Lured by the siren song of modular synthesis and DIY electronics, but not sure how to navigate the piles of requisite knowledge – or uncertain what the trip down this rabbit hole might have in store?

For years, Tom Whitwell’s Music Thing was a beloved daily read, as that site and this one were among the early blog-format destinations for music tech. Tom moved on – something about a major day-gig at a paper called The Times, perhaps named after the font? – but that makes us all the more delighted to get a dispatch from him. In this guest column for CDM, he introduces one project, a brilliant FM radio sequencer, but also helps us catch up on reading on modular synthesis and electronics dating back to the origins of the technology. And he has a realistic look at what this will do to your life – all inspired by “pure enthusiasm,” as he puts it, “this is fun, you should try it.”

Hey, isn’t that what the drug dealer said in those just-say-no instructional videos we watched in the 80s? Coincidence, I’m sure. -PK

Since buying a Eurorack modular synth a year ago, I’ve spent a lot of time building DIY synth modules and reading about synths and the people who build them. (See reading list, below, if you’d like to do the same.)

The hardest part of DIY electronics is starting out. My first step was building a few guitar pedal kits and learning by reading the Beavis Audio site. Other people start with noisemaker kits like the Atari Punk Console or circuit bending. They all lead in the same direction — down a very deep rabbit hole. 

There’s a lot to buy – a kind of infrastructure you need before doing anything – soldering kit, a multimeter, and a stock of components. None of it costs much, but it’s hard and disconcerting to buy. Online megastores like Farnell or Mouser will stock 50 versions of every component. Get the part number wrong, and you accidentally order capacitors as small as grains of sand, or as large as golfballs. Smaller stores – in the UK, I use http://www.bitsbox.co.uk/ - are easier because they only stock common hobby-friendly parts. 

After making a few guitar pedals, I moved onto synth modules. They’re a great DIY platform. The infrastructure is all there, in terms of power supply, case, inputs, and outputs. Parts are cheap, there’s a healthy and helpful community, and a nice learning curve, from basic utility modules to mind-bendingly complex frequency shifters and vocoders. 

In a year, I’ve built:

• a super-simple, chiptuney oscillator
• a tiny spring reverb driver
• a stupidly-complicated and blinkenlights-covered Arduino-powered Euclidean beat sequencer
• a very useful Arduino MIDI clock
• and a simple but handy 8-step sequencer (see video, below)

For this project, I was inspired by this quote from Don Buchla, the legend of west coast synthesis: 

“My studio at that time was ten feet wide. It was so crowded in there we hauled the workbench out on the sidewalk on good days and set up my oscilloscope and worked out there. [John] Cage came by and for voltage control I had hooked up my keyboard to an FM module that I’d built, a little module that was an FM receiver and I could play stations on it because I had one of the first varactor tuned FMs. Cage, as you can imagine, was just enormously interested in the fact that I could tune each key to a station and then proceeded to play the radio” ( Source [PDF] )

Thirty years later, Don released the 272e module (see Matrixsynth on the announcement), a $1250, four-channel polyphonic FM Tuner. There’s also the ADDAC102, a very fancy stereo €270 Eurorack module [see Synthtopia, with a video]. I wanted something quick, cheap and easy that would let me follow in Don and John’s footsteps. After a lot of searching and a few dead ends, I found the wonderful video demo, below, of a battery-powered FM sequencer based on a €15 radio kit from Germany. 

Projects like this follow a predictable curve. There’s a burst of experimental excitement at the start; receiving the crucial part, building the circuit on breadboard and realizing that — YES! — it’s going to work. 

Then comes a period of frustration and tedium. Re-buying a crucial part you blew up. Fiddling with the circuit so it responds just how you want it. Transferring the breadboard layout to a piece of perfboard, or designing a PCB and waiting for it to be made in China. If you’re using an Arduino or other programmable controller, there’s a long period of writing code, battling feature creep, debugging. 

During this period, you have to really, really want the thing you’re making, dreaming of how cool it will be, how much fun you’ll have playing it and telling everyone about it. 

Tom's FM radio-sequencing module project, in all its glory.

Building music gear is more multidisciplinary than you might imagine. The interface and the feel is as important as the functionality. My Euclidean sequencer is a cool-looking thing, with a big LED matrix. It’s really useful – turning trains of pulses into Afro-Latin rhythms. But it’s fiddly and annoying to use. The FM Radio module could be 50% smaller – and size is important in any modular synth – but this time I wanted good big knobs for fine tuning the signals and control voltages. 

So, as the project continues, you’ll spend time designing a front panel, deciding how many knobs you need, removing ones you’ll never use. And along the way, you’re learning. This time round, I wanted to get the control just right – precise, stable tuning so that stations would stay locked. That meant experimentation and [asking for help on the MuffWiggler forum]. I also spent ages reading ham radio sites, trying to work out how to make a voltage-controlled Shortwave radio (I gave up). 
Eventually, the lacquer is dry on the panel, the parts are all in, debugging is complete and the module is working. The result: either elation and fun, or almost immediate maker’s remorse. It’s bad enough spending money on a piece of music gear that you never love. It’s really annoying spending time building one that you can’t then flip on eBay. 

