Saturday, 1 November 2014
The Herodium - "Herod's Tomb"
Where is King Herod buried?
These are picks I took of the Herodium (just outside Bethlehem).
The Herodium was conquered and destroyed by the Romans in 71 CE. At the beginning of the Bar Kokhba revolt sixty years later, Simon bar Kokhba declared Herodium as his secondary headquarters.
Herod was considered one of the greatest builders of his time. The largest of the four towers was built on a stone base 18 meters in diameter.
Wiki info
For more travel links click here:
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/travel-postcards-index-my-travel.html
ARP 2500 - Patch 3
Many thanks to Benge for his awesome ARP 2500 videos. In particular this one on the ARP Mix Sequencer module (the 1050).
http://youtu.be/UZeHU4IPItY
Here is a pic of the 1050 module.
Today this module should be pretty easy to build. This was however designed before CMOS logic & LEDs I think it's amazing considering when it was made. A credit to Pearlman. He was really pushing technology back in the 60's.
It's basically a 8 channel mixer. The channels can be divided into 2x4, 1x8, 1x7,1x6,etc
The cool thing is that they are gated to the sequencer so can be triggered on cue to the rhythm.
There are some eurorack modules (sort of like this) out there, but at the moment nothing as expressive (in my opinion). So there is a challenge to you budding analog engineers out there.
I'd like to thank Mini & all the staff from ToneTweakers in NYC
who lovingly restored this grand lady. Great job guys
http://www.tonetweakers.com
Thursday, 30 October 2014
ARP 2500 - Patch No 2
Its a very expressive tool.
Some pics of the patch:
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Left side
Middle
I'd like to thank Mini & all the staff from ToneTweakers in NYC
who lovingly restored this grand lady. Great job guys
http://www.tonetweakers.com
ARP 2500 - first patch
I'm still getting used to using the matrix rather than traditional cables. It takes a bit of
getting used to & is definitely less messy and easier to record patches.
I'll upload pics of the patches as I work through my experiments so if you wish to duplicate them on your own modular go right ahead.
If you are an owner of a 2500 please write.
I'd love to swap & share ideas, patches, etc.
Left side. Modules used are 1004 & 1023 oscillators, 1047 (filter resonator), 1006 Filter/Amp, 1046 Quad EG (envelope generator),
On the right we have a 10 stage sequencer (1027 - The Clocked Sequential Control Module) & a mix sequencer (1050).
The 1050 mix sequencer is especially interesting. I have never come across anything like it.
It's a rather unusual 8 channel or two 4 channel mixer. More about this later.
I'd like to thank Mini & all the staff from ToneTweakers in NYC
who lovingly restored this grand lady. Great job guys
http://www.tonetweakers.com
Friday, 24 October 2014
OctaTrack & MachineDrum - End of time - Minimal
Great combo.
FAIRLIGHT CMI Series III Synth Sampler System Stewart Copeland The Police
For those who don't know, Stewart Armstrong Copeland is an American musician, multi-instrumentalist and composer best known as the drummer for the band the Police.
I'm tempted though I already have a Series IIx.
But this is some serious piece of music history.
May it go to a good home.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/FAIRLIGHT-CMI-Series-III-Synth-Sampler-System-Stewart-Copeland-The-Police-19220-/191369593059?pt=Keyboards_MIDI&hash=item2c8e8440e3
It's a steal at the price of $12K USD.
Item description:
INVENTORY # 19220
BRAND - FAIRLIGHT
MODEL - CMI Series III
FUNCTION - Computer Musical Instrument
DESCRIPTION - This listing is for a FAIRLIGHT CMI Series III Synth/ Sampler System. We are selling this system on behalf of our client, Stewart Copeland. This was a very personal Fairlight system of his as seen by the very cool artwork and coloring done on the pieces. Note that the road case for the mainframe says "The Police" stenciled on the side. This represents a very rare opportunity to own a complete Fairlight system, not to mention one that was part of the personal arsenal of a music legends!
Includes:
- ACCU & DCCU System CPU & Interface (Loaded with cards & in road case with "The Police" stenciled)
- VDU Series III Monitor (in road case)
- MKB & ADK Series III Music Keyboard & Alpha-Numeric Keyboard with Data Pen (in road case)
- Multi-Disk-Drive Rack Unit w/ SCSI CD-ROM Drive
- 2x Q256 - 256k RAM Cards (in addition to one already installed)
- Manuals and System Disk (in original box)
- 3x Expression Pedals (for use with MKB Music Keyboard)
- Large lot of various cables and snakes used for system wiring and interconnection
ACCESSORIES - Includes ONLY what is shown in the photos and listed above. NO additional accessories.
PHYSICAL CONDITION - Very Good
WORKING CONDITION - This system was recently pulled from storage and has not been fully tested by us as Fairlights remain an item that requires some dedicated expertise to get up and running. Admittedly we do not have the expertise on staff at the moment. It may or may not need some restoration to bring to optimal condition for use. With that it is being sold under the assumption that it may need servicing, updating etc.
TOTAL PRE-SHIP WEIGHT - 656 lbs
TOTAL PRE-SHIP DIMS- 70" x 35" x 32"
Wednesday, 22 October 2014
Roland M-240 mixer - power supply replacement (Part 1)
have a power supply so it's kinda useless. Roland don't appear to know where I can find a PSU and eBay was equally unhelpful.
The 3 pronged input reads DC -/+ 21.5V and 500mA. It's not your standard Wall Wart.
Rather than throw it away I've decided to attempt building a new power supply.
Some pics of the circuit board:
This is the underside of the power PCB of the mixer. It contains 4 voltage regulators: AN7812F / AN7815F / AN7912F / AN7915F. They provide voltages of +/- 12V & +/-15V.
These regulators should be able to handle voltages ranging between 35V to 18V. ..... though I'm not totally sure about how it will effect the rest of the mixer...... So do be careful if you are making these sorts of mods.
Anyway, I decided to test the mixer with a variable DC power supply.
Possible soltions:
I'm thinking of building one of Ken Stone's PSUs.Varying the 78XX and 79XX regulators on the CGS14 board will hopefully give me the required voltage
A 7822 & 7922 regulator would be really nice but these are nearly impossible to find.
Maybe the LM317 & LM337 could be used instead.???
The LM317 has three pins: Input, output, and adjustment. The device behaves like an op amp
Vout = Vref (1 + RL/RH)
or
Vout = 1,25v (1 + RL/RH) .... there might be a small error due to some slight current flows from the
adjustment pin.
It will be fun to play around with and experiment with different resistor values. Also these regulators
look like they could be very useful in future projects where unusual voltages are called for.
Finally, a good tech friend of mine has also suggested I build just the rectifier section of the CGS14 board, leaving out the regulators. (The Roland mixer already has the required regulators on board).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I stumbled upon a very cool site the other day. ModularSynth.ru
There is a useful entry on their blog relating to bipolar power supplies:
http://www.modularsynth.ru/en/2014/07/18/regulated_psu_update/
They use the LM317 & LM337 regulators.
I'll update this page as I go along.:-)
These ideas are so far untested so proceed with caution if you are doing a similar thing.
I take no responsibility if you connect a power supply to the mixer and it burns out!
Monday, 20 October 2014
Korg MS-20 mini sequenced by Elektron Machine Drum
The Ms-20 is still after all these years one of my favorite instruments.
I'm using the External Signal Processor in this patch.
Like an envelope follower ... its a very useful addition to the MS20 arsenal.







































