Every week Matrix of Matrixsynth will highlight a handful synth related content that comes through the web for the week. Consider these the hors d’oeuvres of the synth world, a glimpse of what comes through the synthwaves for the week.

First up. “Yamaha One” via polaranta, of Syntezatory.prv.pl. Need I say more? At least once a month polaranta comes up with some of the most ridiculously imaginative and usually quite funny shots. Nice hi-tops. Yamaha CS20M pictured.

Under the Side Panel. What you are looking at is the uncovered side of a Korg 900ps. This image was sent into the Analog Heaven mailing list by punkDISCO, who discovered it on his Korg. If you look at the red circular stamps you will see what looks like a date, 52.8.26. The 52 appears to be the year “Showa 52″(Emperor Era). The year represents 1977: 1926 + Showa(52) - 1 = 77.

Dorkbot is the geeky cultural phenomenon that somehow spread from the Computer Music Center at Columbia University all around the world. Normally, the presentations tend toward general electronics, but custom wind instruments, laptop orchestras, and open source audio rearrangers are all on tap for a special all-music Dorkbot coming up this week. If you’re here in New York, you’ll want to mark your calendars for Wednesday, but thanks to the power of the Interweb, we’ll make sure you get the full experience virtually.

Here are the details (and for those of you everywhere else in the world, you’ll find plenty of additional information at each of these links):

“MIDI is just for keyboardists.” Hearing generalizations like that must send shivers down the spines of the 1400+ members of the Yahoo Wind Controllers Group. They have enough to talk about to generate around 500 messages a month, chatting exclusively about MIDI and other digital wind instruments.

If that kind of traffic sounds overwhelming, and you’re still asking questions like “why would you want to do this, anyway?”, check out the related Wind Controller FAQ. In answer to the “why” question, here’s one good reason from the FAQ: “A wind controller can be used for alternative sounds that a musician cannot produce on their acoustic instruments.”

Looking at it from the opposite direction, why not? What could be more expressive than breath? Now’s a great time to go check out the FAQ and group, with Akai introducing new wind controller at NAMM (pictured). (Found via an aborted attempt to start a Google group on this topic.)

It looks like an elongated Star Trek phaser, but the Akai EWI4000S is actually a brand-new MIDI wind controller. New digital instruments for wind players (like the Yamaha WX5) are fairly rare; it’s nice to see something fresh. And the Akai has plenty of features that suggest it’s worth a look: