Oscar Men

Ooh look here are some vintage Oscar owners. Via Chris Paynter

Dusty

Check out this fleabay auction - the most dustiest loft-found-synth ever! The seller didn't even bother to dust the whole synth down - just enough to read the name. That'l do. Actually, its a very rare synth - I've never seen one before. I guess its a kit from the E&MM mag back in the day

Moor Info

Here is some more moor music information:

The music on this album was created on a Yamaha VL1-m. It is an instrument of immense complexity and depth, but like many innovative large-scale instruments it has been long forgotten and superceded by smaller, cheaper, more compromised iterations. VL1 is the first example of a digital sound processor that uses the principles of waveguide technology to produce acoustic instrument simulations. Waveguides are physical bodies that limit waves (sound waves or any other kind of wave) in a special way to produce a desired effect. As soon as digital computers became powerful and affordable enough for the huge amounts of processing required, waveguide principles began to be used in the simulation of real-world instruments. During the late 1980s, Yamaha worked alongside Stanford University in the development of waveguide synthesis, using a combination of digital delay lines and filters to model the properties of acoustic instruments. The result was the release of the instrument in 1994, VL1, and the keyboard-less rack mount version (which I have), VL1-m

VL1 was primarily designed to be played using a breath controller, an electronic device you blow into to control sound settings. However I decided to use a small MIDI keyboard with great physical control output to create my interface with VL1-m. For example, I used the keys to select and trigger the locations and durations of notes, velocity, wheels and after-touch controllers to guide other parameters such as wind or pressure arc, damping, the absorption of certain frequencies, etc

VL1 also includes 3 high quality FX processors, various EQ modules, mixers, dynamic filters, resonators, exciters, and so it goes on. All in all, even though it is not easy to harness all this power by editing via its tiny screen, it was possible to create every element of this album from inside this small black box

EMS Plan

Look I got Chris to make me a stand for all my EMS gear. Its made out of a vintage 60s/70s era G-Plan shelving unit I got at a car boot sale. Super-doopa, yes?

Korgernism

A study on the Korg PS3100, in the Minimalist vein

Polycaro

Here is a video of the Korg Poly 61. I programmed some new sounds into the memory bank and set up a loop on the tape recorder. You can edit the 2 digital VCOs, the filter and VCA which share an envelope, and send an LFO to the filter, pitch and VCA. Thats pretty much it, but the results of combining these few parameters are really satisfying, especially when dealing with first-generation analog/digital hybrid electronic circuits

The second bit of the video was shot at Tate Modern, where they have a really good 60s/70s minimalist show on at the moment. There was an arresting yellow Anthony Caro that caught my eye

Holy Poly

Holy Moly I just found another classic bit of equipment, this time in a junk shop. It's a Korg Poly 61 and it was looking right at me as I walked in the door! £90. It completely matches the Martin Hannett Seck mixer - same era, same colour scheme, same technology in a way. Holy Moly

Benge - Loop Series Two

Here is a brand new album. Hope you like it

Loop Series2 Booklet by Zack Dagoba

Moors Music

When we were filming the Zombies 85 film Maf shot some footage of me driving up on the moors. So I have set a bit of it to music, all composed on the Roland 100M modular. The sounds were set up using a miraculous set of books called The Synthesizer made by Roland to accompany the System 100M - see below

CLAP

SNARE

BASS DRUM

TOM TOM

CYMBAL

Arp Bubbles

Pins and Things

Heres a new video for one of the tracks of my latest album, Sulieo. Its me touching some synths, and things

Poly Esther

I'm not sure if she used real wool or polyester, but my niece Esther made me this polymoog-knit thing for a house warming present. Supercool!

Sequence On

So after much fiddling about and reading of dusty schematics me and Big Al (mostly Big Al) got the EMS TKS up and running. It had a dead LM7400N chip inside it (a quadruple positive NAND gate if you must know) but luckily this is something Al could replace quite easily. There are some impossibly hard to find components in the TKS circuit (BBD shift registers that haven't been around since the mid 1970s) that are very fragile and prone to being destroyed by static or just looking at them funnily, but somehow they had survived all these years. There is still some work to be done on this little beauty, such as the tuning spread ratios need tweaking, but as you can see from the video it really opens up the functionality of the VCS3, making it one of the nicest self-contained systems around

Forms Series Three

Here is a new album in the Forms series - just in time for christmas! Every sound on this record was made on the EMS Polysynthi. Hope you like it

Cupboard Love

Something amazing just happened that normally only happens in daydreams you know where you walk past a charity shop and imagine seeing a Moog modular in the window for £20

Well I got an email from a friend (thanks Phil J!!!) who has a friend who works at a London university in the music department one day a week. This chap was clearing out a cupboard and found a load of old gear that hadn't been used for years and wanted it to go to a good home, rather than it just being neglected or even worse chucked out. So I got passed this email saying there was a load of EMS gear from the 1970s and did I know of anyone who might want it!?!? So rather excitedly I replied that yes I am someone who is an avid fan of EMS equipment and that I own the rest of the matching series!! I had to pay a nominal fee to keep the bursar happy, but the amazing thing is I have now got the full set of EMS modules and keyboards and they are an exact match of my EMS VCS3 and DK1 (one of the first synths I bought 20+ years ago)

Here is a picture, my existing Putney and Cricklewood, and the new TKS touch keyboard and sequencer, 8 octave filter bank, pitch to voltage converter and random voltage generator. This is a very powerful system! Lucky me!!!!

I am working on getting them all up and running - the rack modules need the Bulgin power connectors and the TKS needs a power supply (my VCS3 Mk1 won't power it) but luckily Robin from EMS is helping out with supplying the manuals and info I need to get it all working nicely together. Watch this space!

The Americans

I had a bit of a change around in the studio today and suddenly there were all these Americans in the corner

One Man Band

My Fairlight is currently being fixed... I will report back to you on this as and when, so in the mean time here is the original CMI IIx Demo Cassette (side a):



I found the mp3 here

Sweet Lord

I'm doing a bit of mastering at the mo, for example I'm working on Simon Lord's new album, which is a pleasure. He came round to have a look round the studio because as it turns out he's a bit of a synth-head - in fact his dad designed the mythical english analog synth the Skywave. He bought in cool vintage flyer he found in the loft:

Here is a video of him demoing it from a while ago:

Being John Carpenter

Sometimes I get the urge to pretend I am in the studio in 1980 making a horror movie soundtrack. Luckily I have a studio full of old equipment so this is not a problem. Here I am on the Moog Modular, Linn LM1, Oberheim 4-Voice (via Moog Phaser), all going through the MCI 416b console, with a bit of EMT plate reverb for good measure

Prog Volume

Phil came round the other day and noticed the 'Prog Volume' knob on the Prophet T8 polysynth. Heres what happens when you turn it up to max: