Chris Stack, now no longer with Moog Music, is instead spending his time putting out a terrific series of demo videos in which he combines a dream studio of Moog gear. In the last one, we saw him producing stereo ring modulation — and see comments, as someone did take up my challenge to do the same thing with Pd (Pure Data, the open source patching environment).

Now, he’s back with a fantastic set of control voltage demos. For the uninitiated, control voltage is analog voltage routed between modules or instruments not as sound signal, but as a means of modulating parameters. Here, the arpeggiator of the Moog Little Phatty synth, synchronized to MIDI clock so that everything is in time, modulates other synths, effects, and even a Moog Guitar.

The Moog Guitar example is really hauntingly lovely and expressive, meriting mention here. It’s a reminder of what a beautiful electronic instrument the guitar can be – amidst all the tortuous discussions of how to invent new instruments and interfaces, one might be staring you in the face.

I find a lot of my friends are turning to modular techniques and buying modular racks, which is fine, but it bears repeating that the strategy is applicable elsewhere. A couple of pieces of hardware with CV might be enough to get you started, as here, and the same kinds of routing techniques are just as relevant in the realm of the computer. (Let me say that again since some people missed it in comments, etc.: you can do this in the box in software.) That’s good to know in case your budget or physical space can’t accommodate the “real” analog gear. But that’s another reason to check out what people are doing with hardware; even if you do use software, it can be a source of inspiration and ideas. We’re fortunate to get to choose either working method.

But I digress – does this video give you any ideas for ways of working? Specific requests for Chris as he makes new videos? Or are you already off on eBay looking for a deal on a Slim Phatty? And for that matter, those of you who have been clamoring for a Create Analog Music, what would you want to see, given the galaxy of potential devices? (Ancient Buchla modulars? ElectroComps? DIY CV? Let us know.)

Updated: Chris sends over this audio of his friend Jake Wolf on fretless bass working with Chris and more Moog:
Jake Wolf – Chris Stack, fretless bass, Moog Guitar and electronics by chrisstack

Chris writes:

In this one the LP pitch CV is instead going to the oscillator frequency CV input of the ring mod the guitar is running through. You don’t hear it a lot. I fade the ring mod in from time to time with an expression pedal. It show up as some subtly shifting metalic overtones.

Also, Other than Moogerfoogers, I’m running the guitar straight into the mixer. That nice warm distortion comes from overdriving Moogerfoogers.

Moog Music have been busy. Yes, they’re making an iPhone app, but for hardware lovers, there’s also the Slim Phatty, a rack-sized rendition of the Little Phatty announced last week. US$849 list, fourth quarter of this year; Synthtopia reports an $800 street.

What does the Slim Phatty get you? Like the Little Phatty, it’s basically a 2-oscillator analog monosynth with lots of onboard controls and connectivity.

• 2-oscillator Little Phatty sound engine, with the Moog Ladder Filter and Control Voltage input
• 17″ width, USB, MIDI, CV, external audio processing
• New Tuning Scale feature and editor for alternate scales, microtonal scales, etc.

Slim Phatty product page

I like that Tuning Scale feature; I hope to see that on the Little Phatty and not just this Littler Phatty.

The other addition – a bunch of new presets, all available on SoundCloud:
Slim Phatty Sound Samples by moogmusicinc

It’s not a bad deal by any means, though there’s a certainly appeal to the Little Phatty being an integrated instrument with a keyboard you can tote around.

This is about the time where we all do a comparison with, say, Dave Smith Instruments. DSI can get you a mono analog module for as little as US$399, and an entire keyboard for $799, in the Mopho range. Pluses for the DSI: their units are smaller, and you have the option (on the Evolver) of mixing digital and analog oscillators. What DSI doesn’t offer is control voltage input, however.

In other Moog news, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that you can now get the Filtatron on which we reported early last week. US$4.99 on the iTunes store. I could ask profound questions about what this means, but I’ll leave it at this — it’s a nicely-designed tool, a terrific mobile sampler and sound designer when you’re not in your studio, and shows its colors as a real collaboration between software developer (Christopher Wolfe) and the Moog team.

Black Friday? Cyber Monday? Who need them? The entire month of December seems to be on sale when it comes to music tech.

Christmas (and Hanukkah, for that matter) are nearly here. Whether it’s economic pressure or just some aggressive holiday pricing, there are some big deals out there that could make excellent gifts – or might just give you a nice list for shopping for yourself before or after the holidays. (Yes, it’s true: most of what readers suggested in our “gift guide” for the CDM Winter 08 special wasn’t really all that practical. But it does make a nice list of things you love.)