So far, this FM module is pure fun, an injection of random audio in the heart of the system. Every time I turn it on, something else comes out – pirate dubstep stations, Turkish music, news reports and Bryan Adams. You can filter it, sequence it, use it as a noise source, or let it modulate oscillators or open filters. Listen:

Radio sequencer 2 by MusicThing

Photos of the module:

Reading List

Great online resources for learning about modular synths and the first golden age of experimental electronic music include: 

Ubuweb’s electronic music resources section 
Also at Ubuweb, several editions of Electronic Music Review, a beautifully-designed but short-lived journal boasting Robert Moog as Technical Editor. 

The Red Bull Music Academy includes long, detailed interviews with Don Buchla, Tom Oberheim, Peter Zinovieff of EMS, Robert Moog and Morton Subotnik.

Synapse magazine was a mid-70s journal of electronic music, where you’d find DIY projects from people like Serge Tcherepnin

Vasulka is a huge and rather poorly-organised archive of documents, interviews and transcripts, containing some gems.

Source Magazine was, back in California in 1967, a plush avant-garde journal. Many editions came with 10″ vinyl records, pages printed on transparencies or fur. John Cage was a guest editor, and the magazine carried experimental scores from composers like Steve Reich. Original copies sell for $500+, but the articles and scores have been collected in a book: 
Source: Music of the Avant-garde, 1966-1973 [Amazon]

What’s Next?

Tom is already on to the next build since he finished up the radio sequencer. This time, it’s a shift register sequencer. A what?

A 16-step random sequencer, something between the Wiard Noise Ring, the CGS Gated Comparator and Nav’s BITSY.

It takes random noise to fill up 4 x 4 step 4015 shift registers, shifted by a clock input. The shift registers are looped – either after 8 or 16 steps. 8 of the steps are fed into a DAC0800 analog/digital converter, which produces a 0-8 volt output.

See also the prototype:

Design, and investigation in general, thrive on a challenge. So Bastus Trump, working with none other than Monolake co-founder and Ableton imagineer Robert Henke, took on the call to make the blank glass of an iPad behave more as an instrument might. The results, filling that screen with overlapping circles, are impressive, exploiting continuous touch movements to make pitch gestures that are more difficult on a piano-style keyboard. But it’s even nicer to see digital fuse with analog and timbral transformation as the app, Orphion, meets the more traditional Moog Moogerfooger effects.

Bastus writes CDM:

[Orphion's] interface was developed especially for a touch screen and allows very expressive — and also virtuosic — playing. You can choose between different layouts of tonally-tuned pads, which sound differently depending on the finger position when played, and can be modulated by further movements. The sound and the means of interaction is a mixture of string and percussion instruments and reaches from soft to plucked to a hard slap.

The concept of the Orphion results from my master thesis at UdK Berlin supervised by Robert Henke (aka monolake). The topic was to develop an interface for multi-touch screens that allows a maximum of expression.

So, you can see a quick demo of how it’s played. But just how would this fit into your studio? For the answer to that question, we turn to our friend Chris Stack and his excellent Experimental Synth series.

In this episode:

Playing the Orphion iPad app through a Moog MF-102 Ring Modulator and MF-104Z Analog Delay. Moogerfooger parameters are controlled with the Moog Voyager Touch Surface CV outputs.

experimentalsynth.com

Thanks for the great work, Bastus. We’ll be watching.

iPad only; download the app or provide your own review on our exclusive Apps section:
http://apps.createdigitalmusic.com/apps/orphion

[Oh, yeah. About that. Announcement coming shortly. Consider yourself with the scoop by virtue of having read to the end of this article.]

For the lover of musical instruments and technology, southern California’s NAMM show is a giant toy shop. It’s work for many of its attendees, of course, but we know many of our readers dream of the objects that will make their next creations. And sure, inspiring lust is not our aim; on the contrary, there is some love that goes into these things. In the ideal, that’s the relationship of creator and consumer. These are things not to be bought and discarded, but kept and really used.

So, we have a different look at the NAMM show, through the lens of CDM contributor Marsha Vdovin, who has been at this show more times than she might like to count. I’ve added some comments about what these devices are and why they’re important. And the next time we see them, these inventions pictured in silence here, we expect them to be working hard on music far from the din and flourescent glare of the trade show floor.

As always, click for larger images. Photos by Marsha Vdovin; words by Peter Kirn:

Roland’s V-Guitar marks a surprising collaboration, bringing the famed American guitar maker Fender together with the Japanese electronic maker to make an “electronic guitar,” merging the two company’s tech on a digitally-augmented Stratocaster. More on this soon – but the extended playing techniques won over many guitarists.

The Danish design aesthetes of AIAIAI have improved upon their TMA-1 headphones with a studio model. Same drivers, same basic design, but a “flatter” response to sound (rather than beefed-up, DJ-ready bass) and closed ear design. It’s impossible to hear anything at NAMM, but I can attest that the new design is far, far more comfy to wear. Actually, if I could have kept these on the whole show to drown out the sound, it would have been great.

An easy place to spot a talented celebrity was at the Dave Smith Instruments booth, at which artists clustered around Dave and Roger Linn. They were on-hand with plenty of tweaks to their stellar Tempest drum machine.

