Here’s the first version of the laser cut and engraved Casper Electronics Drone Lab housing:

Some of the details may change, but the general design is set. An alternate design may be offered which features an extended faceplate with blank space for adding extra control hardware.

The Drone Lab is a 4 voice analog drone synth, rhythm generator and FX processor. It is capable of generating rich, textured soundscapes, hypnotic drones and complex rhythmic sequences.

A complete parts kit & PCB are available for $200.

Simian Drum Scape #1=Drum, Drone, Noise Synth by Arius Blaze

via benpumpkin:

Created by Arius Blaze of folktek = folktek.com and ariusblaze.com…video one of three…This piece incorporates a wide range of textural sound scapes as well as straight analog drum synthesis.

The synth is analog, the built in delay is digital.

Let me know what you think of Folktek’s strange synths!

Each construction kit contains a complete soundscape consisting of both synthetic and organic layers, allowing you to re-mix the component pieces as desired. All the kits were created with a common tonal center, making it easy to mix and match layers from any of the 50 kits, – yielding an almost limitless number of variations.

Features:

• 4.11 GB of 24-bit WAV files.
• 50 Construction kits.
• Each of the 50 construction kits contains a main mix, plus every element broken out.

Available now for $99.95 USD.

Demo (MP3)

This collection features 65 loops and each loop contains 3 variations to allow more flexibility and consistency. There are a total of 195 loops that can be mixed and matched.

The collection has been produced by electronic music composer Pablo Penas aka Thalassa.

The loops are presented in ACID / WAV format.

Looped Atmosphere FX is available for $39.95 as a download.

Features:

• A full octave of individually designed drone tones.
• Inaudible loop points.
• 3 patches of envelope variations for fast, medium, or slow fade-in and fade-out times.
• Available as 2 or 10 second endless loops.

The library is available in three formats:

• Soundfont: 2 versions are available, in 2 and 10 second cycle lengths, Both versions feature multiple patch variations for adjusting each drone’s fade-in and fade-out times.
• GigaStudio: 2 versions are available, in 10 and 60 second cycle lengths. Both versions feature advanced MIDI programming to give real-time user control over crescendo, fade-in, and fade-out times of each drone.
• Wav Audio: 3 versions are available, in 60 second cycle lengths, formatted for 44.1 kHz – 16 bit (standard quality), 44.1 kHz – 24 bit (pro quality), and 48 kHz – 24 bit (video production).

Asura is a French electronic group, made up of producer Charles Farewell, flutist Christopher Maze, and bassist/guitarist Alex Ackerman. There are echoes of artists like Peter Gabriel, Tangerine Dream and Banco de Gaia in Asura’s global groove style. The band builds many of their tracks around sampled vocals, including Turkish, African and Guinean vocalists, along with western choral and solo samples. This, along with the inventive synth work, helps give Lost Eden an epic sound.

Though many others have combined world music elements with electronica, Asura carves out their own niche. What’s most interesting about the tracks on Lost Eden is how Asura combines techno dance sounds with a palette of ambient world sounds. When this works, their arrangements give the tracks a unique sound that seems to come from an alternate world.

The first track, From the Abyss, combines great chill-out beats, sounds that would be at home on a William Orbit track and sampled choir. The result is mellow and relaxing, but with enough of an edge to keep it interesting.

Fahrenheit combines stark ambient drones with hypnotic sequences, and then adds huge trance drums, to great effect. Incoming is another interesting track that makes great use of sequencers and drum programming to create a propulsive groove that contrasts with more languid flute work.

The Battle of Devas, one of the highlights of the CD, is an extended track that, though over ten minutes in length, never loses your interest. It combines synth drones and vocal samples to create a hymn-like effect for the beginning of the piece. Asura drops in some funky world percussion to get thing moving, and then lets this percolate for a few minutes. The track eases off towards the middle, with Turkish call and response vocals, before didgerido samples signal the start of the crescendo to the climax of the track. This section combines sequences, the Turkish vocals, and trance drum programming, before returning to the hymn-like vocals from the start of the track.

On a couple tracks, Asura’s use of vocal samples limits their music. On the title track, Lost Eden, and Raindust, prominent vocal samples sound like slices of a vocal performance, rather than a real vocal performance. This is most noticeable on Raindust. Overall, Raindust is a nice track. However, it makes heavy use of female vocal samples. The soulful vocals sound like the singer is getting into the groove, raising expectations that she’s really going to cut loose and deliver some passion. Unfortunately, the use of samples keeps this from happening. A live vocalist could have worked wonders on this track.

Lost Eden is an interesting CD and has a lot to recommend it for fans of artists like Banco de Gaia and FSOL. The tracks are interesting and exotic, and take you on a journey to an imaginary land. On a couple of tracks, Asura’s reliance on sampled vocals keeps the CD from soaring as high as it could, but that doesn’t keep Lost Eden from being the perfect soundtrack for chilling out in your own private Eden.

