Metasonix continues to build one-of-a-kind effects with raunchy, make-your-parents-blush names. No nonsense about tubes providing warm, wonderful sounds. Take the first tube, a vintage model from devices like military radios:

“We use it as a preamp—a BAD preamp. The SCROTUM knob controls input volume badly. No, you can’t turn it fully down. This is intentional because it interacts with the DOUBLE SCROTUM switch. Turning down SCROTUM won’t silence the awful noise and oscillation. It just makes the TM-7 howl and scream at various pitches, intermodulating with your lovely sweet guitar tone. Ha ha ha. Scrotum.”

Two more vacuum tubes and a feedback loop later, well … it’s easier to hear than describe. Our friend, musician, bender, and experimentalist Chachi Jones, has launched a new video blog for the hip San Francisco music gear shop Robotspeak. He tests the TM-7 Scrotum Smasher in a new clip. Cross your legs before watching, gentleman readers:

More videos coming in the Robotspeak Magazine.

Sometimes it’s really hard to be rational and dispassionate about high-end audio gear. Some of it is just ridiculously pretty. And every time the AES show rolls around, you can be sure your right brain’s neurons are going to get all hot and bothered about Blue and Red Microphones and their lovely, vintage-style designs.

Say M-Audio and you probably think of plastic keyboards or USB audio interfaces, but M-Audio’s latest creation is a multi-pattern, large diaphragm studio condenser microphone, with a retro design and a military-grade vacuum tube.

The Sputnik is not M-Audio’s first microphone — they make a line of budget-minded condensers — but M-Audio is crowing about it in a big way. By budget, we’re talking US$699.95 list. But it’s the mics to which M-Audio is comparing the Sputnik that might get some interest. M-Audio claims that “top Los Angeles recording engineers . . . observed [in side-by-side comparisons] that Sputnik exhibited the coveted low and low-mid qualities of the Neumann U47 and the upper-mids and highs of the AKG C12.” Want more classic mic name-dropping? M-Audio compares the upside-down tube capsule to the Telefunken 251.

Now, warning: if you happen to run into someone in sales from M-Audio, they might try to stun you in your tracks by reciting phrases like, “Sputnik’s Class A amplifier circuit is an all-discrete transconductance design based on thermionic studies by researchers at Harvard and the American Institute of Physics.” But, mic rocket science aside, it’ll be interesting to see if this mic can live up to its claims. If it sounds anywhere near as good as they say it does, it could make a nice splurge for a home musician. With that in mind, the kit comes with a power supply, shockmount, and even a flight case.

Mic gurus? Already got a favorite condenser in the US$700 range? Let us know in comments.

Last month, we looked at an upcoming all-tube synth from the twisted minds at Metasonix, as shown at a tube expo. We heard 2006 for launch at US$2500 or thereabouts.

CDM reader Michael Weeks is busy writing the user manual for the synth (aka the S-1000). Result? He’s got a prototype. Michael lets us in on the details of this peculiar beast:

A full multi-part demo, with all synths the S-1000, and all drums processed through the waveshaper and filter:

S-1000 Demo [MP3; click play icon for live playback via del.icio.us]

Also in the directory, there are several other demos of more extended tweaking, just single patterns, or pattern chains, from a future retro mobius with live knob tweaking. And there are some other demos of just the filter section, as it is the same circuit being used in the TM-6.

And, of course - mandatory synth pron - some nice close-up, arty photos of tubes!

Closeup 1
Closeup 2
Closeup 3

Thanks as always, Michael!

The demo certainly delivers on low-fi strangeness. Now I just want to try one out in person — maybe at the upcoming tube expo across the river in New Jersey this spring? I’m guessing this is one better tasted live.

Also on:
Matrixsynth — oh, sure, just because I’m on East Coast time and went to bed! ;-)

Related:
MIDI Optional, Glowing Green Bars Standard: First Look at the S-1000
Vacuum Tube Valley Expo: Where to Show Off a New Tube Synth
Analog Synth Porn with Butt Probe (their product name, not mine)
Metasonix TX-2 Butt Probe Effects Box
Gear Porn: “Spinal Rape” Makes Gear Music Video Star
Vintage Synths: Report from Analogue Heaven

MIDI Optional, Glowing Green Bars Standard

I know what you were thinking during the silent news week as I was on vacation: “if only . . .”

If only someone would release a synth based entirely on vacuum and gas-filled tubes. No pretty sine waves, mind you: only saw, square, and square with suboctave. And a filter sweep controlled by a photoresistor. And a joystick that tunes, triggers, and modulates. And glowing green bars that show voltage levels.

And the name should involve vomiting, somehow.

If that hasn’t made you afraid (yet strangely intrigued), all this madness comes from Metasonix, who gave us the TX-2 Butt Probe effect, built with what they called “s*****y tubes.”

Ladies and germs, I give you the Wretch Machine from Metasonix. Currently in prototype form, but expected next year for US$2500. A MIDI-CV interface will be an optional add-on for $300. Now you can use your precious, new-fangled MIDI. Full specs after the break; more on this story as it hurls in. (Thanks, Michael!)

Work in digital, but dream of tubes? You’re the target audience for the Vacuum Tube Valley Audiophile and Music Expo. Apparently, the fall show just took place in Arcadia, CA, but the spring will bring the tubes to my neck of the woods: North Brunswick, NJ, just outside of New York City. This retro-looking show is devoted to “high-quality sound.” Of course, “quality” got redefined by the raunchy folks at Metasonix with their new synth. But don’t let anyone tell you modern sound gear has gotten dull: from audio-geek-chic high-end tube gear to synths behaving badly, tubes live on.

Thanks, Michael, for turning me on both to the new instrument and the show.