Arpor

Benge By Piers

Here are some spare photos that were taken by Piers Alardice for the Electronic Sound feature. Thought I would put them up here..

Being John Carpenter #3

Time for another instalment...



Synths and FX used: Moog Modular 3C, Sequential Circuits T8, Oberheim 4 Voice, ARP Odyssey, Linn LM1, MCI 416B, Lexicon 224, Bel BD80, EMT Plate 140, Mu-Tron Phaser II

John Grant Sesh

John Grant in da house! Messing around on the CS80, the Emu Modular and the Moog Modular (being triggered by the Sequential VS). Good sesh mate! Thanks to Paul Alexander for shooting the vids and generally being awesome

NA at MT

Its been a good start to the year, Neil Arthur has been down already, working on some new material with Rothko, and some other animals (VCS3, Minimoog, etc)

UPDATE: Neil sent me this panorama he took in the studio. Its quite Cubist in its style:

Happy 2018!

Mix Sequencing

Using the Mix Sequencer on the ARP2500. I'm sure I've said it before, but this is a really cool module! It allows you to take up to 8 audio sources and it then steps through them in sequence. So its great for rhythmic patterns and the like. Here I am putting various different sounds through such as white noise on one channel, a filtered VCO through another, etc. Nice eh?

Brass Thing

Here I am playing the VCS3 from the Polyfusion sequencer. I clocked the sequencer from the EMS random generator. Its kind of like a silly brass band instrument from Mars

Attacked

Click here for a feature on my studio in Attack Mag. They cut my head off!

To see the full picture of me click below:

Shh!

"Oi! Keep that noise down" "NO! I'm trying out some new modifications on my synth!" This is my Roland Sh-3 which Keith modded to have CV & Gate inputs so it can be controlled externally. Its a really nice and unusual synth and this mod really brings it to life. He managed to use jack sockets that I never used on the synth (headphone out and foot pedal in) so no drilling was necessary and it can easily returned to standard original condition if required. The patch uses a clock signal out of the computer to run the Moog and Roland analog sequencers, and one of them is going to trigger the DR55 drum machine which Keith had also modded a while ago. There is also a Sequential Drumtraks in there for good measure

Oh yes and another thing - I made a new Memetune Video ident - inspired by those supercool branding tags you used to get at the start of dodgy horror film videos in the 80s. Hope you like it

Are You Listening To Me?

Every so often something comes along that is so awesome that it's scope defies the limitations of a simple blog post, but here goes anyway. I have just produced and co written a track called Talk (Are You Listening To Me?) that is a collaboration between John Foxx, Me (i.e. The Maths) and Gary Numan. Let me repeat that: I have just produced a track that is a collaboration between John Foxx & The Maths and Gary Numan!

Whats more, I'm not sure GN has been on a track featuring so many vintage synths since he recorded Cars! (well, maybe a bit later than that, but you get the point). I do know that he is a big fan of Foxxy, and is on record as saying John was a huge influence on his early synth-based work. So I guess it makes sense that he would want to get involved in this collaboration, which is essentially a reworking of our original track Talk from our Shape Of Things album. So I sent Gary the individual tracks from Talk, and he added a brand new vocal part and some synth drones and then I added some more synth parts and mixed it all at Memetune Central. It will be coming out in a little while on a new album of JF collaborations including some new JF&TM tracks on Metamatic Records. You can pro-order it here

Now for some detail about the track itself just in case there are any geeks reading this blog. Here is a list of the synths used and some pictures and a video:

MOOG MODULAR. Used for the initial low sequenced parts and some drones

MOOG POLYMOOG - Layered top lines and main melodies

LINN LM1 & EHX DRM16 DRUM MACHINES - DRM16 comes in first, then the Linn does the main drums half way through

PAIA MODULAR - The weird sequence that comes in half way through

ROLAND JX3P - Layered top lines and main melodies

OBERHEIM FOUR VOICE - Layered top lines and main melodies

GRATUITOUS STUDIO PIC

Here is a little video of me playing a top line on the Polymoog:

There were also a plethora of vintage delay, flanger and phaser units used, as well as vintage EMT Plate and Lexicons because as Gary said '..the vocals need a shit load of reverb on them!'. So there you have it, hope you like the track when it comes out!!

Analogue

What Happened?

2015 was a very busy year for me. I bought a house in Cornwall and built a new studio. I haven't been posting so much during the year, so thought I would put some pictures up here now that represent what I have been up to. They are in the following categories: The Area; The Garden; The House and The Studio

The Area
The house is set on the edge of the Moor by a river. Its about 15 minutes drive from the north coast and about 30 mins from the south. The moorlands are all freely accessible for exploring on foot. I've found ancient forests, waterfalls, disused mines, stone age ruins and stone circles, even a dilapidated Airfield. There are also some secluded coves and beaches which are reachable only on foot

The Garden
The house is set in a secluded valley within about 5 acres of grounds. It is sided on half the perimeter by a large river, and there are several smaller streams and a waterfall. The garden never stops surprising me with its flamboyant seasonal cycle. Although there are a few houses nearby the garden isn't really overlooked, and there are views down through the valley and the forest where the river runs out to the sea

The House
The house itself was designed in 1960, in a style that can broadly be described as modernist mid-century. The architect was Ronald Simms, who had recently returned from America where he was studying the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Simms had been practising since the early 1950s, but this was his first and only residential design. There is an excellent article on him here, taken from The Architect magazine in 1960, which just predates my house. The house was commissioned and built in 1960/61 by the previous owner and fortunately it is in its original unmolested condition. However this means that from my point of view it is very much a work in progress, and I am trying to gradually renovate and restore it

The Studio
The house had a basement when I bought it that had been used as a garage and workshop. It had completely unfinished floors and walls, and the ceiling consisted of the exposed cantilever beams that support the room above. But it happened to be just about the same size (a little larger) than the studio I had in Hoxton, so it made perfect sense to convert it. I have posted a bit about the work that has been carried out during 2015, but not much. I thought I might do a running blog about each day's activities, but it was so time consuming doing the actual planning and building that I didn't get round to it. I will post some more stuff about the build later, but for now here are some pictures of the finished control room. There is also a live room and machine room which are not quite finished yet, but the main thing is the control room is all done and music work has very much commenced

Buchla Patterns

Happy In Between week! To celebrate the few days between xmas and NY, heres a little video:

Wranglings

Been a busy week!

Sticker

Look I put a sticker on my new console with "MemetuneStudios II analog/digital music complex" written on it

And here is me in situ:

Coming Soon...

Planning Placements

I have been officially planning where to place things in the Control Room today:

So Near Sofa

I've been beavering away in the new studio space trying to get the consoles and built-in furniture designed and made. What fun it is especially now the sun is out. Here are some of my vectorised ideas:

The sofa design is inspired by John Lautner's awesome 1961 Sheats Residence

Much more to follow on this subject, obvs