Features:

• Two independent voices each transposing individual notes and chords
• Chromatic interval transposition down or up as much as four octaves
• Natural sounding physics simulation without delay or artifacts
• An instrument itself with an eight octave extended-piano range
• Custom programmed module for ToneCore pedals and docks

The Muzemazer Chromavoder is a custom programmed module designed for use with all Line 6 ToneCore pedals and docks. Chromavoder simulates an analog circuit or physical device that harmonically multiplies chromatic tones.

The Muzemazer Chromavoder retails for $360. Audio demos are available at the Muzemazer site.

This is a vintage audio demo of the rare Synton Syntovox Vocoders.

via VoiceEncoder:

Copyright Synton Electronic of Holland, Inc.

All Rights Reserved.For listening pleasure only.

Moog Music has announced the MIDI MuRF Pattern Editor, a free app for Mac or PC that lets you create custom MIDI-controlled filter patters for the MuRF.

Description:

Available as a free download to MIDI MuRF owners, the Pattern Editor software allows players to create, modify and save their own filter sequence patterns. Its point-and-click user interface makes pattern creation a breeze and the on-screen knobs and sliders let users optimize patterns to real-world settings without taking their hand off the mouse.

The MIDI MuRF Pattern Editor provides easy access to parameters only available through MIDI CC commands and saving and storing patterns on a computer allows for an unlimited number of available variations.

“With a possible 64 steps per band and the ability to create polyrhythmic patterns, the MIDI MuRF Pattern Editor lets users tailor their patterns for a sound that’s uniquely their own,” said Moog Applications Engineer, Amos Gaynes. “You can store up to 22 custom patterns at a time on the MIDI MuRF itself, so you can take your unique grooves with you anywhere.”

In this video, djmagtv takes a look at the Vermona Cross Filter.

The Cross Filter is a desktop version of the Action Filter with some extra features. It’s designed for live musicians, DJs and remix producers, but is also suitable for studio use.

The Cross Filter can either work as notch- or bandpass-filter (24dB per octave). Each flank has its own controller for cut-off frequency and resonance, so you can easily vary the bandpass or notch range.
There’s an additional cutoff-controller that influences both flanks at the same time for sweeping the band through the whole frequency spectrum.

The Cross Filter is equipped with two trigger buttons and a fader for getting rhythmical effects. The buttons trigger the bypass function whereas the fader smoothly fades it in and out the effect. Inputs and outputs are available as RCA and 1/4-inch jacks.

The Vermona Cross Filter retails for $535.

More details are available at the Vermona site.

Electro-Harmonix Effectology , Vol.6 The Mellotron

The Electro-Harmonix Effectology is pretty insane – every episode they use their pedals to make a guitar sound like an awesome synth keyboard……which kind of makes you think……..

Meanwhile, keyboardists are strapping on keytars and using sampled guitar sounds….

Impressive work, though!

via Effectology:

Welcome to Electro-Harmonix’s “Effectology” series, in which we create a remarkable collection of sounds using just a regular guitar and EHX effect pedals!
No keyboards,samplers or midi pickups were used.

In today’s episode studio musician Bill Ruppert creates sounds of the vintage Mellotron MKII keyboard

EHX Pedals featured:Soul Preacher,POG2, Poly Chorus and the Stereo Memory Man,

This official Moog video takes a look at the Moog MF-105M MIDI MuRF in action.

I’m sold – what do you think of this bad boy?

via MoogMusicInc:

A closer look at the MIDI MuRF- 8 Analog Filters- MuRF and Bass MuRF Filter Bands- MIDI Clock Sync- Tap Tempo- MIDI CC Control- Pattern Editor

Jack Conte put together this very nice demo video for the Electro-Harmonix Riddle, an effects pedal that brings synth-sculpting filtering goodness to the guitar.

Riddle Features:

• 80 Hz to 5 kHz frequency response tailored for guitar
• Optional expression pedal control
• Switch selectable analog distortion designed for guitar
• Start and Stop sweep control
• Low Pass, Band Pass, High Pass filter select
• Start and Stop for filter sweep and Q control
• Separate Dry and Effect outputs
• 9.6VDC 200mA power supply included

via EHX:

The Electro-Harmonix Riddle is a powerful and precise envelope filter fine-tuned for guitar frequency response.

Sculpt your envelope to reveal a truly expressive tone, with a defined and unique signature. Riddle will deliver tight and smooth control over the complete 80 Hz to 5 kHz range, with a consistent and even sweetness

.Need some edge? Engage Riddle’s analog distortion and dial in anything from subtle bite to dominating crush.

This is a demo video for the Roland RE-5 Digital Space Echo.

via abertronic

While most musicians are happy using spring reverbs as an effect, electronic musicians have been using them as instruments for decades.

The Ekdahl Moisturizer is a $300 spring reverb with the springs exposed so they can be played, bowed or whacked on:

As well as being capable of creating sound in itself, you can play sound through the springs like a regular spring reverb – this makes for happy-fun-time finger-modulation of the reverb on whatever audio that’s going through it. On top of this there’s an analog multimode filter that can be used to attenuate or exaggerate certain frequencies in the sound, this is real handy while playing the springs as you can – for instance – cut all the highs and just make thunderous doomy sounds or do the opposite; cut all the lows and make that ear piercing high frequency special love. Also, it incorporates an LFO that’s internally routable to the filter and that also has some external routing-stuff

The Ekdahl Moisturizer has tons of CV / Expression pedal options on the back for even more hillarious moments.