Here’s some of what’s on our radar screen:

Big Ticket Items Get a Break

$999 Tenori-On. In the US, at least, the Yamaha Tenori-On – the Lite Brite-style instrument tablet from innovator Toshio Iwai – gets a $200 discount. Based on reader feedback, that hardly moves it into impulse buy territory, but if you’ve been on the fence, your timing is right. Yamaha has also rolled out some very practical accessories (like a case and “survival kit” with stand), so if you know someone who owns one of these, accessories could make a nice last-minute gift.

And for the rest of us, there’s the US$20 t-shirt. You could mod that with LEDs and sensors and just let people play your chest. See the US store (curious to hear reports from The Rest of the World):

Tenori-On Store US

Moog bundles, Little Phatty break: The Moog Little Phatty is now available in Stage II Edition. (mmm, black!) It seems to have a slight street price break, down below US$1300 from a $1395 list. And to further sweeten the deal, the Moogs are presently bundled with a CP-251 control processor for feeding some analog control into your new synth. (See the video above. Really, an excuse to post this video is worth it.) In very much not a Recession Special, Moog also re-introduced the Taurus Bass Pedals.

Or, more fitting my budget at the moment, you can just get DVDs, books, and tasty apparel. Or perhaps a tattoo gift certificate; I hear the Moog fans love those.

Komplete, More Komplete – Komplete + Kore: For a limited time, AudioMIDI have bundled Kore 2 – Native Instruments’ software and controller – with the Komplete pack (basically everything NI makes on the producer/instrument side). US$895 for the total, which is what you’d normally pay for Komplete alone. You don’t need much justification here as Kore 2 doesn’t add any cost, but to me, having the physical controller and the ability to easily navigate all the NI sounds makes Komplete more manageable. (And we’re big fans of using Reaktor inside Kore, because you can easily assign controls to all your custom Reaktor creations.)

I just stumbled across AudioMIDI’s deal; we’ve heard other folks find bundles like this in stores. So it could be worth shopping around in your neck of the woods.

Cakewalk Holiday Bundles: Cakewalk is bundling extras with their software, including video tutorials and a download of pyro Audio Creator, an audio recording, editing, CD burning utility (which can itself make a nice software stocking stuffer for your Windows-using friends at $40). You can get a pretty full-blown version of their SONAR DAW for about US$299 (even though that looks more like the upgrade pricing of Pro Tools), and I see they also offer the E-MU Proteus Pack for lovers of the old E-MU racks.

Bundle pricing is different in different parts of the world, so if you’re interested in this offer, best to check your local store:

http://store.cakewalk.com/

Applied Acoustics Modeling Collection: AAS is having a sale on their lovely psychically-modeled products, so Tassman (modular environment) + Lounge Lizard (the electric piano) + Ultra Analog + String Studio (the terrific modeled string instrument) + Strum Acoustic = US$349. Check out the Modeling Collection in their store. Ableton users got treated to a couple of these instruments in Ableton-styled remakes, but if you haven’t bought those yet or don’t exclusively use Ableton or want the whole suite, this is worth a look.

Native Instruments sale: Native is offering upgrades 50% off, software bundles (including a free synth with their Audio Kontrol 1 audio interface), and other holiday deals through 12/31.

Bargain Buys

Steinway? Never heard of ‘em. The Steinway piano, photo (CC) madabandon.

Gary Garritan has a bunch of his sampled instruments on sale for US$99.99: Personal Orchestra, Jazz Big Band, and Marching Band. The sale ends 12/21, so you’ll want to get on this quick. The nice thing about these instrument packs is that they’re fairly well-focused and lightweight, so you don’t need a massive hard drive and sample-playing machine to get them running. They’re ideal, for instance, if you’re working on a score and want a quick rendition. Garritan also has the lighter “Basic Edition” of the Steinway-authorized Virtual Concert Grand. It’s 1.3GB uncompressed, so you can download it, making a perfect last-minute gift for someone (or yourself). I’ve just grabbed it myself and hope to have a review for you next week. You don’t get all the multisamples, it’s 16-bit only, and you only get the classic audience view, but I imagine this is how a lot of people use their sampled piano a lot of the time anyway. It only officially comes out Wednesday, but that gives you time for a Christmas Eve install.