Teenage Engineering’s OP-1 grew up, with new features (drum sounds! MIDI sync – at last), and grew out, with a companion product for connecting sensors and USB host mode that could be a boutique item for music DIYers. We’ll go hands-on with each this year, and while readers were disappointed on a lack of some details (will the OpLab be open source?), we expect to get more details from the Teenagers when the product is ready in the coming months.

Readers of tech blogs (ahem) may miss out on the fact that the vast majority of NAMM is really for guitarists, drummers, and traditional instrumentalists. And yes, that includes glittery, pink products from Daisy Rock Guitars. We’ve concluded this model will be perfect for Sparkle Pony. (And really, if you’re not watching Portlandia to get that reference, get on it. Also, Jenny Conlee is crazy awesome.)

Thin, responsive, and expressive, the QuNeo from Keith McMillen – funded on Kickstarter – proves it’s really happening. With continuous pressure response on its touch controls and bi-directional control, it could be the most anyone will ever have gotten from a US$200 controller. Yes, we’ll be watching.

Pioneer wasn’t showing anything new at this show — they timed those launches over the fall with new controllers like the Ergo. But they did have a glossly all-white lacquer set of limited-edition devices that looked absurdly gorgeous. Now if I want to do my flat over in the style of a Stanley Kubrick set, I know what DJ gear I’ll be buying. (If you don’t know what I mean, watch the end of 2001 again – or the living room in Tron: Legacy, which is more or less a copy.) White is the new generic-dull-charcoal.

Akai’s MPC Renaissance is unlike any other mass-market controller we’ve seen. It’s actually substantial, something that feels like a vintage MPC even though it’s designed to work with software (pictured). The audio circuitry is straight out of the modern MPC, but there’s a switch for “vintage” modes – think 12-bit output when the MPC60 is enabled, for instance. Akai told CDM they built the software in-house, but we also learned at NAMM that they licensed time-stretch tech from iZotope, giving their upcoming MPC software generous audio-manipulation abilities.

The Renaissance will cost you, with a street expected well over a grand, but that makes it even more welcome that the same superb pads and response curves are also on the maker’s MAX49 keyboard and cheaper MPC Model.

Just expect to wait: these were prototypes, and there were still some bugs to work out.

The Renaissance is for the MPC die-hard; the MPC Studio is the model that will directly take on Native Instruments and Maschine. It’s slim, sleek, and still has great-feeling controls. And while that makes it compelling competition for Maschine, I’m gratified to see this whole market expanding, new workflows for performance and production, and a push to better quality in the controllers. The days when computer gear meant “cheap and plastic-y” are mercifully at an end. Speaking of which –

Akai’s MAX49 keyboard could be a new model to beat. The keyboard action is satisfyingly springy, with a new keybed not seen in previous models. The pads are identical to those on the Renaissance, and feel more the way proper MPC pads should. Not everyone will love the light-up, touch-sensitive resistive faders, but I found with a bit of pressure, they worked well – and that means never having to worry about a fader catching up with the value in software. You also get serious features: Control Voltage, a full complement of MIDI ports, and aftertouch. Did I mention Control Voltage? It’s nice to see a controller keyboard with a slightly premium price, build, and features.

The last surprise from Akai was this MPC DJ. The company says it’s a prototype only, and had little more to say about it, but it’s fascinating to see the MPC and turntable controls converge.

Moog’s Minitaur was my favorite synth of the show. It just sounds consistently brilliant, no matter which way you turn it or play it – and I accordingly noticed it was the synth the most people were actually playing on the show floor.

This is what a 24-karet KORG MonoTribe looks like, alongside a silver-plated model. There’s little more one can say. It is, of course, one of a kind — and already spoken for.

The other thing of beauty at the KORG booth: a limited-edition reverse-key SV-1 keyboard.

iOS accessories were numerous, but a few were genuinely useful. IK Multimedia’s iRig Mic “Cast,” for instance, is coupled with handy software for podcasters, as a quick tool for interviewing or podcast recording.

It’s not a new product, but one of the reviews to which I’m most looking forward is this Eers product. It promises custom in-ears you make yourself, rather than the enormous cost of getting them custom-made. Stay tuned on this one – protecting your hearing and making on-stage gigs go well is perhaps as essential as gear can get.

The just-intonation Hymnatron from the Dewanatron crew was one of the most compositionally-compelling instruments at the show, with a unique sound, tuning, and key layout. And it looks mighty handsome in this one-off wooden case.

LiveWire’s modular was among the many dreamy modular rigs at Big City Music and Analog Haven, two Los Angeles hotspots for analog modulars. Did we mention space was more plentiful and inexpensive, and gigs more generous, in LA than in NYC, Chicago, or San Francisco? Funny coincidence, that.

Many modules graced this show, but the most intriguing was not analog, but digital – think digital algorithms in an analog, patch-cord-modular hardware workflow. Tom Erbe, maker of long-beloved SoundHack (the app, and then more recently the plug-ins) put some of his sonic wizardry into a module, collaborating with one of our favorite modular builders, MakeNoise. The result: the MakeNoise Echofon. As such, it’s a perfect emblem of our Create Digital Music, Create Analog Music philosophy. Dear Berlin friends: let’s plug this into your monster modulars, okay?

Big City Music is a wonderful place. The other candidate for best new module: brilliant creations by Metasonix, as previewed here. We’ll be watching for these to be patch-able, too.