Tracks:

• Lost Eden
• From the Abyss
• Raindust
• Land & Freedom
• Fahrenheit
• Requiem from Nowhere
• Incoming
• Battle of Devas
• 9. Vol d’Icare

Cluster isn’t well known, but their music is important and has been influential over the years. Cluster was formed in the late sixties as “Kluster”. The core of the band, Dieter Moebius and Hans Joechim Roedelius, has been been with the group since that time. Their music tends towards a restrained industrial or dark ambient sound. They collaborated with Eno in the late seventies, and it’s easy to hear elements of their ambient electronic style in Eno’s On Land.

The music on First Encounter Tour 1996 is a set of live performances. Many of the pieces are long. The longest, Portland Oregon #1 is 29 minutes long. The music is completely free of melodies, but still feels like it has a tonal center.

Cluster uses drones heavily, and layers a broad variety of sounds over the drones. Some of the sounds are recognizable as sampled instruments or voices, but most are abstract electronic ones. When a clear sampled instrument does come through, it sounds displaced. On Phoenix Arizona #2, a snatch of mellow saxophone playing appears for a few seconds, and sounds almost like something heard while switching channels on the radio.

The music won’t surprise listeners that have heard previous Cluster releases. On First Encounter, Cluster sounds like the same band that recorded their influential music of the seventies, but more mature and polished.

Cluster gives listeners a generous serving of music with this live collection. First Encounter Tour 1996 is a two CD set, and each of the CDs are over seventy minutes long. Fans of dark ambient music, like Eno’s On Land or Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Vol 2, will find this music absorbing and inspiring.

This self-produced CD displays a stylistic boldness and confidence that is unusual for first releases. SourceCodeX makes no concessions to popular tastes. The music is devoid of melody and rhythm, and many listeners would question whether or not many of the tracks on Codex Hypnos are even music.

For fans of dark ambient music, though, Codex Hypnos is a refreshing breath of dank air. The music is languorous, murky, and hypnotic. Comparisons could be made to some of the music of Giles Reaves, Brian Eno, Steve Roach, Michael Stearns, Robert Rich or even the soundtrack to Eraserhead, but SourceCodeX creates its own style.

SourceCodeX is a recording pseudonym of John W. Patterson. Patterson has been a guitarist since 1967, but only recently began to create music purely electronically. According to Patterson, he began working with various software-based synths and sound editing programs in 2002. “CodeX Hypnos is the results of decades of listening and a few months of learning the right software. No external hardware was used! This music’s origin is 99% from the silicon cities of a very basic, outdated, personal computer.”

Their are eight tracks on the CD. The tracks range in length from about four minutes to over sixteen, making a total running time of over seventy-five minutes. Patterson uses this time to let each track unfold slowly. While each tracks uses different ideas and sounds, the pieces flow together effectively and create a sense of traveling through various ambient spaces.

The CD starts off with “Sleep Til…”, which introduces the musical territory that Patterson wants to explore. The track is similar in style to some of the work of Steve Roach, made up of continuously evolving drones. Roach calls his works soundscapes, and that seems like an appropriate categorization for this cut.

The next cut “HALsleep” uses multiple drones that vary in pitch. The effect is somewhere between muted sirens and the sound of a windstorm. The sounds have a metallic edge that lends an eerie feel to the music.

“DreamingHyperSleepDawn” is reminiscent of some of the early work of Giles Reaves. It combines dense synth pad sounds with noise effects. The effect is lush and beautiful, giving the track a soundtrack quality. This is one of the strongest cuts on the CD.

According to Patterson’s site, the next track, “Dark Star Voids”, reflects the immensity of the Cosmos. The track definitely has an ambient space feel to it, similar to some of Steve Roach’s work, and Michael Stearns’ early modular synth pieces. Throughout “Dark Star Voids”, noise sounds fade into complex pad sounds, and then fade into chaos. It’s evocative music, and effectively captures the mysterious spaces of the title.

“Arrival and Fly-by” draws on some of the same techniques that Patterson uses on the earlier cuts, including the chaotic drones and pad sounds that vary in pitch. Some of the sounds seem like they could come from huge machines. The way that Patterson varies some of the pitches result in a Doppler-like effect, like something massive is moving by. 

“ForbiddenAmbientPlanet” is pure dark ambient music. The track seems to descend from the style of music that Brian Eno created on Ambient 4: On Land. Halfway through the track, the sound of a clock ticking is heard for a few moments, but the rest of the cut is made up of unidentifiable sounds. “ForbiddenAmbientPlanet” sounds like it could be an environmental recording from a science-fiction world. This is ambient music at its darkest.

“Nazgul Caves” is probably the most haunting track on the CD. Patterson says that it was created after seeing the final movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He says that “This is a very dark piece and almost was too creepy to be kept in this release.” It does have a very scary feel to it – the track includes sounds that seem like otherworldly animals.

The Final track, “InnerWorldStopTime”, recapitulates many of the ideas of the album. It also includes samples drawn from some of Patterson’s favorite movies. Patterson has great taste in movies, but the samples seem to put too concrete connotations on the track, where all the other tracks have a more abstract feel.

Codex Hypnos is a very interesting release. It’s beautiful in spots, haunting in others, and occasionally disturbing. Patterson’s work as SourceCodeX won’t be for everybody, but will be a treat for fans of the dark side of ambient music.

Information and free MP3 samples for Codex Hypnos are available at Soundclick.