Garritan Order Page [includes Christmas special]

Steinway Comparison Chart

As always, the Garritan community has done a free Christmas album:

http://garritan.com/Xmas.html

And perhaps there’s a deal on a real Steinway somewhere, too, though that doesn’t quite fit into our budget category.

Costco Meg-bundle with Snowball Mic: Costco (the US-based discount club) is generally not a place to go buy music tech gear. But they have a pretty terrific deal running right now, if you can find it. Blue Microphones’ Snowball USB mic, a convention basic dual-capsule condenser with 16-bit digital converter, is bundled with some other extras. You get Koss UR40 headphones, and Mackie’s underrated music editing workstation Tracktion 3. Given that the mic and Tracktion usually sell for $100 or more on their own, US$99 for the three is quite nice.

Snowball Mic Bundle

It’s hard to beat this as a $100 gift for newcomers you know. The Snowball isn’t the best condenser mic around by any stretch, and lacks fully-adjustable gain, but it’s a nice little mic to toss in a backpack and plug in via USB.

[Update] Fantastic Image-Line sale: Whoops, meant to mention this and didn’t in the first draft of the story! Image-Line’s software always makes a fantastic discount buy (which is why it topped our software list in the CDM Holiday Guide). But it’s an even better deal now, thanks to discounts and a free time-manipulation effect. Adrian Anders writes in comments:

Maximus & Morphine – $99 each

Every order of $99 or more comes with their new upgrade to WaveTraveler, one of those plugs in FLStudio that made Mac-heads question their loyalty. It hasn’t been announced but there’s a good chance an OS X version is in the works

More deals to follow.

Image-Line Sale

Peak Pro 6 Sale

The Mac-only audio editor has gotten some major upgrades to its playlist, RAM-based editing, new DSP goodies, dither modeling, another UI upgrade, and additional delivery and dynamics processing. Correction: only the upgrade pricing gets you as low as US$99. But there is a DDP export extension and free mastering plug-in with Peak Pro 6, an upgrade sale, plus other discounts:

Peak Pro 6 sale

Of course, that still leaves the “everyday low price” of Wave Editor from Audiofile Engineering at US$79, which has earned big fans like CDM contributor and game sound designer W. Brent Latta. Wave Editor has added some delivery options of its own, meaning you could easily choose either one. That makes two terrific choices on the Mac, which had traditionally been a bit behind on straight-up audio editors when compared to Windows’ Sound Forge and Audition.

Cash Back on Live

Ableton has a Holiday Special with up to $150 cash back on Live 7, Live LE, and Ableton Suite. There are some other promotions on, so well worth checking.

No promotional fees were collected in the making of this article. I do accept candy canes from readers if you happen to run into me. 

Deals by You

I’m sure I’m just scratching the surface here. Seen any great deals / discounts yourself? Picked up anything you want to share?

If you haven’t yet, do check out all we stuck in our Holiday Guide:

On Demand: CDM Winter 2008, with Gift Guide, Bending and Slicing Tutorials, More

While on the subject of Moog Music, the good peoples of Moog have a number of small announcements that should be welcome news to Moog fans.

First, the new EP2 Expression Pedal is a hefty (2.55-pound) pedal with adjustable external output level. Heavy-duty build and more expression control could make this one to get at US$44.

EP2 Expression Pedal

Moog also has a couple of announcements for owners of their Little Phatty synth. The Mac/Windows Little Phatty Editor Librarian is a much-needed tool for managing presets and settings on Moog’s synth keyboard, with support for custom preset banks for performance, high-precision (up to 16-bit) sound editing, and even a “Preset Genetics” tools for morphing and mutating old presets into new presets. (Anyone remember Kai’s Power Tools, the groundbreaking visual app for Macs? Okay, I’m getting off-topic.)

The editor is US$69, and a demo is available.

Little Phatty Editor Librarian

In the free category for the Little Phatty, the 1.03c OS update has a small version number but some important features. Biggest among them: high-resolution MIDI data for modulation wheel and filter cutoff (interestingly, both send and receive). I wish more synths would implement this, in software and hardware alike. Also included in the update: some preset saving and MIDI Setup improvements, and most importantly, MIDI Merge and Poly modes. Merge gives you a real Thru; Poly provides the ability to rack together multiple Moog synths into a monster, polyphonic Moog rig, you lucky bastards with your multiple Moogs!

Little Phatty Stage Software; Tribute Software [OS updates, other updates]