Saturday, 10 May 2014

Arturia's Beatstep & MicroBrute

 Arturia has two killer products on its hands: The Beatstep & MicroBrute

It's very easy to set up a sequence.
All audio is from just the MicroBrute (with a little help from the Roland Tape Echo)

The Beatstep is providing master clock & CV/Gate to the Microbrute.

You gotta love the patch (mod) matrix.


Plug CV out from the Beatstep to Pitch in on the Mod Matrix.


The Doepfer Darktime is synced via midiclock.

CV from steps 1-8 modulate the filter frequency.
Cv from steps 9-16 modulate the metalizer

Thursday, 8 May 2014

ARP's 2600 & Arturia's MicroBrute - party !!!

I love Arturia's Microbrute for so many reasons.
...... a great filter, the feedback brute function, the ability to access all 3 wave forms simultaneously,
a snappy EG, it's small footprint, the availability of CV/gate/midi at the same time.... etc etc etc.
But for me it's greatest strength is the patch matrix.

It's been sitting on my desk for over a week asking to be played with.so I decided to bring out the ARP.
I've really just started to explore the possibilities with this "little synth"..
For $399 it's a steal. 

I would love Arturia to expand on this idea and add a patch matrix to future synths.

A bit about the above patch:
The whole sequence is clocked from the Doepfer Dark Time.
It's sending Midi clock to the MicroBrute.


The Dark Time also provides a analog clock which sync's the Korg Voca Beat.


A gate from the MicroBrute clocks the ARP 1613 sequencer. So everything runs in time.:-)

The 1613 sequencer is sending two CV sequences on A & B channels to the ARP filter.



Bass Bot TT 303 & Roland TR 909 - Arvo musings

Just mucking around with two of my favourite synths on a Friday afternoon.

The TT303 so easily synced to the Roland 909 drum.
Midi clock used in this instance.

Friday, 25 April 2014

NonLinearCircuits 8-Bit cipher

The NonLinearCircuits Cipher is a set of clocked shifted registers.
Very much like a ASR (Analog Shift Register).



The first CV out provides pitch CV for the 262v.
CV outs 2,3,4 modulate harmonic scan & tilt

The operation of a cipher usually depends on a piece of auxiliary information, called a key. It's used a lot in encryption. There are 2 data inputs and 4 CV & 8 pulse outputs. The data is encrypted to a new form.

Couldn't resist the opportunity ... here's a pic of an World War II Enigma machine.


This aux info is encoded to produce a new rhythm.

The 8-bit requires a clock and 1-2 Aux signals. This can be anything crossing 1V. I'm using CV from Adam's excellent mini 112 retro touch sequencer.


The unedited video is here:



Below is an earlier video using a Serge Creature & Elektron Analog 4 :

Thursday, 24 April 2014

Peru - Cusco




 My Hotel, Arequipa





Santa Catalina Monastery 

 

Just out of Arequipa... known as Ciudad Blanca.(The White City). It was built in 1579 and was enlarged in the 17th century.

Inca terraces.
These agricultural terraces were build by the Incas. They allowed farming on otherwise unusable land. The terraces also allowed the Incas to take advantage of different ecological zones created by variations in altitude.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cusco was the site of the historic capital of the Inca Empire.
12th - 13th century walls ?? in Cusco city.
Incredible precision


Francisco Pizarro officially arrived in Cusco on 23 March 1534.The many buildings constructed after the Spanish invasion have a mixture of Spanish influence with Inca indigenous architecture,




The Spanish conquistadors (as is often the case with victorous invaders) built their "temple" over the ruins
of the conquered. The Cathedral of Saint Domingo is built on top of a Incan temple known as Kiswarkancha. Construction began in 1559. It has the shape of the Latin Cross and was built with the intention of replacing the Incan religion with Spanish Catholic Christianity.

 

Ahhh... nothing like a pint of Guinness. 11,156 ft .... that's  3,400.3488 metres

A good many nights were spent in Paddy's Bar trying to adjust to my altitude sickness. :-)



Anyone for roasted guinea pig?
These animals are not in the pig family, nor are they from Guinea.
A Peruvian delicacy.

View of Cusco from my Hotel.


Ollantaytambo
The stronghold of the Inca Resistance against the conquistadors. Altitude 2.792 metres. The terraces were built by the Emperor Pachacuti. 
Manco Inca, leader of the native resistance fortified the town and its approaches in the direction of the former Inca capital of Cusco, which had fallen under Spanish domination. In 1536 he defeated a Spanish army by blocking their advance from the terraces and flooding the plain below.


For more travel links click here:
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/travel-postcards-index-my-travel.html

Tuesday, 22 April 2014

Buchla format 262v - Verbos Harmonic Generator / Oscillator

Can't get enough 262v.
It utilizes waveshapers to create 9 more harmonics above the fundamental.
Each harmonic can be individually voltage controlled.


