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!

Analog synths through the Strymon El Capistan!

A demo of the Neptune 2 from Swiss company Spectral Audio. “With the Neptune Mk2, Spectral Audio is again tickling out the best of the Analog Technique - three temperature stabilized Voltage Controlled Oscillators, the 24dB transistor cascade filter, the huge LFO range, its modulation flexibility, the envelopes and the transistor distorter section are speaking for itself.”

Originally discovered via matrixsynth.

“The device plays compositions which are stored on microcontroller modules. The modules in this presentation are based on the Atmega family and are programmed in GCC (Arduino) and Bascom. In general, the synthesizer can work with any other TTL Microcontroller as PIC, Propeller or even ones which don’t exist yet, as the computation happens on the module and the Vektron itself only provides the peripherals.”

Vektron modular from Niklas Roy on Vimeo.

Originally discovered via Matrixsynth

Moog was showing off their newly unveiled update of the Taurus bass pedals. They looked great in person and it seems as if the design draws heavily from the Little Phatty line of synths. As an owner of the Little Phatty I can say that the bass sounds in the Taurus III are going to be astounding. Taurus II will be a limited quantity product with less than 1000 units produced.

From the moogmusic site: “Long requested by many of our very best customers and used by the likes of Rush, The Police, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Phil Collins, Asia, Weezer, and many more. This is a one time opportunity to own a new set with a new warranty but one absolutely faithful to the original Taurus I sound.“

Just had to re-post this. It’s too beautiful …

originally discovered via Matrixsynth

Very interesting and informative lecture by Brian Kehew and Larry Fast filmed and streamed live on the web. This was done on opening weekend of the new Bob Moog exhibit we posted on earlier. The exhibit is at the museum of making music in Carlsbad, CA.

Click here for the video lecture

Doepfer recently released the Dark Energy single VCO monophonic analog synth. It looks like a very compelling product and the audio demo sounds great. Very fun little package and the inclusion of USB and MIDI is handy.

“Dark Energy is a monophonic stand-alone synthesizer with USB and Midi interface. The sound generation and all modulation sources are 100% analog, only the USB/Midi interface contains digital components. Dark Energy is built into a rugged black metal case with wooden side plates. High quality potentiometers with metal shafts are used and each potentiometer is fixed to the case (no wobbly shafts and knobs). The distance between the controls is a bit wider compared to A-100 modules and knobs with vintage look are used.”

Listen to the audio demo.