Waveformless

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Monday, June 7, 2010

Free Sample Friday Guest Stars?

So, as many of you undoubtedly know, we have a little feature on this blog called "Free Sample Friday". Every Friday, I upload a little micopack of WAV samples for your enjoyment and (hopefully) inspiration. I'd long thought that it might be interesting to have 'guest' editions of Free Sample Friday. Yesterday, Waveformless reader Peter sent me a message on Facebook inquiring about the possibility of something like this, so I decided maybe it was something worth floating out there. I have some interesting equipment, but I don't have the budget to constantly pick up a lot of old or weird gear (donations gladly accepted, though!) and I am SURE we have some readers out there with some awesome stuff they could share. We'd of course need to set some guidelines to ensure no copyrighted material appeared and that it was in a uniform format, but I think it could be a cool chance for readers to participate. What do you all think? Do you have some weird old drum machine or circuit bent monstrosity people might be interested in? Have some cool found percussion or incredibly rare analogue beasty? Speak up in the comments section and let's see if we can get something cool going...

Video A/B Comparison of Korg MS-20 and Monotron

Via atoooy on YouTube:

I've been intrigued by the Monotron since Korg first announced it and pretty much planned on getting one from the get-go, but this comparison only reinforces that decision. Yes, its feature set is limited, but it's amazing how close a $60 "toy" the size of an iPhone gets to the original...

Thoughts on Sonic Charge's Patternarium Site?

Yesterday Sonic Charge announced Patternarium, a Flash-fueled semi-random patch and pattern generator for their drum synth Microtonic. Anyone tried it out yet?

My personal thought is that this is an amazing, perhaps revolutionary approach to generating new content for older products. Combining a user voting system and the 'evolution' based approach to patch generation first seen in their Synplant synth is a really forward thinking approach. I'd love to see other developers follow suit with patch generators for synths and effects. Can you imagine how much it would extend the shelf-life for virtual instruments? What do you guys think? Yea? Nay?

Roland SH-7 on Ebay

Info at the link...

Moog Taurus II Bass Synth on Ebay

Info at the link...

Sunday, June 6, 2010

News from Sonic Charge

Some cool news items from Sonic Charge, creators of the excellent Microtonic Drum Synth.

The first is the introduction of the Microtonic Patternarium, what Sonic Charge refers to as an "online collaborative patch randomizer". This tool will create random sounds and rhythms that you give the thumbs up or thumbs down to in order to influence their evolution. You can definitely see Synplant's hand (tendril?) in influencing this...

The second is the announcement that the next version of Microtonic is currently in beta testing. The company is currently accepting applications for a limited number of beta testers, so if you'd like to give it a go, just fill out the application. No new details as of yet aside from the fact that it will support MIDI program change and drag and drop of patterns as MIDI files. (I'm personally hoping for a dedicated pattern page where I can see the trigger buttons for all sounds at once and a more pleasant, analog sounding distortion...)