The eighth episode of Electro-Harmonix Effectology series looks at recreating Joe Meek’s Telstar, and the sound of a vintage Clavioline, using just a guitar and effects pedals.  No keyboards,samplers or midi pickups were used.

Details below.

via Effectology:

In today’s episode studio musician Bill Ruppert recreates the classic hit Telstar using just a guitar and Electro-Harmonix effect pedals.

Telstar was one of the fist pop hits to feature a synthesizer.

The Clavioline was a very early synthesizer using vacuum tubes.

Bill Ruppert also demonstrates some very unusual effects through the video as well. actual pedal settings are found here:n http://www.ehx.com/forums/viewthread/1900/EHX

Pedals featured:Soul Preacher, Stereo Memory Man, Big Muff, Pulsar, Poly Phase, MicroSynth, Cathedral, Poly Chorus

Klon takes your voice and adds up to 16 different copies of your voice, in realtime. This lays the ground for an impressive amount of applications like:

• Choir generator
• Harmonizer
• Voice doubler
• Change voice’s gender
• Pitch corrector
• Extreme voice manipulation

KLON is available for purchase for the introductory offer of 99 EUR until October 31st, 2009 (regular price 169 EUR). It is free with every purchase of Take Five FX (incl. Bark, Matrix, Reflect, TDesign and VTape) before October 31st, 2009.

You can preview a demo of VirSyn Klon below:

The 16 pitch shifters inside KLON are divided into 4 groups making it easy to build up large choral parts from a simple, single vocal line. The four separate, switchable groups have their own dedicated set of controls. These controls include an x-y pad for fast, easy control of pitch and panorama. Each group can be altered in real time while music is playing or can be by-passed, edited and switched back on when required. The pitch for each group can be shifted by up to +/- two octaves with adjustable formant control retaining voice quality even at extreme settings. All of those controls are available for host automation for unsurpassed dynamic voice manipulations.

KLON includes a flexible and adaptive pitch correction to any given scale or external MIDI notes and chords. Think of playing a chord to immediately harmonizing your vocal input.

The realtime manipulation possibilities together with the low latency operation makes KLON the ideal live plugin for vocals.

Video from a test session with Sergio Koval playing his Yamaha CS-80 at Synthoma studio.

The test is a chorus comparison with the CS-80 built-in chorus, a Digitech multieffect chorus, and the élkorus analog bbd chorus.

via wutierson:

Now the CS-80 can do a very nice strings, not only brasses!! More info about élkorus and synthoma in general, at www.synthoma.net

Paul Wiffen demonstrates a 1984 Elka Synthex – most famously used on Jean Michel Jarre’s Rendezvous as the Laserharp sound.

Paul also originally programmed the original presets.

Released in 1982, the Elka Synthex was an attempt to get a slice of the professional synth market, which was at that time dominated by Sequential Circuits’ Prophet 5 and Oberheim’s OBn polysynths.

The Synthex offers two multi-waveform oscillators, a white / pink noise generator, a multi-mode filter, an LFO and two ADSR envelopes. The Synthex owes much of its lush sound to a built-in chorus unit. The Synthex also offers a simple sequencer, keyboard layering and key-splits,  cross modulation, ring modulation and a comprehensive modulation matrix.

I would like to say that the Elka Synthex is probably the most wonderful sounding polysynth I’ve ever laid my hands on. I’m not so interested in the technological aspects of a synthesizer, and there’s so much more to be said about the Synthex. I’ve barely touched the surface here, but recommend it highly!

- Norwegian Henrik Huste

The Eka Synthex was most famously used by Jean Michel Jarre – but was also used by Tangerine Dream and Stevie Wonder.

If you’ve used the Elka Synthex, leave a comment with your thoughs!

Resources:

• Elka Synthex, an introduction
• Hollow Sun Nostalgia intro
• Video via Sharpblue:

This is a demo for the Behringer VM-1 Vintage Time Machine. The VM1 is an effects pedal that offers chorus, vibrato and delay effects, with up to 550 ms of analog echo. 

Features:

• Get up to 550 ms of organic echo, chorus and vibrato
• Dedicated Delay, Chorus/Vibrato, Feedback, Mix and Level controls
• Blue status LED for effect on/off and battery check
• True hard-wire bypass for ultimate signal integrity
• Runs on 9 V battery or the BEHRINGER PSU-SB DC power supply (not included)

2009 NAMM Show preview: DigiTech is shipping the RP1000 Integrated Effects Switching System, a high-end effects switcher offering 14 metal switches that control both program changes, effects on/off, stompbox loop in/out, bank up/down, and a built-in 20 second looper.

The RP1000 can be used in two different control modes to switch up to 10 presets (preset mode) or 5 presets and 5 effects on/off (pedalboard mode).

The RP1000 offers over 160 internal stompboxes, effects, amps and cabinet, USB 2×2 audio streaming along with Cubase LE4. The system retails for $699.95

“Developing RSM pedals has been a multi-year program for us that has resulted in a platform on which we can develop in many directions”, states Duwe. “Our 24-bit hardware, firmware and software system will allow us to model many acoustic spaces, instruments and electronic modifications; at very little cost to the customer. One could easily be misled by the compact pedal form factor, but under the hood of our RSM processors you will find a lot of substantial FX for DJ’s, keyboardists and guitar amp effects loops alike.”

