dirty electronics - mute synth

Dirty Electronics Mute Synth from Dirty Electronics on Vimeo.

Something a little bit quirky combining music and animation. It's a hand-held synthesizer type thing which reacts to tilting and stuff, plus there is a bit of animation to go with it. It'd be nice (if possible) to add in some small bits of film to my title sequence, perhaps as a transitional sort of thing.

top 10 synths

A top ten synthesizer list compiled by whoever operates this website....

http://web.mac.com/mwalthius/Site/Top_Ten_Synths.html

#10.  Oberheim OB-1 :  An Oberheim

monosynth with patch memory!

#9.  Yamaha DX-7 : State-of-the-art

FM synthesis that was THE keyboard

to have in the 1980’s.

#8.  Yamaha CS-80, the massive

prog rock beast that everyone wanted

but virtually no one actually had.

#7.  Fairlight CMI, the tremendously

expensive sample-playback instrument

that turned heads everywhere.

#6.  Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 :

Pace-setting analog polysynth.

#5.  ARP 2600 : The definitive semi-

modular analog synth heard on lots of

big records in the 70’s.  Not for us

mortals.

#4.  ARP Odyssey : Didn’t sound like a

Minimoog, didn’t cost as much as a

Minimoog, and was much more simple

to intuitively program.

#3.  Roland Jupiter 8 : The mother of

all 80’s analog polysynths that was as

incredible to look at as it was to play.

#2.  Moog Voyager : What’s not to love

about a Minimoog with full MIDI 

implementation, patch memory, and

backlit controls?

#1.  Access Virus TI : State-of-the-art

polyphonic VA synth that sounds

gorgeous, is 16-part multitimbral with

dedicated effects and arpeggiators 

for each part.  An amazingly versatile

synthesizer.

 

Fairlight ad

An old Fairlight CMI advert

Fairlight CMI

Whilst not being a drum machine in itself, this is a worthwhile synthesizer to consider, as a great selling point was its 'Page R' software, a real time graphical pattern simulator introduced with CMI Series 2. Using this it was possible to formulate beats to play along to. As further versions of the CMI were released, various other features were incorporated, such as MIDI compatibility and CD quality sampling.

another live 808

An 808 jam, this time you can actually see it in action. Very basic indeed. It is interesting how the machine, when first released, was considered far too inhuman and futuristic to be a realistic choice, whereas today its trademark sounds can be heard all over the place.

An 808 bass drum waveform

A visualisation of the 808 bass waveform, that distinctive boom that has appeared a countless number of times, whether original or sampled.    

Wurlitzer Side Man

Someone messing about with a Side Man, which was mentioned earlier on. As you can this is clearly a great deal more advanced than the Rhythmicon shown in last post; it seems that this machine was intended much more as something which could replace a drummer or provide drum beats, as opposed to mere rhythmical noises. It was arguably the first commercially-available drum machine, or at least the first to generate electronic drum noises as opposed to just playing back tape loops.