Introducing … the polyphonic theremin!

The newly announced Tempest digitally controlled analog drum machine from Dave Smith instruments looks amazing. I was fortunate enough to speak with Dave Smith himself at their namm both this year. Very nice guy … he even answered my question about how they still manage to acquire curtis chips for production. They apparently have them fabbed custom in batches to make it still possible to use in their new designs. Back to the tempest … it has 6 drum voices with 2 analog oscillators and 2 digital oscillators per voice. The OLED display looks beautiful as well. Watch the video below!

Came across a picture of this artwork … Awesome! The idea is that you would have to walk across the pedals while walking into the gallery, making random pedals turn on and off with a loop playing through them.

One of the best software 2 track editors out there is DSP quattro from the small Italian software company I3. It’s sometimes overlooked but rivals expensive systems from sonic solutions, etc. I recently had the chance to use it for mastering an album and was amazed at the advanced CD mastering and cross-fading features. It is also handy for applying effects in a mastering chain. It’s just really, really great software. The main engineer Stefano is a great guy to boot!

KVR recently did a great interview with Roger Linn. Very interesting story. Read it here

“it occurred to me I could store digital drum recordings in computer memory instead of tape because the sampling time requirement for all the drums added up to only about a second. I built a prototype and all of a sudden, recording artists who wouldn’t return my calls as a guitarist were calling me asking to buy one for $5,000″

With dub soundtrack to boot.

Strymon has posted some shots of their demo pedalboard from the 2010 NAMM show last week. Looks like there is a previously unannounced reverb and also a chorus on there. From the site: “Introducing the Strymon blueSky reverberator and the Ola dBucket chorus / vibrato. We are swamped trying to get these done but we promise we’ll have more details, pictures, videos in the days to come. Please stay tuned and check this section of the website often!”

Also, here is a closeup of their upcoming Orbit flanger which will feature thru zero flanging among other things.

Teenage Engineering was out in force at 2010 NAMM showing off some impressive new features of their OP-1 portable synth / multifunction device. They showed their new “tape” mode which acts as a virtual 4 track tape recorder. Their OLED graphics are beautiful … just beautiful. I chance to speak with their graphic designer and compliment him on the interface design.

from their site: “instantly let you record anything you do on the OP-1 to any track of the built-in Tape feature. Record your sound tweaks or beats in real-time. Change speed during recording, or record backwards. Split, lift and join. Make a loop or record a section with Tape Step Recording. You have twelve minutes recording time in normal tape speed and 4 tracks to put your magic on.”