Behringer RSM pedals include chorus, phase shifting, flanging, reverb, delay, echo, octave, dynamic formant eq, acoustic modeling, rotary, harmonizing and synthesis modeling.

All pedals feature:

• Real Sound Modeling with advanced DSP algorithms
• 24-bit A/D/A conversion
• Rugged impact-resistant injection molded cases
• Sealed rotary controls
• Dual outputs for stereo or split-signal applications
• Ultra-bright On/Battery LED
• Battery or DC powered

US List $74.95

Stretta got his hands on the new Tiptop Audio Z5000, a modular analog CV-friendly DSP effects processor, and says “Go buy one”:

What the world needs is a Eurorack-format DSP with CV control. Along comes the Tiptop Audio Z5000. First of all, it is in stock, you can buy it now. None of this, announce, wait six months, pre pay, wait some more, get aggravated, learn the boards or parts are delayed, etc… This is a real product that you can have in your hot little hands in the time it takes to ship to your door. Kudos for this. Really. Standing ovation

Secondly, it weighs in at under $200. Yes, really. That, my friends, is what I call a reasonably-priced module. Actually, the price is more like, “I don’t have to think about this at all, I’m just going to buy it.”

I spent all of last night playing with it, giggling. Tons of fun. I love putting reverb before the amplifier so the lines you play are smeared, but still gated by the keyboard. A reverb module makes patching far more easy, and opens up creative opportunities you may not have considered before. The Z5000 also includes a handful of other programs like chorus, flanging, but the real focus is on various reverbs

There is nothing about the Z5000 that feels inexpensive. The knobs are nice, the panel graphics and logo have a professional’s eye. Nothing to complain about at all. It feels and works like a solid, professional product, and not some hobbyist side-project. I’m utterly baffled. I hope Tiptop has more products in development, I’m a happy customer.

Stretta’s review is pushing me over the edge – must. get. eurorack. modules.

Read the full review at his site, and let me know if it doesn’t fill you with unbridled modular gear lust.

Now, where can I find a Eurorack case to match a Synthesizers.com cabinet?

Anyone? Anyone?

OttoVibe has a variety of effects including tremolo, vibrato, panning, and chorus. Altogether, OttoVibe has eight different types of effects. The thing that makes OttoVibe interesting is that the effects can be dynamically manipulated using “touch” or expression pedal controls, much the same way a touch wah works.

According to Music Unfolding, “Even though OttoVibe tends to be more subtle than its siblings (OttoPhormant and OttoPhilter), it is very expressive.”

OttoVibe is $19.99 and is available for OS X as a Universal Binary.

More information and a demo are available at the Music Unfolding site.

Pro Tone Pedals

The Lithum is modeled after one of the most famous chorus pedals of all time, one made even more popular by late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.

The Lithium has an added depth control giving you more tonal flexibility and allowing lush aural spaces. The Lithium uses hand-picked analog components and incorporates the legendary 4558 op amp from Texas Instruments.

Features:

• Operates on a standard 9 volt battery or optional BOSS style adapter.
• Stomp switch is built to withstand 30,000 stomps.
• Durable aluminum housing with an enamel finish.
• Hand-built Point to Point construction.
• Color-coded LED for easy onstage identification

The Lithium Chorus has a list price of US $189.00.

More information is available at the Pro Tone Pedals site.

The first three Roland products to be released as UAD-1 plug-ins, the Dimension D Chorus, the CE-1 Chorus and the Roland RE-201 Space Echo, will be made available to customers over the course of 2005.

“Universal Audio has a demonstrated ability to create extremely accurate emulations of classic signal processors,” said Tom Stephenson, Roland’s Manager of Recording Technologies. “In order for Roland to license its trademarks, we must be certain that the level of quality and performance our customers have come to expect is maintained. This is why we are so pleased that Universal Audio will be developing these plug-ins for their UAD-1 platform.”

“We are truly honored to have been selected by Roland to emulate these classic products,” said Universal Audio’s president Matt Ward. “This is a great tribute to the care and detail our DSP and user interface designers put into each plug-in emulation we create. These Roland products have been very high on the request list of our UAD-1 customers and they will be very excited by this announcement.”

Universal Audio plans to release the Dimension D to the UAD-1 user base in the second quarter of 2005. The CE-1 chorus will follow in Q3 and the RE-201 will be release in Q4, 2005.

This version update fixes minor issues (including user interface freezing) and introduces new elements to the plug-ins of the suite, including a variety of new factory presets. All plug-in filenames were shortened for more convenience.

The Impulse plug-in now features more internal impulses which were taken from several high-end analog devices. The Bypass switch has been added to the plug-in as well.

New tape impulses were added to the TapeBus plug-in.

Analogflux Suite features:

• Tape simulation plug-in
• Analog delay plug-in
• Convolution processor plug-in
• Analog insert plug-in
• Chorus plug-in
• Factory presets
• “A-to-B” comparisons
• Mono-to-Stereo, Stereo-to-Stereo processing
• All sample rates supported
• 64-bit internal precision
• Native assembler DSP code

For more information and downloads, visit the Voxengo web site.