Image: Tech Star

A nice shot of the new Novation Launchpad.

Tech Star calls the Launchpad “one of the best purchases I have made so far.”

via the Synthtopia Flickr Group

While the site of a large modular synth, a Roland TB 303 or a Fairlight CMI III is titillation enough for most synth freaks, the 2010 APC calendar goes a step further.

Here’s what APC’s Simon Iddol has to say about their 2010 calendar:

The calendar itself is a limited edition (500 copies) A3 sized wall calendar featuring legendary synths like Fairlight CMI III, Roland TB 303, PPG Wave, EMS AKS or Roland Jupiter 8.

Our aim is to create a calendar like this in every year and to do something for the music world like the Pirelli calendar for the car world.

If every garage has a hot chick VS cool cars calendar, than every studio needs our calendar.

The model is a world famous Hungarian striptease dancer and model Dorothy Black.

The politically correct side of me thinks that they should have balanced out the gear photos featuring the “world famous Hungarian striptease dancer” with some shots with a hunky naked guy – but photos of naked guys with monster synths would probably kill the vintage synth resale market on eBay forever.

The calendars are $30 via PayPal. Details at the APC site.

SFW preview (that’s probably NSFW) here.

Motherboard meets up with Ramble John Krohn, better known as the musician/producer RJD2 and the guy who helped write the theme song to Mad Men.

While RJD2 bakes an apple-raspberry cobbler a la mode, he gives a tour of his home studio, shows off his insane collection of gear, including a Yamaha CS-80, his Hammond Organ, modular processors, amplifiers, filters, compressors, and all sorts of vintage goodies.

NI’s new Traktor Kontrol X1, up close and personal….

Check this out – a top of the line Reynold Rodriguez DJ table.

Rodriguez DJ tables are custom-built out of composite wood, and hand-veneered in various exotic wood species. All units are designed to conceal most commonly exposed wiring.

A DJ table like the one above runs $3,875.

via keyofgrey

Image: Gtechture

Just “a Mopho keyboard speculation”…….but we can dream, can’t we?

via the Synthtopia Flickr Group

This video captures the “drunken debauchery” of the Muff Wiggler Forum July 2009 Gathering.

via scootermccrae:

On July 18th, 2009, I had a number of strangers who I know (or know of) from the muggwiggler.com forum come to my apartment to have fun working with the modular analog audio equipment I had lying around or the machinery they brought over themselves to integrate into whatever systems we were spontaneously creating.

So there was much drunken debauchery and noise-making to be had amongst the participants.

Keep in mind that this is just a non-linear overview of the day that demonstrates how people traveled from one room to another to patch cables and twiddled knobs. Over the course of the nine hours that people spent in my apartment, there were many audio breakthroughs and learning experiences that would be impossible to document here without a far more thorough camerperson than myself at the helm.

Needless to say, as the cameraperson, I’m not in this video — so it’s NOT a Mondo Modular episode (so I apologize to any subscribers expecting otherwise).

Please enjoy and thanks as always for checking this out.

Have you ever seen a synth as beautiful as this amazing steampunk modular synthesizer?

The level of detail and craftsmanship is just amazing!

Here are the details on this synth. They come via sequencer.de, so the info is in German:

Christian Günther, der für die Elektronik verantwortlich ist haben wir nach c.a. zwei jähriger Bauzeit die “Schaltzentale gebaut, mit der das Heckeshorn nun mit Hilfe eines Sequenzers, das noch über weitere Funktionen verfügt (Ringmodulator, Voltage Control, sowie eine recht komplexe Rythmuszentrale) fernsteuerbar ist. Klingt tierisch gut die Kiste. Die Grund Idee sowie das Gehäuse stammen von mir. Alle Teile wie die Knöpfe + Griffe wurden an der Drehbank von Hand gefertigt. Gleiches gilt für die Front Platte. Sie wurde von Hand beschriftet, verziert und geätzt. die Rückwand ziert eine Qualle die einer Opium Pfeife entschwebt. Die Verschalung habe ich aus einer sehr alten Birnbaum Bohle geschnitten + verleimt. Der Voltmeter, und die Klingel (08.01.1901) sind Antiquitäten. Es gibt auch Bilder, die man sich auf meiner my space Seite ansehen kann. Und wer Lust hat kann sie auch live gemeinsam mit dem Equipment von C.G. erleben. Wir treten am 29. + 30.07.2009 im Studio der Neubauten, www.anderebaustelle.de auf. Am 08.08.2009 dann im Haus Schwarzenberg / Escescloraque. Bespielt werden sollen mehrere Bühnen gleichzeitig, alles soll mit Studio +Video Technik miteinander verbunden sein, Man darf gespannt sein. Soeben erschienen auf dem Londoner Art Yard Lable “Berliner Ring” Orbital, siehe Spex Ausgabe Juli / August 2009. Ahoi… mo

If you can translate the German, leave a comment below. More images at Sequencer.de.

