Sometimes, the best sounds come not from synthesis, not even from electrified instruments, but from the purity of a mic and acoustic instrumentation. It remains electronic, or even digital sound, but its source is organic. And so, one of the best reasons to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie in theaters is the wonderful noises that bounce around Hans Zimmer’s score.

Behind many great film scores are great soloists as much as great composers, and Sherlock Holmes is no exception. Zimmer worked with Diego Stocco, sound designer, sound artist, inventor, and composer in his own right. To realize the inner workings of the mind of Sherlock Holmes, violin player, the pair turned to Stocco’s own creation, a kind of meta-instrument made of all string instruments, dubbed the Experibass. Looking only at its appearance, the instrument looks like a practical joke, with the bridge and neck of a violin and viola pasted onto a Double Bass. But once you hear the creation, the instrument is sheer genius, combining the Double Bass’ superior resonance with the more delicate sounds of the treble instruments.

Brilliant as this instrument may be, let’s not get entirely distracted from the really important things in life, like how to make great pasta. Watch the video interview above for insight into the sonic and culinary recipes in the duo’s kitchens.

That’s just the beginning of the inspiration to draw from Diego and other artists whose work is heard from behind the silver screen in this blockbuster cinematic month of December.

It’s campy horror sounds, remixed into digital music — the perfect way to celebrate the holiday! From our friend TRASH_AUDIO’s Surachai, who’s on the compilation:

We have teamed up with Cock Rock Disco to compile a horrific compilation of the very best campy 80’s horror movies ever made, remixed by some of the greatest digital grind, metal, breakcore, and electro artists from around the world. Artists including Silon Fist, Terminal 11, Vytear , The Teknoist, Sgure, Toecutter, Duran Duran Duran, Eustachian, Bong-Ra, Captain Ahab, Surachai, Dead Noise, DJ Floorclearer, Droon.
Enjoy the ride into hell, because this will be your last!

Happy Halloween – Free Compilation [TRASH_AUDIO]

Here’s another mix — thanks, Kempton!
http://kemptonmooney.com/audio.html

I actually hadn’t had time to watch my tech RSS feeds yesterday when I said I “lost half an hour dreaming of my new lounge-style studio where I adjust envelope breakpoints from a giant aluminum sphere like the one in Sleeper.”

But, anyway – wish granted!

*Disclaimer: The following video, while demonstrating some insanely cool tech, may bore you to tears. In response to reader requests, we feel it’s important to warn you.

Microsoft’s multi-touch Sphere plays crazy Pong [Boing Boing Gadgets]

Now, of course, researchers being researchers, Microsoft R&D has taken a massive sphere controller and turned it into a mind-achingly dull slide show. I, on the other hand, could imagine kinky sci-fi electronica being made with massive hand gestures, particles spinning through space representing sonic grains, and the like. Microsoft, if you’re looking to hire someone to do something interesting with your giant sphere, I’m sure I or any one of the readers of this site can make something that couldn’t be replicated with a Flickr account, a toy bouncy ball, and a projector. This is the power of musicians. You try to make something absurd useful, but not really. We make the absurdly useless awesome. (Case in point: modular synthesis. Hey, is anyone using these giant telephone switchboards? Mind if we invent a new kind of party and welcome aliens to our planet?)

That said, let’s talk about just how much this is like Woody Allen’s sci-fi parody classic Sleeper.

The faux-Pan Am logo. The sleek, mod, curved white casing. The elegant controls. Yes, this is indeed a synth that would look at home in the space station in Kubrick’s 2001. Technically not the future so much as the 1960’s version of the future – but surely we’re getting around to reshaping our future to look more like that, right? At least for synths?

The synth in question is the Omega 8, a “luggable” 20-pound, 8-voice analog synth with individual stereo pairs for each voice. It’s really, truly, old-school analog, with discrete analog oscillators, voltage-controlled filters of the 24dB and 12dB variety, multi-stage envelopes, and all the extras. In the “new-school” category, though, it is MIDI savvy, with MIDI destinations for just about everything (including the envelope breakpoints) and even breath controller support. How do I know this? Why, off the top of my head, of course; I’ve got three. Erm. Okay, I read it on the old Omega 8 page, then lost half an hour dreaming of my new lounge-style studio where I adjust envelope breakpoints from a giant aluminum sphere like the one in Sleeper.

All of that luxury will set you back US$4700. (If you can do with fewer voices, you can get down to a more Earth-bound US$1679. But that’s only 10 pounds, so it must make half as much sound.) But normally, the Omega ships in a pedestrian-looking synth case, like every other synth. Enter the Orion rendition.

2008: An Orion Odyssey Teaser Page

Studio Electronics News

As the manufacturers say:

what is this? it is art. it is light. it is glorious design brought to life by Antoine Argentieres, the man, who sagely let his fondness for Stanley Kubrick’s past century enigmatic odyssian vision of the future (and re-visioning of pivotal past events) inspire a house fit for the majestic voice and verve of the Omega8––a cathedral of transformation; the great work of the synth; a mind before matter mystical alignment of awareness: light and sound waves that reveal the ORION GALAXY, expanding and growing and luminous.

I’m not sure it’s art, but it is spectacularly groovy. Studio Electronics also promises a special sound bank befitting its forward-looking body.

I’ve heard varying answers to what availability will be from “I can’t conceive how expensive this is” to “rumors say it’s a one-off.” For their part, SE says it’s

available now for those who "have the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission.

There you have it. You just have to believe. You have to think really, really hard about how you want it, and believe in why it matters, and you’ll own it.

Okay, it must be really, really, really, really expensive.

But I do believe in the mission. Steampunk’s over, folks. So is arbitrarily sticking cheap knobs into a cardboard box and rendering a “polished aluminum sheen” on the case by using duct tape. Let’s get back to the future with our synth designs. (I’m encouraged by the fact that our friend Nostromo found this for us on the SDIY list, by way of the music bar list.)

You still have time to do something for 2010.

See also: Music thing (hmmm, Tom got the jump on me, so maybe I shouldn’t have gotten so lost in that reverie of owning the thing…)

Update: Music thing also points to some artistic inspiration in the same vein.

Karate Kid AV Remix from momo_the_monster on Vimeo.

A major highlight of the party CDM held last weekend with our friends at TRASH_AUDIO and VJKungFu.tv: a live remix of The Karate Kid. Momo the Monster mangled the video while Shane Hazelton and Stephan Vankov did music. The whole event was powered by some clever MIDI sync that managed to wrangle the gear — enough hardware that it seemed like the crew had just raided a Guitar Center — and sync up the video.

Sure, the remix may sound silly — and it was. (Deliciously so.) But the interplay between the three, punctuated by ridiculous live vocals by Shane, really put it over the top. Adding some MIDI intelligence to your digital trio could help all kinds of performances, not just this one We’ll have to get Momo to share what he did.

Momo has more over on Create Digital Motion, complete with technical details:

Karate Kid AV Remix

But this clip should give you an idea of just how live the vocals were — in a moment that captures, shall we say, the brutish masculine power of the film:

Karate Kid live remixing music performance from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.