscillators Virtual Analog VSTi Synthesizer featuring 4 layers, WAV support, 2X oversampling/undersampling, built-in arpeggiator, sync, FM, 12 filter types, panning modulation, stereo delay and gate effects, graphic envelope modulation.

The odd thing is if you click on the picture above to enlarge it you will see that Discovery Pro is closely modelled on the Nord Lead 2 and not only that it can import Nord Lead 2 and 2x patches. Wonder if they sound the same :?

There is a video demo HERE and an mp3 demo HERE.

Moog FreqBox

"Watch Chachi and Alan from Robotspeak put the Moog FreqBox through its paces. First, Chachi tries it out with a Roland TB 303 Bassline synth. Then Alan runs his guitar through it. If you like what you hear, you can order yours at Robotspeak.com." - thanks to chachijones

HATSKI: HOW TO ACID HOUSE WRANGLE KNOB EXPLOSION WIGGLE

"rack title: hatski
mc202+606+metric shitload of fx. You can download an mp3 HERE." - thanks to nevenen

Personally I think a shitload of fx is always the exact right amount :)

Windows Recorder as Instrument

This guy uses Windows Recorder as a musical instrument. It starts off not so good but when the beat comes in it gets pretty good. I wonder how thousands of people have made tunes from the windows media samples. I know I have :)

thanks to mrblintsattic

Computer Chronicles - Computer Music (1984)

A 23 minute program from 1984 looking at the state of computer music in 1984.
Guests: John Chowning (interview), Stanford; Will Harvey, Electronic Arts; Ellen Lapham, Syntauri; Gary Kildall, DRI
Products/Demos: Music Construction Set, Alpha Syntauri Keyboard, Casiotone, Vocal Synthesizer, MIT Experimental Music Studio, Stanford Center for Computer Music.
Matrixsynth found another one from 1986 HERE.

Optigan Vocal Choir (Vox Humana Disc)

"Super-rare Vox Humana disc on the 1970's Mattel Optigan optical organ. Features cello sounds, pipe organ and sampled real human voices. This is the same sample used on the Orchestron that kraftwerk used for many famous tracks, including Radioactivity, Show Room Dummies, etc..." - thanks to RedRoomNW

How & Why They Still Manufacture Vinyl LPs!

"Ever wonder how they made all those vinyl LPs (long playing records) in the past, or why they still do? Find out!" thanks to glenneal

Be warned there is some seriously cheesy library music.

Mister E's Vinatge Tape Delay Echo Box

"Well take a look at this VINTAGE TAPE DELAY ECHO BOX!" - thanks to AMOKIAN

ARP Axxe

A demo of the arp axxe - thanks to vaskuryandex

Roland Junior-106

Henrik Nydell moved into his girlfriends small little flat and had to make room for his Juno 106. So he set about modifying the normally 5 octave Juno 106 keyboard down to just 2 and half ocatves creating the Roland Junior-106. He has a great online diary detailing the mod. - via this vse thread

Upgrade to KarmaFX

KarmaFX Synth Modular has been updated to v0.99. The list of changes and bugfixes seems to be fairly extensive... so worth a download. It's still free but at version 0.99 it might not be free for much longer.

The Perfect Beat

" A little History of Techno & House Music" - From: padams24

The documentary is more about the Americian understanding of word Techno which includes everything from Derrick May, Frankie Knuckles to Madonna, Prince??? and on to the Orb(techno?). Still there a good bit with Peter Hook & Bernard Sumner from Joy Division/New Order.

Daft Punk's ELECTROMA

There'a a good interview over at the Guardian Online with Daft Punk talking about their new road movie Electroma . It kind of reminds me a little of the KLF's road movie The White Room although obviously much more French :)
You can check out the interview HERE.

More Free Samples

"Hi, i have just updated my site and added new sample packs, They are royalty free but you cannot repackage or sell them you can get them HERE"- Atom Splitter Audio. When you're over there you may as well check out his free 2 channel distortion effect Distroyr.

25 Essential Electronic Albums

Click THIS LINK to go to a list of 25 essential electronic albums. It's not a bad list covers a lot of ground and the compiler went out of his way to find youtube clips or he posted samples. Gotta love that Throbbing Gristle cover. Well worth a look. - via chip collection synthesizer

Korg M3 Workstation

"There are now 2 parts of the comprehensive "M3 Video Operation Guide (VOG)" available to be viewed online at Karma-Lab. Part 1 was released in May, but we never sent out an official announcement, perhaps you already know about it - now Part 2 has been released. The entire guide is expected to be approximately 7 parts on the web (for 10 sections), and to run for about an hour and 45 minutes total. New sections will be released as the editing is completed."

Just click on the picture or the link to Karma Lab to get there.

Casio VL-1 VL-Tone

A demo of the Casio VL-1 playing a little bit of Da Da Da. I remember a friend had this when we were in kiddies school. I didn't even have a calculator and this fucker had a sequencer, synthesiser and calculator all in one.

Oberheim SX (OB-SX)

"Looking at the guts of an OB-SX. Pretty neat synth, sounds pretty good...heavy too(weights a lot)." From: zamisers7k

Mantua Festival 2007

The yearly Mantua Festival is starting tommorow night( Friday 13th July). The highlight of the night is obviously going to be Digital Mystikz & Loefah. I'll be playing in the Alphabet Sets tent at 11 (Grizzle) so if you're coming down make sure and give me a bit of love. And don't forget to bring your wellies :)

Moog Etherwave in a Reverberation Chamber

Excellent little video of a live improv featuring the Moog Etherwave and a Cello being played in a room with one of Europes longest reverb times. Average room reverbs are about 0.5 seconds, concert halls about 2/3 seconds, tiled bathrooms about 5 secs... the National Physical Laboratory UKs (NPL) reverb chamber has a a 30 second reverb at 100Hz. I can only imagine how great it sounded in the room.

There are a few more video's on Spacedogs website. Make sure to check out the one with the waterphone. Also well worth checking out is the 5 minute BBC Interview. You can get a better idea of the lenght of reverberation when somebody is talking in the room.