I'm using a NonLinearCircuit bindubba1 shift sequencer to control the 262v mixer


The bindubba1 is a 4 stage sequencer with 16 control voltage outputs (CV).
(divided into 2 rows: left & right).
The 4 yellow knobs set the voltage of each stage.
The left row are 'normal' CV operating from 0V to 11.5V
The right row is the inverted version, operating from 0V to -11.5V.


The 8 CV outputs give different patterns.
output # 1 (the top one) will give a pattern of ABCD (or 1234)
output # 2 will give a pattern of BCDA (or 2341)
output # 3 will give a pattern of CDAB (3412)
output # 4 = DACB
output # 5 = DCBA
output # 6 = CBAD
output # 7 = BADC
output # 8 = ADCB

The switches turn off certain outputs for shorter or longer periods.
See Andrew's manual for more info:
http://www.sdiy.org/pinky/data/SEQUEN...

The full patching (from start to finish) video is here:



 And an earlier 262v video:

Tuesday, 15 April 2014

Non Linear Circuits meets Buchla

Sexy new case ... inspired by  Buchla's 200e.
The synthesizer end cheeks are brushed aluminium (not the standard wood).
Many thanks to Frank (a.k.a. ModularFreak).

The case is housing 3 NLC panels:




The NLC panels are:
1. CELLULAR AUTOMATA
2. CMOS PANEL
3. SEQUENCER PANEL

Korg Party

I had forgotten how much fun these old Korgs are.

Apologies for the poor audio ... camera mic recording.
Mucking around with two old MS 20s, one MS 50 and a Korg SQ-10.



 And a previous party. More Korg videos coming.

Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Barbarella - classic Sci Fi & Serge Sci Fi sounds

This poster just arrived in the mail today.
It's a vintage (& original) daybill movie poster from 1968.

The Australian daybill is the Aussie equivalent to the US insert and measures approximately 13" x 30" and was issued with 3 folds.


I've not seen one of these... possibly produced in Australia using a stone lithograph.
Quite a few stain marks from spillage, but otherwise in pretty good condition.

The standard Barbarella movie poster looks like this:

This type of poster is called a US R77. It measures 24 x 47.
It also has triple folds (as they all did back then).

It's condition is better than my Aussie Daybill though I quite like the look on Jane Fonda's face in the 68 Ausie Litho.

Watching movies like this, Dr Who,Star Trek  and Lost in Space were I guess responsible for introducing me to those electronic sounds I love so much today.

Guess I never grew up.

Below is a video taken of my beloved serge making some sci-fi noises.




And I couldn't resist placing this link:
Barbarella vs the "Excessive Machine" making her own brand of noises. :-)

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Krell Music & the Buchla

What's Krell Music ?

Is it ambient, improvisational or sci-fi?
It's been described as organic & free flowing, ....self-generating?
Maybe it's a combination of all of the above.

The term appears to have connections with the movie "Forbidden Planet" (1956) directed by Fred M. Wilcox, starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen.



The Krell are a species of highly advanced aliens that once populated the Forbidden Planet.

This is a groundbreaking movie on many levels. The film though loosely based on Shakespeare's "Tempest" is set entirely on another world in interstellar space. And the humans travel on a spaceship far from the earth.

However the most interesting aspect of the film for me is the music score.
This was composed by Louis and Bebe Barron before the invention of modular synthesizers.
They used custom built circuits which they "drove till they exploded". The sounds created where recorded on a early tape recorder (which must have been rare in the 1950s) and the results cut & spliced together to "compose" the sound track.

Below is a Krell inspired patch made on a Buchla Music Easel:

....

And the pic :


Below is a rare German promo poster of Robbie the Robot for the Forbidden Planet.
It measures about 33' x 25''. This type of poster had very limited runs. They were released on behalf of the cinema companies for promotion only.


Below is an earlier Krell piece made using a vintage Buchla 100 and 259 oscillator

Monday, 24 March 2014

Syria - Travel pics - 1999 - Aleppo before the War

It's upsetting when I hear all the bad news coming out of Syria these days.
More refugees, more killing, heart break & suffering.

I first visited Syria back in 1999.
I had wonderful experiences. The people were gracious, warm and friendly.

Here are some pics taken during those times. Seems like it was 1000 years ago.

Aleppo. The citadel ...  (Arabic: قلعة حلب‎) is a large medieval fortified palace in the centre of the old city. It is considered to be one of the oldest and largest castles in the world. It is listed by UNESCO World Heritage.


These pics were taken before digital panoramas. So please excuse my rather primitive attempts to paste them together (David Hockey style).

Below is a recent video of the citadel. Makes be very sad to see it's current state.




 View of the theatre ...inside of the citadel, Aleppo, Syria. 1999.

The Citadel bridge.. crosses the "moat".

Several famous crusaders were imprisoned in the citadel, among them Count of Edessa, Joscelin II & the king of Jerusalem, Baldwin II. It was never captured by the crusaders.
 




View from inside the citadel looking over the city of Aleppo.

The Tea Vendor, Aleppo, 1999.

Aleppo street scene.

Aleppo Grand Bazzar



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more travel postcards click here