The headline says it all. Oh, sure, as if it isn’t enough to recreate the legendary EMS Synthi synth – one of the most creative vintage analog instruments ever devised – this artist takes it one step further, controlling parameters with a piece of colored paper tracked by a webcam. It’s an achievement of sheer patching genius, taken one step wackier.
The patch is entitled Le Synthé V5; the creator is Pierre Couprie. And yes, you can download this for Windows and Mac – even Mac PowerPC. Cost: US$15/EUR10, which is, I must say, insanely cheap.
Video in French with English subtitles.
Pierre Couprie | Le Synthé V5 [Description, download]
Thanks to Lee Ray for sending this in.
Peter Kirn
Jaymis Loveday
James Grahame
Primus Luta
michaeluna
Kim Cascone
Ben Long
Tom Whitwell
John Jacobus
Chris Stack
Marsha Vdovin
Markus Schroeder
Matt Earp
Kristin Trethewey
Yeah, closed operating system has really limited apps development huh?
NOT.
Chris, are you sure you're posting on the right post, or are you referring to Mac OS, Windows, and Max/MSP?
Side note: wow, proprietary technology now has its own advocates/fanboys! Down with open source, those jerks.
(just keeping it light… it's only ones and zeros, at the end of the day…)
Pierre's emulation has been around for a long time. It was one of the first virtual synths I ever downloaded, back when it was only available in French.
Great to see he's still improving and innovating with this latest version!
Yeah, I think I had even seen an earlier version, which means it really has evolved – incredibly mature-looking (and, more importantly, sounding).
holy crap, this would be an amazing max4live instrument.
windows users should try the other impressive Synthi recreation http://kx77free.free.fr/English-contents.html it's free and from France to.
Not to forget the XILS3 from XILS Lab/Xavier Oudin – sounds marvelous, adds more functionality, costs more.
On the evidence, the Synthi/VCS3 fascinates French developers!
this is awesome, really. great sounds.
And french users too…like me
Funnily enough, the guy behind the Sinthy, the founder of EMS himself, Dr. Peter Zinovieff experimented with control of synthesizers with video camera. In the seventies:) The Sinthy was also called Putney, where it conceived in London. I played with one for an hour at the uni. It's was like trying to build a car from LEGO but you always end up with a starship:D Utterly unexpected results, impossible to use as a keyboard instrument and nightmare to program. You never get the sound what you want but get something more mind-blowing. Video of me abusing it/her:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lZGC1kV37w
wow…. blue paper controller. that is one wild way to get down. impressive!
The demo works for for 8 minutes! Just enough time for TWO songs in your set. WOOT!
@regend: That could actually be a feature. You used to have to race against oscillator drift, etc.
Yeah, really nice sounds.
I wonder how it deals with camera framerates, or if that's something Jitter-dependent? I feel like webcam-based interaction as a sort of CV-substitute always has an issue of latency and temporal aliasing. It's great for sequencing or sampling applications where there is a sort of built in latency to the system, but there's a reason people like joysticks and things like Kaoss pads…
I'll have to try it out with a PS3Eye and see how the higher framerates feel
what about block/vectorsize and feedback?
My Internet Synthesizer (of circa 1994-99) was based on the good old Synthi.It even printed out little plugboard like pictures (in ascii-art) to document the patches.
for the reaktor users – there is also a reaktor clone around:
http://co.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=use…
I am thinking a glove with a unique color, a shoe with a unique color, or using the camera to track a display's video recording of random footage pre sorted for colors could bring a whole new layer to the performance possibility of this patch in particular. If this patch does not see the color in the frame of the webcam's feed for a moment does it create noise, stay at that last spot frequency wise repeating, or create a quiet pause? That would totally change things and create even more interesting array of sound possibilities.
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it is the only soft sinth i find decent sounding. and it cost 10 euros only ?!?
big thanks to Pierre!