Casio had its classic CZ-1000 synth on-hand at its booth. The Casio XW isn’t quite a successor to the CZ, though it does include some of those waveforms and phase distortion sounds. What it does appear to be is a very affordable, do-just-about-everything workstation at a fraction of the price of any of its rivals. For someone who wants a jack-of-all-trades gigging keyboard, this could very much be a contender.

Our friends at Beatport are evidently getting into the hardware business. The most interesting launch wasn’t a set of TMA headphones with Slimer-green cords (I’ll take the Studio model, thanks, or just a non-Danish set of studio cans). Instead, I was intrigued by the eminently-practical line of gigging cords Beatport is working on with Hosa. They include features live digital musicians and DJs badly need, like color-coded cords you can find easily at a show, and hinged USB cords you can cram into tight spaces. More on those soon.

Thanks, all. Lastly, I want to thank everyone I got to spend time with at the NAMM show, and particularly Marsha Vdovin, who is responsible for these photos and keeping our schedule together. NAMM is always too crowded and too short, but it can lay groundwork for a whole year. And I’m excited for this Year of the Dragon. Be seeing you.

For the rest of our NAMM coverage:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/tag/namm/

Photos by Marsha Vdovin / Words by Peter Kirn.

There’s lots of new stuff for musicians. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to leave some of it out, and skip to what’s really interesting.

Neil Bufkin did a great job last year covering NAMM for CDM, shooting some lo-fi, informal videos that got right to the heart of what we wanted to know. So, I’m pleased to share Neil’s work again, since unless you’re following forums (fora?) closely, you might miss it.

He picked out some of our absolute favorites. Highlights: Moog sums up the Minitaur in one, excellent word (“knobby”!), the Arturia shows off its sound shapers, Teenage Engineering flaunt their DIY prowess (hint: you can make your own inputs for next-to-nothing for the OpLab), and we get some up-close highlights of other hardware, too.

Bonus: I’ve included a quick upload from my, cough, phone of the QuNeo hardware. We’ll wait to shoot prettier videos when this gear actually ships. In the meantime, find a really old CRT (maybe from an old Commodore) and plug into that, if you can.

Minitaur: It’s Knobby!

I didn’t get to shoot a video, because I was too busy for the few minutes I had with the Minitaur just playing. The controls are simple, elegant, and – here’s why you know it’s a Moog – absolutely every conceivable position of the parameters sounds brilliant. It’s a bit spooky, or unfair, or something. I’ll have a full hands-on hopefully around April from Berlin. Here’s a tour with the Chief Engineer of Moog.

(For more of why we love Moog Chief Engineer Cyril Lance, see him show us the Moogerfooger Cluster Flux.)

Moog also posted some celeb visitors to their booth jamming away and making this thing sound even better; see other tidbits from their Twitter stream.

Arturia Minibrute

It has a name that sounds Moog-like, and it might be an analog hardware synth, but make no mistake: this synth is all-French, and un-Moog. The feel of playing it different, it has a great rotary-controlled arpeggiator, and the sound shapers and oscillator mix controls can take it into some very different sonic territory. I made repeat visits to the booth just to wrap my head around the feel, and got to really love it.

Akai MAX49

So now that you’re looking for a keyboard with MIDI and CV to go with all these new sound modules, here’s a surprising candidate – Akai. Yes, we’re utterly relieved to see the company that was recently making tiny keyboards for iPhones and things with only USB MIDI on them return to MIDI DIN and CV.

In my hands-on with the MAX49, I was very impressed by the feel. The keybed feels terrific and just springy enough, and the pads are more traditional MPC-style pads shared on the new MPC controllers. They’ve also sorted the velocity response. (That is, they aren’t the pads readers were complaining about on previous Akai keyboards.) Also, the red color that looks so garish in the product photos looks very nice in person; it’s a high-gloss, thick finish that is reminiscent of car paint.

Here’s a more detailed look at all the features via Neil:

Smithson Martin Emulator

It’s likely spendier than what at least some readers will want – especially with the iPad as an everyman’s alternative – but I really enjoy Neil’s detailed look with Smithson Martin at the custom control layouts on the Emulator hardware.

Our friends at The Verge also take a look at the new hardware. (I’ve become a great fan of Joseph Flatley’s general tech writing, so I’m really pleased to see him covering the music tech area … and Joseph, one of these days we’ll be in the same place at the same time.)

Teenage Engineering OP-1 Update, Oplab

While some may resent the gloss of marketing around their work, the truth is, the Teenage Engineers are also doing some great engineering. The OP-1 updates take a synth that was conceptually interesting and make it more musically inspiring and productive, finally starting to realize some of its original potential.

And then there’s Oplab. At $300, it’s not an Arduino – but what it is is a unique, programmable combination of CV, MIDI, and USB hosting (that’s the key) to which you can connect virtually any hardware or custom sensor or hardware creation. Some onlooked misunderstood what it was initially, comparing its pricing to boxes that only to CV-to-MIDI conversion, and missing the advantages of USB hosting.

Here’s a better look at what it actually does, and I can guarantee, having talked to the TE crew, that there will be more details to come. I hope that this will also inspire other DIY projects, even those not involving the Oplab per se, so we’ll document those aspects, too.

