Posted by admin on April 15, 2011 – 11:57 am
The Roland Jupiter 6 is a solid vintage synth whose classic status, although granted late in its career, is assured. Featuring a warm, bright sound, interesting and unique modulations, quality XLR balanced outputs, keyboard splits, real VCO’s, a kicking multimode filter, and more… the Jupiter 6 is well equipped and satisfying to operate.
Produced after the polyphonic analog heyday of the early 80′s—after Yamaha’s DX7 and its realistic FM synthesis overturned the synth world—the Jupiter 6 was the last polyphonic keyboard produced by Roland offering real voltage controlled oscillators; in fact, it was Roland’s last VCO based synth design until the MKS-80 some years afterwards. By all accounts, the Jupiter 6 was created as a modern polyphonic flagship synthesizer, built to rule over the more cost-efficient and less endowed Juno synthesizers. In fact, the Jupiter 6 offers some more features, and less, than its immediate predecessor—the indomitable Jupiter 8. Read More »
Posted by admin on April 15, 2011 – 11:46 am
The Oberheim OB-Xa was released in 1981 amidst a market gone ape for polyphonic analogs like the current darling, the Prophet 5 by Sequential Circuits. The OB-Xa’s predecesser, the OB-X was designed to directly compete with the Prophet by offering polyphony, memories, and a fat beefy analog sound. The OB-X was, as it turned out, a bit of a reliability nightmare and thus the design was re-thought, Curtis chips—like those found in the new revision 3 Prophet 5′s—were added, and thus the OB-Xa was born.
The OB-Xa is a massive synth. Massive looking. Massive sounding. Featuring a cosmetic overhaul and general technical improvements (and admittedly some losses like oscillator crossmodulation) over the OB-X, the OB-Xa became a very popular high-flight synthesizer among professionals. Traditional rock and heavy metal musicians especially became enamored with the Oberheim’s thick sound that was capable of meshing with guitar music, as well as cutting through when need be. Quickly, the OB-Xa became the weapon of choice for keyboardists in groups as diverse and unlikely as Queen, Prince, Styx, Van Halen, The Thompson Twins, Depeche Mode, Faith No More, Europe, and Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force. Gary Numan himself has gone on record to call the OB-Xa his favorite “analogue synth ever.” Read More »
Posted by admin on April 15, 2011 – 11:30 am
The FS1R was released by Yamaha in 1998. It was the most advanced FM synthesizer ever produced, incorporating formants and FM operators. There wasn’t really a significant market demand for it, and it was something of a commercial failure because it wasn’t user-friendly at all, and only really made sense to the die-hard FM programmers of the 80’s. With more than 1500 built-in patches, it’s very useful even if you never delve into the programming.
The synth is a typical metal box, 1 rack space in height. It’s a light blue metallic color and the LCD display gives a lot of information, though it’s dreadfully abbreviated and cryptic at times. A synth as versatile as this should have at least as many knobs as the Waldorf Microwave XT. Read More »
Posted by admin on April 15, 2011 – 11:08 am
The Clavia Nord Modular, one of the few synths everybody can agree is pretty damn cool. It is the ideal synthesizer for anybody who doesn’t want to drop the money on a real modular synth, but still wants the freedom of modular.
First of all, for the sound. The Nord Modular can basically make almost any sound in any range. From a sub-bass that will drop below your hearing, to pads as smooth as a baby’s ass, to leads that are whinier than a goth holding a razorblade, to funky effects that nothing can come close to, the Nord Modular can do it, and do it pretty well. The options for you sounds are almost endless (I don’t want to take the time to calculate out every single possible combination of modules and settings, but it’s in the trillions). The sound, which is a not too digital 24 bit/96 Khz signal, can get pretty damn close to true analog. Read More »
Posted by admin on April 15, 2011 – 10:56 am
In the lovely year 2000, Korg decided to make a VA synthesizer based very loosely on their MS (monosynth) series. The result was the Korg MS2000. There are two versions, the MS2000 with a 3 1/2 octave keyboard, and the MS2000R, which is rackmountable and has 5 1/2 octaves worth of trigger buttons (5 octaves of 16 notes). Read More »
Posted by admin on April 8, 2011 – 6:39 pm
I recently came across this unit in my quest for a DAW. It has impressive features and a nice price.
The portable (16.75″ L x 12.5″ W x 4″ D) AW16G can record up to eight simultaneous tracks of 16-bit, CD-quality digital audio without data compression. Each track features up to eight virtual tracks and records directly to the internal 20 GB IDE hard drive. In addition, up to 16 tracks may be exported all at once as WAV files to CD ROM for detailed editing on a personal computer. The unit is built with solid construction, and has an overall professional design. Read More »
Posted by admin on April 8, 2011 – 6:24 pm
(note: Since the OASYS is a PCI card, it’s reliability depends on your computer. As for the playability, this relies on your MIDI controller of choice)
Ultrafetish.
That is the first word that comes to mind when I think of the Korg OASYS PCI card. This is one of the few things that can do almost everything under the sun, from fat ass analog bass, to lush FM synthesis, to incredible sample playback, to emulations of wind instruments. This card has caused me problems, because ever since I got it, everything else I have bought has been based on how well it interacts with it.
