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″

“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

New Multitouch music user interface. Amazing! Great work from Christian Bannister at subcycle. Best explained by watching the video.

multi-touch the storm - interactive sound visuals - subcycle labs from christian bannister on Vimeo.

originally discovered via CDM

Strymon has just announced their new Orbit flanger in the news section of their site:

“We’ve already previewed the dBucket technology that is going to debut in our new delay pedal. Here’s another taste of things to come. Just as in the delay, an entire SHARC DSP is dedicated to doing only one thing … the ultimate flanger. We own and love our ADA flanger so naturally that was some of the first sonic territory we wanted to cover … “

Wolfgang Palm of PPG fame has started a myspace page and posted many fascinating blog entries about the history of PPG and his career afterwards. Palm is highly regarded as a pioneer in digital wavetable synthesis.

Read his blog here.

discovered via matrixsynth

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.

This can only be explained by watching the video. Very impressive DIY project.

via fansofcollision

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.

Arturia recently announced their “10 Year Suite” which includes 8 of their software instruments. It’s seriously tempting me as I’ve always wanted a copy of their CS-80 emulation.

From their web site: “The 10 Year Suite brings you 8 software instruments Arturia has built over 10 years … The luxury box contains the highly awarded Minimoog V, Moog Modular V, CS-80V, ARP2600 V, Jupiter-8V ,Prophet V and Prophet VS. Also included are the innovative Brass and the powerful Analog Factory.”

This is a very impressive prototype for a multitouch string instrument which allows a user to create virtual strings on a screen and pluck them. The user interface looks beautiful. It’ll be interesting to watch the project for future development.

Here is the web page. Discovered via Matrixsynth.