Again, The Verge gives us a second look with a nicer camera.

Livid

Livid has been very, very busy of late. And their latest controller, in collaboration with Richie Hawtin and M-nus, is an extraordinary example of what iteration can do for hardware. The first pad-and-fader-and-knob controllers from Livid were very, very good. This is even better. Quietly, Livid is making the kind of all-around controller many musicians will appreciate, even as big makers struggle to find the formula artists want.

Since I hear there’s some association between M-nus, techno, and Berlin, let’s hope we can get a closer hands-on. Anyone interested in that? Show of hands?

Watch This Space

We have more photos and hands-on details of new tech from NAMM to bring you. I’m working through them slowly, as is my speed, so we can go into the stuff we really care about in greater detail. And since I can’t only look at new gear, new music coverage coming, as well. Be seeing you.

We’re calling it: on Thursday, January 19, the soft synth age, and synth polyphony, officially came to an end. Also, Arturia, the people who make virtual analog soft synths, are now making analog hardware. And I just saw Roger Linn, and he was sporting a new goatee and had an agonizer in his sash, and he’s working for Akai again but calls them the Terran Empire. So it’s possible something very odd is going on.

Yes, Arturia has a “100% analog,” two oscillator synth with CV, MIDI, and USB, plus an arpeggiator. Price: US$549 / €499, April 2012.

I wanted to bring something special to our coverage, so we’ll see how the Arturia Minibrute compares to the brand new 1981 Moog Rogue.

First, the features from Arturia:

Monophonic synthesizer
100% Analog Audio Signal Path
Steiner-Parker Multimode Filter (LP, BP, HP and Notch)
Voltage Controlled Oscillator with Sub-Osc
Oscillator Mixer (Sub, Sawtooth, Square, Triangle, White Noise, Audio In)
LFO1 with 6 waveforms and bi-polar modulation destinations
LFO2 with 3 vibrato modes
Brute Factor™ delivering saturation and rich harmonics
Ultrasaw generating shimmering sawtooth waveforms
Metalizer bringing extreme triangle harmonics
Two ADSR Envelope Generators
25 note Keyboard with Aftertouch
Rugged Aluminium Enclosure
External Analog Audio Input
External Analog Audio Input
CV In/Out controls: Pitch, Gate, Filter, Amp
MIDI In/Out with 5-Pin DIN connectors
USB MIDI In/Out
1/4” Audio Output and 1/4” Headphone Output
Gate Source Selection: Audio Input, Hold, Keyboard
Arpeggiator:
4 Modes of Arpeggiation
4 Octave Range Control
6 Time Divisions
Swing Control

The Moog Rogue has a similar form factor, and some might argue a cleaner control layout. (It’s certainly simpler and more approachable.) And like the Minibrute, the Rogue is a 2-oscillator analog synth. But there are some significant advantages of the Minibrute over the Rogue.

The Rogue is limited to saw and either rectangle or square waves, and lacks the sub, triangle, and white noise sources. Both the Rogue and Minibrute work with external audio, though.

The filter on the Moog is 24dB/oct lowpass, whereas the Minibrute has a multimode filter; I’m eager to hear that Steiner-Parker filter in action, but the Rogue’s filter works pretty nicely.

Both do CV and gate.

You get 32 keys on the Moog, which I prefer to the 25 on the Arturia, but the Moog keyboard isn’t velocity sensitive. The Arturia keys are, and add channel aftertouch.

And then the Arturia starts piling on the extras: you get an arpeggiator, easy selection of how the gate is routed, some unusual effects that manipulate harmonics on the waveforms, and USB, which I’m told stands for Universal Serial Bus. I’m hoping I can connect that to my TRS-80′s RS-232 port, perhaps via an adapter.

So, there you have it. I need to get some hands on time, but I think I’d probably choose the Arturia Minibrute over the Moog Rogue.

What? You wanted to compare to the new Moog Minitaur, or synths by Dave Smith Instruments?

Well, I don’t know that Sequential Circuits has anything at this show that comp– okay, I’ll stop. And yeah, we’ll do that more serious comparison later, but Arturia, I think you should get compared to eBay offerings, too. Sounds like a challenge.

Since it’s really a single oscillator synth with blendable waveforms, I’d compare it to an SH101.
Updated: Jesse Mejia makes a great argument in comments for why my somewhat glib Rogue comparison is actually reasonably apt here. (And I was really somewhat serious, amidst a pre-coffee ramble.) But among various arguments against the Rogue in favor of Roland’s SH-101, Francis Preve offers this line of thinking: “Since it’s really a single oscillator synth with blendable waveforms, I’d compare it to an SH-101.” Good point.

In all seriousness, a serious comparison of vintage synths to recent monosynths sounds like a great idea.

http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/products/minibrute/intro.html

Videos

Augh, Arturia, what the heck are you doing in my bedroom? And when did my hair get that curly?

Tour:

Via Synthtopia, here’s Passion Pit with ProAudioStar.com on the new synth.

One is a keytar. One is a master controller with touch faders and real MIDI and — control voltage, for working with analog gear. Seriously. The keyboard controller market may have faded into a dull, gray blur of nearly-identical models, but under the Alesis and Akai monikers, there’s some fresh-looking variety. Love it or hate it, these are not the same keyboards you’ll get from anybody else at the moment.