It’s both a shame and a blessing that the Korg OASYS didn’t succeed financially. If you look on E-bay, you can find one for around $300 or $400 or so. Amazing since it originally came with an MSRP of $2,200.00. That’s right, the OASYS cost over two grand when it first saw the light of day.
This thing is possibly the best emulator of analog synthesizers you can find. It may not sound exactly like the “real thing”, but considering that it’s a PC card it still sounds nothing short of amazing. The synthesizers that it “officially” emulates are the Moog Minimoog, the Roland TB-303, and the SCI Prophet 5 (or Pro 1 if you use it as a monosynth). Also, there are synthesizers based on comb filters, filtered noise, and basic 1 and 2 oscillator synthesizers. It does each of these very well, and can tear open almost all software synths and all but the best hardware synths. Also, it has a set of FM synthesizers (ranging from 2 to 4 operator) that while not being nearly as powerful as Yamaha’s FM synthesizers, is still pretty good. Read More »
Posted by admin on April 8, 2011 – 5:00 pm
I will start by saying this is not a synthesizer I was excited about the first time I heard of it. Another mid priced, generic VA. Why are they even bothering? I ignored it because I was convinced it was going to be a thoroughly unimpressive piece of gear. I didnt even know it had been released when I ran into it in the store last week. I saw it sitting on a stand in the prestigious company of an ms2000, which I assumed to be its closest competition, and a microkorg.
Walking over to it I was a bit surprised to find it was not housed in a flimsy plastic, or even thin metal casing like the ms2000. Synths in this price range usually seem to have a lightweight plasticky feel to them but the ion, while being quite slim (maybe 4 or so inches tall) feels sturdy and a good bit heavier than I expected. Looking over its metallic silver body reveals a nice sized graphic display which was the next thing to surprise me. With a case like it has they had to cut corners somewhere.. where was the 2 line lcd with everything abbreviated beyond any recognition? The next thing to surprise me were its knobs, 30 of them I believe- I felt safe in assuming that with a fairly heavy duty case and a graphic display like that the pots would surely have been straight out of the radio shack reject barrel yet another pleasant surprise, the pots are infinite spin and they feel very solid with none of the cheap feeling wiggle that the ms2000 sitting above has in such great quantity. A firm twist of the ions knobs poses no risk of breaking them off. By this time I was becoming fairly interested because so far as build quality goes it had already beat the pants off of the competition, but physical construction and sound quality are two separate things and even with the initial impression it had made on me I was still not harboring high hopes about the sound. Read More »
Posted by admin on April 8, 2011 – 4:28 pm
 |
I recently got to chat with Tweaker mastermind Chris Vrenna. we talked about everything from his new album, his studio secrets, his views on modern music and american idol. Chris is one of the coolest and most down to earth musicians ive ever talked to. He had zero ego and answered every question i asked like we were old pals. |
Chris Vrenna is recognized as one of the top producer/remixers in the music world, having worked with artists including U2 , P.O.D., GAVIN ROSSDALE, as well as COLD, NELLY FURTADO, WEEZER, David Bowie, Xzibit, and Rob Zombie amongst many others. In addition to his current recording incarnation TWEAKER, Vrenna was one of the founding members of Nine Inch Nails. His new Tweaker album is available for pre-order now via www.tweaker.net and will be out on 4/20.
Damion: so hows the live band setup coming?
CV:we had tried to do a ya know, we were going to try to do a tweaker tour for the first record, but ya know, 9/11 and everything that could go wrong went wrong so that never got off the ground, although me and Clint and Paul(our bass player) we actually did get it together conceptually and half way musically so we’re just expanding upon that, we added a fourth player cause the new record, well, the first records more electro loops. it was more doable by 3 people cause I could just trigger more stuff and with the new record, the writing is much better I think, haha. more band sounding, we just needed and decided to add a forth guy musically
Damion: hopefully that will take some strain off you guys.
CV:it actually does, because I have to, well half the songs off the new record, I don’t have to worry about triggering anything, i’m just playing drums. which is just really fun and then there’s half the songs that the background arps like the verse of truth is or sleepwalking away, it starts off with all the little arps all those types of things, I break those up and sample them and then I trigger them all as loops. Read More »
Posted by admin on April 8, 2011 – 4:09 pm
 |
What do you think when you think EBM? Do you think “oontz oontz oontz oontz”? Do you think the same voice singing repetitive track after repetitive track? I used to…but not anymore.
|
What do you think when you think EBM? Do you think “oontz oontz oontz oontz”? Do you think the same voice singing repetitive track after repetitive track? I used to…but not anymore.
Simply put, Newspeak by November Process is the best EBM album I have ever heard…and definitely one of the better albums I’ve heard. I received a link to this album about 3 weeks ago, and I’ve been wondering exactly how I can review it without just typing “BRILLIANT” over and over again, which would destroy what little credibility I have in the industrial music world. I’ve finally decided on giving the album a track by track rundown, followed by a general commentary.
The album starts with the track “Stability”, and it is a fine way to start the album. It starts with a very Virus-esque bassline and assorted synthwork, and then the groaning “evil” vocals come in. All good, all done before, until the voice suddenly pops over to a very clean, very well sung chorus…wait a damn minute! Yes, singing that is actually “sung” instead of groaned out through distortion and flangers is quite prevalent on this album. This is probably the most “generic” track on the album, but it seems to be very dance oriented (insert traumatizing pictures of me dancing here), so we can forgive that. Read More »
