Category: synth

synth and music related posts

Roland TR-909 – A personal introduction

By the time I’d left for college I was familiar with the sounds of the Roland TR-909 drum machine. Daft Punk’s Homework (which had been only recently introduced to me) and it’s overt ode to the machine, Revolution 909, were on regular rotation. I could play reasonable emulations of the classic drums through my ROMpler. From the awe-inspiring (and GAS-inducing) liner photos of Fatboy Slim’s You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby I knew what the machine itself looked like.  I’d never *seen one, though.  Never experienced one…

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EarlyE: 476 Tracks Covering the History of Electronic Music

http://ubu.com/sound/electronic.html

via http://ubu.com/sound/electronic.html

…Caio Barros was an undergrad studying composition when he began digitizing his professor’s sizable collection of electronic music CDs in 2009. To increase its chances of mass distribution, he converted the collection into a torrent file. But somehow, that torrent disappeared from cyberspace. Now, for the first time, ubuweb is hosting this massive collection of early electronic works in its entirety.

1976 Rhodes Suitcase 88 Key

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Last weekend I jumped at a Rhodes 88 key listed on Craigslist. Looking past the rough tolex and one missing tine/tonebar, this thing is amazing. The boys and I have already put in a few hours of “Frosty the Snowman” and Christmas tunes; I’m looking forward to the many hours yet to come.

Here’s a short tune from Eli (the eldest) and I, Nighttime Rhodes

Singing Circuits: Who Needs Synths When a No-Input Mixer Sounds This Gorgeous? – Create Digital Music

Hypnotic and chant-like, this Christian Carrière composition hums and vibrates with what sounds like a chorus of electronic synthesizers.But that’s not what you’re hearing. It’s actually all a “no-input mixer” – a rig that makes use of controlled feedback rather than any other source of sound. It is, as Montreal-based composer Christian describes it, the sound of the circuits inside the mixer singing. And while you may associate feedback with angry distortion, here it’s beautifully tranquil, the rich tones of the circuitry themselves transformed into oscillators. The patterns and layers are all made with a looper.

via Singing Circuits: Who Needs Synths When a No-Input Mixer Sounds This Gorgeous? – Create Digital Music.

Can You Own a Birkin Bag and Still Be a Minimalist?

I have very little understanding of these brands, but I get the concept; I like it.

Imagine yourself in my make-believe Louboutins. If you have a bunch of other stuff lying around, filling up your home, adding to the clutter, how can you value your Birkin when it is surrounded by other things that are vying for your attention, removing your awareness from this object that you adore so much?The point is to remove all the extraneous stuff so that you can have the space – literally and figuratively – to focus all of your energy on the things that you value the most. There’s nothing minimal about this shift. It’s simple, it’s small, but it makes a world of difference. It has the capacity to encourage an expansion, not a contraction, of how you view your surroundings.

via Can You Own a Birkin Bag and Still Be a Minimalist?.