Canyon Window

Future Music Now

I almost forgot! I am featured in this months Future Music magazine - theres an interview and a 40 minute video with me explaining some of my modular systems, and the studio is on the cover! As I am in america this issue isn't out yet so I haven't seen the magazine yet! But I did download the excellent iPad version. So if you like modular synths and/or me you should have a look NOW


via matrixsynth

Harmonic Fun

Here is a little demo I made using the Verbos 262v Harmonic Oscillator. Its a very interesting module. Google it (or why not try alta vista?) The touch plates are great with it because you can send pressure info to control the harmonics of the 262v. This patch also uses the 191 filter, the 190 reverb and the 288v delay



UPDATE Heres another one, but with different tunings on the touch plates:

To The Batcave!

I used to love watching Batman especially when they were in the Batcave. Its practically what I want my studio to look like inside thinking about it! I just found out it was filmed round the corner from where I am living, in Bronson Canyon. Actually lots of films have been shot there over the years, check out the wiki page. So I cycled round today and explored. Heres a little film I took and when I got home I made some bat-sounds on the Buchla 100



And heres what it used to look like in the 1960s:

Moth Month

Go Sefa! Check this out - her new album The Moths Are Real is AOTM! (It was partly recorded at my studio - see this post). Via wireless_ade

OMG! OMD

Hey guess what we (JF&TM) are going on tour as special guests / support for OMD. Pretty cool! The first gig I ever went to when I was a little boy was Gary Numan at the Hammersmith Odeon in the late 1970s. I think it was the Pleasure Principal tour. But guess who the support act were that night? Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark! So they were actually the first band I ever saw live. OMG

April 2013
28 Margate Winter Gardens
29 Birmingham Symphony Hall
May 2013
1 Nottingham Royal Centre
2 Ipswich Regent Theatre
3 London Roundhouse
5 Bristol Colston Hall
6 Oxford New Theatre
8 Sheffield City Hall
9 Leeds Academy
10 Manchester Academy
12 Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
13 Gateshead Sage
14 Liverpool Empire

Good Morning Namm!

I got a pass for NAMM via Tara and Analog Suicide. NAMM is the National Association of Music Merchants annual fair. Its basically a giant music store the size of a small city. Here are some pics Maf took:

Do you remember that awesome sofa I posted about before?

And here is something that caught my eye:

There were some very cool synth products being announced at this years show; The Korg mini-cheap-and-plastiky-but-authentic-sounding MS20. The Moog small-but-perfectly-formed-and-really-rather-awesome-sounding Slim Fatty. But most amazing perhaps of the whole show was the Buchla electric-music-box-remake-that-nobody-thought-would-ever-happen-but-it-has Music Easel. There were two demo versions on the Buchla booth, and one of them was working pretty much as it should. I had a good long go on it, and it sounded really amazing, as you would expect from an all-analog remake of the 1973 classic synth

It was really amazing wandering round the show and seeing some of my heroes from the synth world - all of them still making products. I had a long chat with Tom Oberheim, who told me he is remaking his mini-sequencer but with memory storage for use with his SEM reissue modules. I saw Dave Smith (Sequential Circuits / co-inventor of MIDI), Michelle Moog, Don Buchla and lots of other legendary geeks. The Moog Foundation booth is right next to the Lowrey Organ booth - so they get a constant 1970s soundtrack, which I thought was quite awesome:



Thanks so much Tara and Maf for getting me in, and hi Stephi too

Morning!

Word of the Week #44

Evolving

Paul has been busy over on the expanding records Facebook page uploading artwork and info about some of the earlier expanding releases. I particularly like this CD art from 1999 - Volume 'Evolver':