I got to meet with Alesis/Akai/Numark today at the NAMM Press Preview, get my hands on a prototype of their new Vortex keytar, and talk about what they’re doing. And I have to say, I’m impressed. (I didn’t get hands on the second model, the MAX49, but will visit their booth in the next couple of days.) Finally, we get the return of the MIDI DIN port for working with a wider range of hardware, without sacrificing USB. One model even does CV for analog equipment. And both can supply their own power so you can use them with iOS. And they at least are interesting enough to have an opinion about them – even if you hate them.

Here’s a look at each of them and what why they’ll be on our radar when they ship later this year.

Alesis Vortex Keytar

First off, let me say it, once and for all: I don’t think there’s anything dorky about a keytar, other than the name. Us keyboardists are plenty capable of being dorky on our own, but don’t blame the instrument.

What keytars are – or strap-on keyboards, if you can say that without smirking – is eminently practical for one-handed playing. For two-handed playing or more conventional piano or organ parts, of course, you’re better off without them. But the keytar lets you move around, play expressive solos, and also free up your hands if you’re using other machines, as in electronic music. Unfortunately, the options out there have been overly large, making them too unweildly for many people to play, and overly expensive, pricing them out of a lot of their market. I’ve played and advocated the Rock Band game controller because it’s lightweight, inexpensive, and nicely made, and it even has a MIDI jack. I actually hear one Harmonix veteran is now at Alesis, so that may be no coincidence. (The Vortex even has a touch strip on its neck.)

The Vortex, though, looks like the first really balanced keytar controller in the market … well, ever. Features:

• MIDI DIN and USB MIDI
• Velocity-sensitive pads in addition to the keys
• 37 velocity-sensitive keys (good number for a keytar), plus channel aftertouch (heck, yes)
• MIDI-assignable accelerometer. And this is cool – it’s not on all the time; you make a quick sweep of the neck to enable the accelerometer in a clever gesture control.
• MIDI-assignable touch strip, but also a full pitch bend wheel underneath your thumb (I rather prefer the latter, but it’s nice to have a choice).
• Assignable slider under your thumb, mapped by default to volume.
• Dedicated sustain button, plus octave selection, transport, and patch select.

With all due respect to Roland, this appears to fix effectively all of my complaints about the Roland keytars at a fraction of the price.

And you can add a strap via standard guitar strap pegs.

The best part:
Q2-2012
MSRP US$399
Estimated street US$249

http://www.alesis.com/vortex

Akai Pro MAX49: Touch Faders, CV

I’ve all but begged manufacturers to explore what an advanced or high-end MIDI controller would look like. The MAX49 likely won’t please everyone, but it’s one compelling-looking answer. Features:

• 49 semi-weighted keys, with channel aftertouch
• 12 MPC pads, backlit, four banks each
• 8 LED touch faders in place of physical faders, four banks each
• Control Voltage and analog Gate outputs for use with analog and vintage gear
• Arpeggiator with latch
• Step sequencer
• MPC swing, Note Repeat, Full Level, navigation – and yeah, I use this stuff, even if the software can do the same
  USB MIDI, MIDI DIN, connect to anything
• Control surface mappings plus full Mackie Control and HUI support – and, sorry, but for all the fancier solutions, sometimes that’s the easiest way to control a variety of software like Ableton Live, Reason, and the other DAWs

So, basically, all the features you want. My only questions are what it looks like in person and how the action feels, particularly those touch faders, as that can be tricky to pull off.

But the features are just perfect. It’s about time to bring back aftertouch and to connect with actual MIDI gear. Adding CV is a delicious addition. And honestly, features like being able to switch on an arpeggiator are far more useful and appealing to average musicians than the hard-to-configure, often-gimmicky automatic control features on many of the keyboards out there. So I’ve got my fingers crossed that the build quality and usability here are good — and that some of Akai’s rivals start taking on similar features. It’s bizarre to be applauding adding features from the 80s and 70s, but some recent progress has been steps backward, not forward.

Q2 2012
MSRP US$699
Estimated street $499

http://www.akaipro.com/max49

There are other new Alesis keyboards out this week, but the Akai MAX49 pretty much steals their thunder.

More Vortex Photos

Back to the Vortex, since I got to snap some shots this morning in Anaheim.

Discuss.

Guess who’s gotten really bad at keeping a lid on upcoming product announcements? The manufacturers.

We’re suddenly utterly awash with teasers. Yes, it seems from intentional leaks to advance campaigns, we’re now destined to see every significant new piece of music gear before we see it, cast in shadows and partial photos and more. Apparently, the folks doing publicity think that this will cause people on the Internet to talk about them. They’re … right, in fact. And with the biggest American trade show for music gear landing next week, we’re in a flood of stuff.

I would willfully ignore such things, but I think it’s worth a quick round-up just to remind ourselves which booths we should visit next week in Anaheim at NAMM. And amidst more predictable teasers, the other good news is, the synths just keep on coming and coming. Who would have thought it? 2012 could be the year of the synth – again. (Even with MIDI DIN, no less!)

CDM is proud to bring you all this news, last. (I made the coffee and everything, but then seemed not to actually post this stuff when it arrived.)

Let’s take a sneak peak.

The best teasers:

NI tipped me off to their new @Traktor feed. There, we see, curiously, something resembling the colored buttons on color-mod monomes. And that’s all I can see, but I’m told we’ll see more from NI soon. (Note that NI doesn’t have a NAMM booth, so I don’t necessarily expect a NAMM announcement.)

Oddly, after I made a reference to the StealthMountain account, I see that tweet reads “Sneak Peak.” I’m going to assume that either that was a cheeky attempt to attract the ire of snarky grammar-correcting Twitter bots after I made mention of them, or that I should shut up as a lot of 2012 will be about me utterly butchering the beautiful German language.

Ken MacBeth takes the wraps off his MicroMac on The Facebook. “Micro” for Ken means basically “normal size” for the rest of us – the guy designs Paul Bunyan-style modulars. The Micro looks nice, indeed, three oscillators, loads of CV, and a VCF, plus Ken hopes for portamento and glide. This is still a prototype, but we hope to catch it in person. Compare the earlier proto design, second from top (which I actually quite like – anyone else?):

French synth maker Eowave is definitely on my must-visit list, with not one but two compelling new synths. The Domino (top) is a little more in the meat-and-potatoes category, a lovely, minimal analog monosynth. Koma (second top) is a bit more modern-looking and different, combining an analog bassline synth with a push-button step sequencer.

Koma @ Eowave
Domino @ Eowave [rattle your floors with the sound that autoplays]

More has leaked out about the upcoming Casio XW-P1. And yeah, basically, it sounds like what we’re getting is a general-purpose workstation, more along the lines of what Roland and Yamaha offer than the personality of the beloved CZ series. (SonicState does the math, too – it’s been since 1988.) The bad news: it’s a big workstation keyboard rather than something a bit more unique. The good news: coming from Casio, I’ll bet we see some serious value pricing … and you can still get your CZ on via eBay.

SonicState quotes Keyboard:
“A Mono solo section with up to six oscillators: two virtual analog, two PCM, noise, and external audio. Poly section with wide variety of gig- ready sounds. Drawbar organ mode. Six-way HexTone multis. Nine-track step sequencer with dedicated drum track.”

We’ve also got more details on Akai’s second controller-plus-software combo offering, the MPC Studio. (Curiously, if it’s small enough to carry with you, it’s called “Studio.” If it’s so big, you have to leave it in your studio, it’s called “Renaissance.” Got it?) As with the MPC Renaissance, the big story here is that you get a “dumb” hardware controller that doesn’t produce sound, and the operation itself all happens on your computer via software, a la Native Instruments’ Maschine. Unlike NI, though, Akai doesn’t really have a track record to speak of in software, so the big variable is how well their software works.

The MPC Studio, meanwhile, looks far more luggable and is presumably more affordable than its nonetheless cool-looking, monster truck-style bigger sibling.

It does look very, very slim. Unfortunately, with all those buttons crammed on the right side, it looks like a remote control for a home theater. I’ll be interested to try it in person and see if that’s usable in real life.

http://www.akaiprompc.com/mpcstudio.php [yup - URL still looks like "Prom PC" to me]

I’m probably most intrigued by Livid’s latest controller, the CNTRL-R, made in collaboration with M-nus Records and Richie Hawtin. That collaboration is interesting just because of the amount of live parameter control Rich and company are doing live. And Livid and their booth-mates should have loads of good toys. Livid’s Peter Nyboer writes in comments:

We (Livid) are showing with Mode Machines at E1009. We’ll be previewing some eurorack MIDI+analog things that we’ve been working on, the CNTRL:R that ships next month, and all our other controllers and DIY parts. I will also stand in the acoustic center of all the electric guitars and attempt an air guitar performance mimicking all the simultaneous shredding.

http://lividinstruments.com/hardware_cntrlr.php

Nord has a new organ and a new drum module coming. Sweet. I’m holding out for a Nord Virginal.

“The drums of the future come from the past” is the tagline.

Or to put it another way, “The key to saving the future, can be found only in the past.” [1]

Or to put it another way, “The future is history.” [2]

Or to put it another way, “He will erase your past to protect your future.” [3]

Or to put it another way, “Fight the future.” [4]

Or to put it another way, “In the future, one man is the law.” [5]

Or to put it another way, “The people aboard Flight 35 are about to land 1,000 years from where they planned to.” [6, and I hope that doesn't happen during my Delta connection in Atlanta on the way to LA ... again]

If you want to hire me to do your next PR campaign – yes, conflict of interest, blah, blah – give me a call. Several commenters have said I’m a great shill. I think that’s a compliment.

Answers below.

[1] Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

[2] Twelve Monkeys.

[3] Eraser.

[4] X-Files: Fight the Future.

[5] Judge Dredd.

[6] Millenium.

Show of hands – how many of you got them all?

Also on our teaser tracker:
bodo notes:

Loads of new Eurorack by the likes of Pittsburgh Modular, WDM, Syntech, LZX, but the most eagerly awaited modules will probably be the Make Noise Oscillator (yay!) and Echophon (basically +pitchdelay http://soundhack.henfast.com/freeware/ in a Eurorack module)

We know Teenage Engineering is bringing something, and they win the award for most obscure teaser video. (TV dinner, suggests one reader.)

