Andy Summers explains the importance of dynamics in music, and specifically how they used dynamics with the Police. Bonus shot in this video: Andy playing guitar synth!

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.“

Monome has been around for a while now but I’m always impressed when I see demo videos such as the one below. Brian & Kelli are a small team working on what they love and they are also very conscious of the impact they have … from the monome.org site “we strive for economic and ecological sustainability. careful design practice allows us to contribute to culture and preserve the environment by choosing domestic, high-quality, and responsible providers and production facilities. we acknowledge that our future will depend on our ability to support and maintain a local, regenerative economy.”

ro + 256 + milkcrates + monks from ro on Vimeo.

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

Moog has combined the guitar and bass MuRF pedals and added a full midi implementation in the new MF-105M. At $479 it’s definitely not cheap but it is very cool sounding.

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.

From their site:  “Now you can turn your iPhone / iPod touch into a MIDI controller, with multiple faders and buttons easily assigned to parameters in any software that allows MIDI control, and even some that don’t”

Can’t wait to use this for controlling Protools during band practice impromptu recording sessions. I had been thinking of getting a Tranzport from Frontier for a while but it looks like Automap may fit the bill and be easier all the way around.

Ladyada of xoxbox fame has a new project using XBee wireless controllers to implement wireless bi-directional MIDI communication. Nice work as always.

http://www.ladyada.net/make/xbee/midibee.html

The Sonuus G2M pitch to midi converter for guitar was featured at last month’s NAMM show in Los Angeles. Looks interesting and I’m very curious to get my hands on one to see if it actually performs as advertised. Latency/tracking is tricky business for all of us who’ve ever tried to use a guitar synth.