Cuckoo demo’s the new Plogue Chipsounds.

via cuckoomusic:

I bought this new plug-in called Plogue Chipsounds and took it for a spin. I must say it sounds fantastic. I’m going through a couple of the chips, perform and loop live to see how it all sounds.Best regardsCUCKOOMore on Cuckoo:http://www.cuckoo.noMore on Plogue Chipsounds:http://www.plogue.com

Synthtopia regular Torley takes a look at Plogue Chipsounds, with a preview of the standard patches and a few hickups along the way.

Don’t forget to check out Torley’s site sometime, where he’s got 100s of free, gorgeous pieces, including play while answering email & Vangelis meets Ryuichi Sakamoto.

This video demos an Atari 2600 being played by a MIDI keyboard.

via littlescale

Plogue today released its new soft-synthesizer, chipsounds.

“Quite simply put, it beats the s*** out of any other single chip emulation VST currently available,” says 8-bit artist nitro2k01. “chipsounds is a must-have for anyone who’s seriously interested in chip sounds but don’t have access to the real hardware.”

chipsounds is designed to faithfully reproduce the sound and style of vintage video game music and sound effects in plugin format, usable inside any sequencer or DAW, or as a standalone virtual instrument.

Plogue chipsounds will be offered at an introductory price of 75$ until November 1.

chipsounds simulates the following sound chips:

• 2A03
• AY-3-8910
• DMG-CPU
• P8244
• POKEY
• SID
• SN76489
• TIA
• UVI
• VIC-I

chipsounds reproduces the idiosyncrasies of the most sought-after classic sound chips, including their most well-known variations, as sonically accurate as possible without adding any non-authentic aliasing or DSP artifacts. Research and analysis for this project has been made in house on Plogue’s large collection of cartridges, modified consoles and classic computers and also on the chips themselves using custom made circuit boards and low level 8 bit software code.

This demo captures the Atari 2600 synthesizer in action.

This India-inspired electronica jam features electronic tabla driving a DIY sequencer.

Details on the patching and performance controls below.

via behanger:

My electronic tabla (it says “proffessional”) controls my home built 32 step sequencer, of which 20 positions are used for this rhythm. The Sool rhythm has 10 beats per cycle.

The sequencer not only plays these voltages up or down, but it can also derive other patterns. I worked these out and implemented these in hardware. I would have to look up how I did this. I do not think of it anymore, as each of the patters is useful. So in a live situation, I just choose a different one at random.

The output of the sequencer is analog, and sends out 0-10 volt. This is then converted to midi by my new miduino, a circuit by Tom Scarff. The software was partley rewritten by me. to make it play in the key of my choice. Using a very secrative math trick called rounding, I made the sequencer play in a minor key, rather than in the 12 tone system. This allows for live tweaking of the knobs without ever being out of key. Freedom!

Then there’s my Arcade joystick, which has an home baked circuit that converts the 4 switches and the fire button to 15 different notes, and connects right onto the keyboard matrix of an old casio childrens keyboard which cooks midi note messages. I would do this in the miduino too if I needed to do it again. A series of if/else statements is much easier and more flexible than soldering and debugging a circuit with 8 logic IC’s and a over a meter of wire.

Then there’s the large joystick. It has a doepfer midiconvertor on board. The miduino has enough pins to do it all together, but I like the fact that it is a funtional unit on it’s own. It controls all the effects of the Arcade channel.

The pitch of the tabla can be controlled by the sequencer as well as by the Atari paddle. I made this input on the tabla when I replaced the tuning pot with a precise ten-turn pot. It works with two vactrols.

Sound sources are: cymbals, a Raagini shruti box, the tabla box, a Waldorf Blofeld running 2 patches amplified by a 40 year old Italian tube amp.

I recorded it with my photocamera, which has a rediculously low audio sampling rate. They all have. It’s just not a number the camera’s are sold by. I should have checked weather I was in the image myself. Now I am a pair of hands on youtube too, looking like the Lorax of Dr. Seuss. A well. It’s just a test drive to check if my work is getting somewhere.

This is a demo of Atari Video Music, a light synthesizer, by Electronic musician David Talento.

A Cyndustries/Modcan modular synth was used as the audio source. All audio and video changes done live in real time with no editing.

The Atari Video Music was introduced by Atari Inc. in 1976, and designed by the creator of the home version of Pong, Robert Brown. The idea was to create a visual exploration that could be implemented into a Hi-Fi stereo system.

As the legend goes, when Atari was on tour promoting the device, a Sears representative asked what they were smoking when they invented it. With that, a technician stepped forward holding up a lit joint.

The unit was in production for only a year.

If you’ve used the Atari Video Music system, leave a comment with your thoughts!

via legionhwp, wikipidia

The Fridgebuzzz Atari Synth synth has the body of an Atari 400 – but it’s been gutted to make a bizarre synth.

The Atari Synth is a polyphonic 12-oscillator, 3 modulator square wave synthesizer controlled by arcade-style pushbuttons and potentiometers. 

Details here.

via Technobob

Description:

I have created a set of samples that have been recorded directly from an Atari POKEY chip. I have created all of the sounds myself on the hardware (as in, these are not sounds or samples recorded from games or demo programs). The output from the sound chip has been recorded directly.

Samples

There are a total of 316 samples, covering a variety of frequencies and noise characteristics. Pure tones are not included.

Audio Format

The uncompressed audio is presented as 16 bit, 44.1KHz mono .wav files. The compressed audio is presented as 96kbps, mono .mp3 files. The audio has been normalised and trimmed, but not compressed nor equalised in any fashion. Fade-outs have been added to each file.

Download

The sample pack can be downloaded here:

• Uncompressed Audio (24.1MB) (zip)
• Compressed Audio (3.3MB) (zip)

The library is released under a Creative Commons license.

See Tomczak’s site for more info and other free sample libraries.

This video demos Little Scale’s Multi POKEY MIDI Interface.

Features:

• a better tuning system for 8-bit mode
• a better tuning system for 16-bit mode
• the ability to set the pitchbend in terms of semitones, via MIDI CC
• the ability to set the octave division in terms of discrete pitches per octave, via MIDI CC
• the ability to set the frequency value for any of the four registers via MIDI CC – handy for filter automation etc

Jimmy Hotz uses the Hotz Box to explore new musical frontiers of real-time performance.

The Hotz Box was invented by Jimmy Hotz and first manufactured by Atari.

More on Hotz Super Instruments at Hotz’ site.

This episode of XLR8R TV looks at Brooklyn-based electro/hip-hop artist Eliot Lipp and his monster collection of sexy analog gear, including:

• Jomox XBase-09
• MFB Synth-II
• Plan B modular synths
• Atari Synthcart
• Sequential Circuits Six-Trak
• Wurlitzer Electric Piano

He also talks about his new album, The Outside, ice cream and crate digging.

If anything is going to send me down to the second circle of Hell, it’s Lipp’s Plan B modular. Let me know what you think of Lipp and his analog gear.

via Crate Kings

I posted earlier about a free Commodore 64 synth VST. Pretty much instantaneously, reader BlueBrat let me know about a free Atari synth VST for Windows.

YMVST emulates the Atari’s built-in YM2149 sound chip, and sounds pretty awesome, too.

Preview the YMVST’s sound below.