I look at 10 things I’m excited about at NAMM, though I think I may have to remove the one about “surprises.”

See you from Anaheim.

Metasonix, the maker celebrating the mad science of tubes for making wonderfully-terrible noises, reveals to CDM that next week they’ll unveil a new Voltage Controlled Oscillator. Behold, videos! From top:

“A prototype R-55 thyratron VCO is controlled with a Makenoise Rene sequencer, with an R-54 VCO tuned to track along.”

“A prototype R-55 thyratron VCO tunes along with an R-54 VCO, both driven with the same CV.”

Analog: you can scare small children with it. In a good way.

And as if you needed another reason to visit their booth at NAMM – or follow along as we visit them virtually here on CDM – Metasonix will have this prototype at the Big City booth. Big City Music, a California treasure trove of boutique music hardware and analog goodies, is a place I’m always willing to evangelize. Metasonix writes CDM:

“This is a prototype, the finished ones will be slightly different.

If people want to see more, the R-55 will be on display at NAMM, at the
Big City Music booth (6735). I won’t be there but Josh can demo it.

They are expected to ship May 2012.
BCM is getting an exclusive distribution on these and the quantities will be limited. ”

http://www.metasonix.com/

What’s the sound of ten Stylophones buzzing?

Truly awful — deliciously so.

Answering the question on everyone’s mind, “how could we form a band using nothing but Stylophones, and what timbres would result?”, the Los Angeles-based troupe LA Stylophonic here plays original music for the stylus-controlled electronic instrument. Adding that many Stylophones together produces a sound that can best be described as … well, unique, certainly. Composer Paul Fraser does actually give them some musical meat into which the ensemble can sink their teeth, with a minimal music-inflected, rhythmic composition that lets that buzzy, edgy sound fly. I love it.

If you think this group is alone, though, you’re sorely mistaken. Stylophone seems to be enjoying a renaissance of sorts, as tracked by the superb:
http://www.stylophonica.com/

Synth legend Vince Clarke bought a new stylophone for his tour. Celeb Mark Ronson jams on one on a national British talk show. Electronics lovers are building their own, using Arduino and kits. There’s a boutique retailer online that caters to those who believe only the original Rolf Harris model has the authentic sound. (An admirable philosophy, if a bit akin to searching out only high-end kazoos.) And a relaunched model is regularly out of stock, thanks to surging popularity. Not bad for an electronic instrument invented before humans traveled out of Earth’s orbit.

What I do enjoy about the hipster (nerdster?) troupe wielding their Stylophones above is that there’s some compositional intent – ultimately, that’s what lets any instrument shine. Thanks, Paul! (Directed by Nick Flessa – a moving portrait, indeed.)

And with all due respect to the late, great Steve Jobs, maybe it isn’t true that “if you see a stylus, they blew it.”

paulfrasermusic.com

Look past the plug-ins and controllers and hosts that work with controllers and iPads sitting in docks and such. If you like dedicated, analog monosynth hardware, life is actually pretty darned good.

Okay, so for those of you without deep pockets, you may not know some of the back story here. Moog’s limited-edition Taurus 3 was a brilliant update of the classic Taurus bass pedal, complete with luscious foot pedals. And with a street dipping down near US$1699, it’s honestly not a bad deal. The problem is, not everyone has that cash, or the ability to lug around a big, heavy pedal.

So, let’s change that equation. Leaked on the Web and then formally announced today, the Minitaur is just a little Taurus. And it’s kind of nothing but awesome. It’s got the footprint of a small-ish book, weighs less than 3 pounds, and will cost US$679 when it ships in the spring.

This isn’t Moog’s first adventure in the sub-$1000 range. But for the first time since the Rogue, you get a truly entry-level Moog synth with a one-knob-per-function interface – something that the Slim Phatty, while it sounds fantastic, lacks.

And you get a lot of goodness for your $700 or so: a steel case, two saw and square waves, the Taurus-style ladder filter, and envelopes a la Minimoog. That gives you Moog-y sounds, and then you add in modern Moog-y control: MIDI DIN, MIDI over USB, and analog inputs for pitch, filter, volume, and gate.

The beauty of all of this is that now, in 2012, your choices for analog monosynths you can actually afford are numerous. The Minitaur sits nicely next to rivals from smaller names – the Doepfer Dark Energy, Vermona Mono Lancet, and DSI Mopho. (Thanks to reader Philip Viana for pointing that out – and yeah, I hope to see all these four compared soon. I’ll get on that.)

Now, if only Moog could put this in a strap-on and call it the Minitar, my life would be complete.

I hope to go visit the new creation at Moog. That is, assuming there isn’t a dart board with my face on it – yes, I did sort of get some flack for admitting to liking hardware synths better than iPads on a certain site paradoxically with “digital” in the name. But consider this: you and a friend each spend just under $700 on an iPad 2 and a Minitaur. (We’ll include tax and the cost of some apps.) Apples to oranges, yes, but – considering the invariable release of an iPad 3 right after you buy the thing and your battery will be shot in a couple of years, come back in 2016 and look at these two purchases, and I’d ask, how do you like them apples?

I mean, seriously, what a*****e would be pushing all that digital technology?

Okay, I’ll go sit in the corner now.

Let’s look at more pictures. And stay tuned for some hands-on time when this is out.