Amazing work, isn’t it?

Forget sex, drugs and rock n’ roll!

Nortec visits the Don Loope Wine Club and “wine, synthesizers & friends” is the new mantra.

via pepemogt:

Una tarde en Don Loope Wine Club. Degustacion de vinos franceses, charlas de música ochentera, sintetizadores y mås.

via the Synthtopia Flickr Group

Image: Chris Randall

Audio Damage’s Chris Randall has posted a great story about restoring his Yamaha CS5 synthesizer:

For those not hip to the story, a couple years ago an AI reader in Seattle gave me this CS5.

To say it was broken is to do a gross injustice to the word “broken.” It was absolutely in throw-away condition. There were no end-pieces at all, everything was disconnected, several of the pots had failed, the metalwork (including the face panel) was bent all to hell, several of the ICs unique to the CS5 were burnt out, and worst of all, the main board, the actual synth itself, was broken, and many of the traces had failed.

But Stephen at Synthwood saw a challenge where others saw impossibilities.

I won’t go in to great detail on everything he had to do to get this thing in even barely working condition, never mind what it’s at now, because we just don’t have that kind of time. Highlights include dark walnut end-cheeks (and he had to fashion these en situ, as we didn’t have the originals to work from), fixing all the metalwork and the frame, full cleaning, replacement of all the busted parts, repairing the broken circuit board, replacing the power supply, swapping out the fixed power connector with an IEC jack, and giving it MIDI.

Do you have any synthesizer money pits, that you love anyway?

NIN: Survivalism live w/ Saul Williams, Atlanta 5.10.09

Saul Williams makes a surprise appearance on stage with Nine Inch Nails for a performance of Survivalism, live in Atlanta, GA, May 10th, 2009

There’s a lot of things that impressed me in this video, ranging from the performance, to the surprise visit from Saul Williams to the awesome array of electronic music gear.

Watch closely, though, and you’ll see that, despite the fact that the video looks fantastic – this is a basically a glorified home movie, one shot, filmed by Rob Sheridan with a Canon 5d Mark II.

Like a lot of things that NIN has been doing, it’s not immediately obvious how insanely innovative this is.

Put a guy on stage with a relatively cheap HD video cameo and let him interact with both the band and the audience, and you’ve changed concert videos forever. There’s no reason a band can’t have an HD concert video made for all their shows, now.

Let me know what you think of this video.

Meanwhile, I’m going back to watch it again and do some synth-spotting.

via ninofficial

Synth Porn Saturday: This video captures some of the extreme modular synth action at Happy Knobbing 2009, a modular synth meetup.

via Moogulator

Image: yamamo2

The “Naked Style” PICnome Fe music controller is a monome-style music controller that exposes its electronics as part of its design.

via the Synthtopia Flickr Group

Image: brotherloco

Saturday Synth Porn: This may be a bypass button, but this photo makes me think that the world could use a few more Moog buttons.

via the Synthtopia Flickr Group

Image: Perez Fotos

Saturday Synth Porn: Audio interfaces and computers aren’t high up there on the list of sextacular music gear – but this Line 6 UX2/Macbook electronic music setup looks better than it has a right to.

Thanks to all the designers out there making their gear look as good as it sounds!

Designers Young-Shin Lee & Hae-Jin Jung came up with this design for a sexy music computer, the One Person Band:

Music aficionados rejoice. The idea of having only 1 device that combines multiple instruments, track recording, equalizer, sound editing, internet connectivity, and a touchscreen interface all into one compact package is drool worthy. The Vivace makes it all possible. Information is scarce on how the interface works but I have no doubt up-and-coming artists like FrankMusik and Bjork could do a lot with such a device.

Here’s another shot:

While the concept looks sort of sexy, I have yet to see a multi-touch music surface to anything that can’t be done cheaper and in a more musically expressive way with hardware.

Let me know what you think of this design. Do you think sexy multitouch functionality will eventually be better than hardware control surfaces?

Image: chaosbit

Doesn’t this delicious image of a Technics 1200 turntable sync ring make you want to spin some vinyl and actually feel some music?

It’s Record Store Day 2009 – so go visit your local record store and dig up something fun.

If you make a cool find, leave a comment and tell us about it!

Image: maubrowncow

Trent Reznor And Kevin Rose – photo from the NIN Digg interview session.

Is that the sweetest background ever?

Image: parasitk

If you haven’t checked out the Synthtopia Flickr Pool yet, don’t delay!

It’s growing like mad. With hundreds of people contributing images, the pool now features thousands of photos.

Many of the photos are amazing, like this fantastic DotCom modular synth shot by parasitik. And it’s not just gear, but fantastic performance shots, too.

The latest additions to the pool are featured on the right sidebar of Synthtopia. If you’ve got other ideas for making the most of this shared effort, leave a comment.

And thanks to everyone that’s contributed!