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If you like ambient and experimental music, you’ll want to check out Brian W. Green’s seeyouinsleep release, Cycles.

Green is constantly experimenting with sound, and documenting his work on YouTube, SoundCloud and at his blog.

Green explains:

I focus mainly on work dealing with field recording, sound art, generative synthesis, abandoned spaces/natural ambience, environmental/nature sounds, industrial spaces, machines, drones and more.

seeyouinsleep is a platform in which my work is let out, this site/platform is built of various mediums, primarily sound but also video, photography and art.

From a early age i have experimented with sound and have always had a fascination with the sound a natural space can produce and create and what you can do with that sound.

Cycles is a collection of 10 very short pieces – the longest is 50 seconds. All the audio on the album was created using a generative process.

Green suggests putting the album into iTunes or your portable music player and listening it on shuffled repeat, to “let it make a piece of music by itself.”

This is a video introduction to Native Instruments’ Traktor Kontrol X1, a new DJ controller designed by the team behind Traktor DJ.

Native Instruments today announced Traktor Kontrol X1, a performance controller designed by the team behind Traktor DJ. Read more…

Synthesis has changed a lot since the days of Switched On Bach – and it’s getting to the point that recordings of virtual instruments, and even virtual orchestras, are nearly indistinguishable from the “real” thing.

Of course, this begs the question – what is the real thing?

How close are virtual orchestras coming to traditional orchestras?

You be the judge.

I’ve embedded an example below that contains short sections from three symphonies, by Beethoven & Schumann. See if you can identify the one that is virtual – and if you can articulate why you think it sounds “virtual”.

Image: jordanfischer

Free Music Software: The Venom VB-303 is a pattern-based acid bassline synthesizer for Windows inspired by the Roland TB-303.

Venom VB-303 is actively under development, but is still in beta.

Download links are available at the KVR forum.

Free Music Software: Hotelsinus Sound Design has released version 0.23 of TonesynthDS, a free software synth for the Nintendo DS. TonesynthDS combines matrix sequencing with a simple synthesizer.

Features:

• 16×16 pattern editor (16 accord, 16 tone (the scale is selectable), first line is always the C3).
• 16 different pattern stock.
• Different volume setting possibility for each accord (in the second editor mode).
• Adjustable tempo.
• Possibility to play a pattern looped with the default sound samples or with generated sound samples.
• With the button X you can clear a pattern (and set the volumes of that pattern to maximum).
• Sound sample generator. You can listen a test sound with ADSHR, play a continuous test sound without adshr (but you can set the parameters on the fly) or generate the full stock, that will be used by the pattern player. The system is fully usable while you play or generate samples. Although the playing of the pattern will be paused during the generation.
• For the generation there are two oscilloscopes. Both can generate sinus, saw, rectangle and organ. The frequency of the second oscilloscope can be set relative to the frequency of the first oscilloscope with a slider under that except for the ‘am’ mixing type where you can set the absolute frequency between 0 and 20 hertz.
• 3 mixing types: Amplitude modulation, ring modulation (the difference is in the base frequency of the second oscilloscope) and cross modulation. For the last one you can set the cross fade factor with the slider under the first oscilloscope.
• Low pass filter with resonance.
• ADSHR for the generated samples. The length of the samples are limited to 2 seconds.

via Steelberryclones

The Akai APC40, shown above getting a workout with a Freestylers/Noisia/BustaRhymes/Dillinja remix/mashup, has gotten a lot of people psyched about hardware controllers for Ableton Live.

To help showcase what people are doing with the APC40, Akai Professional has announced the European APC40 Video Contest, starting November, 1st and ending December, 31st 2009. Prizes include your choice of any product from the current Akai Professional product range, the Akai Pro LPK25 and the Akai LPD8.

Heres what to do:

• Go to http://www.youtube.com/group/apc40contest;
• Register to YouTube and become a member of the APC40 Video Contest Group;
• Tag your video with APC40 and add it to the APC40 Video Contest Group;

Performances will be judged by a panel of artist who are APC40 users.

You probably already know that synth meetups are a great way to meet and learn from other people that are into synths. This video, from Pacific Northwest Synth  2009, documents five more reasons to go to a synth meetup.

5 Reasons To Go To A Synth Meetup

1. They are the synth geek equivalent of a trip to the Playboy Mansion – everywhere you look, you see something gorgeous.
2. Everybody there thinks that guys rocking out with keytars are cool.
3. Where else are you going to see a giant Mini Modular?
4. Analog IS better than digital. Especially when it’s digitally-controlled analog.
5. Three words: MIDI-controlled skulls

If you made it to Pacific Northwest Synth 2009, leave a comment with your experiences or links to videos and photos from the event!

Read more…

Dr. Bleep at Bleep Labs has introduced the Thingamagoop 2 – the next generation of their anthopomorphic synth robots.

New with the Thingamagoop 2:

• Arduino + Analog
• CV i/o
• Much more….

No pricing or release date have been announced.

This can’t end well.

You create a synthesizer-controlled Frankenstein robotic dog, and pretty soon you end up as dog food. Read more…