The Moisturizer is a mono unit.

The Ekdahl Moisturizer  contains:

• Preamp (up to 100 times gain)
• Reverb
• Reverb / Preamp wet/dry crossfader (Knob & CV/EP controllable)
• State variable filter with
  • Lowpass/Bandpass/Highpass seamless crossover (Knob, CV/EP & LFO controllable)
  • Cutoff (Knob, CV/EP & LFO controllable)
  • Resonance (WITHOUT resonance limiter)
• LFO with
  • Speed control (Knob & CV/EP controllable)
  • Square / Triangle crossover
  • External output with output amplitude knob
• Filter / No filter wet/dry crossfader (Knob & CV/EP controllable)

Details here.

This is a demo of a Hawk Spring Reverb using Roland JP8000.

via abertronic

Image: Chris_Carter_

Saturday Synth Porn: The ‘official’ Throbbing Gristle Gristleizer launch ceremony photo.

Smashing Guitars has announced the release of the first of their new product line, the Gristleizer.

The Gristleizer is an extremely rare and unique unit. Originally designed by Roy Gwinn in 1976, the Gristleizer is based on a design published in Practical Electronics and sold in kit form by Phonosonics. Chris Carter of the British industrial music and visual arts group Throbbing Gristle modified the kit in 1977, unleashing what is known as the Gristleizer.

Lost to time, the unit has been re-designed and produced by Smashing Guitars Owner/Engineer Todd Kelley, with assistance from Charlie Howes. After months of research and consultation with Gwinn and Carter, the audio path has been kept original– “we’ve taken what people love about the sounds of the original Gristleizer, and given them much more” says Kelley.

The Gristleizer had its initial release at the sold out Throbbing Gristle performance at Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago on April 25, 2009, one of their first performances in the USA in 28 years.

Features of the Gristleizer include: table top design; 18VAC power supply with dual 9-volt battery operation option; professionally etched PCB board; LFO controlled VCA and VCF filters with four wave forms; chassis mounted bias control; bypass switch; and LED for speed. Pads have been left on the PCB board for mods, with on-line releases of these mods to be made available by Endangered Audio.

The Gristleizer will be available from www.smashingguitarsasheville.com, and from the retail store of Smashing Guitars located at 103 Broadway St. in downtown Asheville, NC. The unit will be made available in small batches and will be announced from both the website and www.myspace.com/thegristleizer. The table top version retails for $374.95, PCB circuit board available for $49.95, with a stomp version available soon.

Winsome uber-geek Jeri Ellsworth, aka Circuit Girl, describes how she attached a floppy drive to a tape deck to record and play back audio, creating the floppy drive reverb effect.

Note: We’ve got to interrupt this post to note that Ellsworth reverse-engineered the C-64 onto a chip, and  owns 43 pinball machines and 3 electron microscopes. She never graduated high school, but now gives guest lectures at Stanford.

She also rolls cars for fun, when she’s not turning old floppy drives into audio effects.

Back to the floppy drive reverb effect:

A simple circuit stepped the head automatically using the spindle index pulse. A push button was used to control the direction. The drive head wrote to more than one track at a time, causing an interesting reverb effect. ***Erasing the disk with rare earth magnets while spinning in the not mentioned in the video.

Leave a comment with your thoughts on Circuit Girl and the floppy drive reverb!

Description:

16 dynamic tracks utilize the Jomox T-resonator. With the ability to bend spacetime itself, the time woven filtermatrix easily generates cerebral feedback solos and dischordant ambient wank.

It may be dischordant ambient wank – but the tracks showcase the wide range of effects possible with the T-Resonator.

Download here.

The T-Resonator is a synth module that transforms timely events into an analog feedbacked filter network. You can select 8 different delay algorithms, each with different delays and different feedbacks and modulate them even with an LFO. Delays reach from less than a millisecond to 1 second, range and structure is depending on the algorithm.

The Roland RE-101 Space Echo is an classic vintage audio analog delay effects unit (1974).

A tape echo device records incoming audio to a loop of magnetic tape, then replays the audio over a series of several playback heads before it is erased again by new incoming audio. Roland’s Space Echos are coveted to this day because of their slightly unpredictable but attractive sound.

If you’ve used the Roland RE-101 Space Echo, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Resources:

• Service manual for the Roland RE 101 Space echo
• Boss has released a digital recreation of the Space Echo
• Creation Tapes sells tape echo loops and parts
• Demo video via abertronic

This is a demo video for the Sherman Rodec Restyler R8.

The Restyler is hardware effect designed for DJ-style processing of instruments or entire tracks.

There are a lot more Restyler demos here.

This is a vintage audio demo of the Sennheiser Vocoder VSM201.

The Sennheiser Vocoder was famously used by Herbie Hancock.

via AlkisGear:

Original Sennheiser Recording of the 1978 VSM201 Vocoder

Musikmesse 2009: This is a quick video demo, in Bourne-o-vision, of the Rodec Sherman Restyler.

The Rodec Sherman Restyler combines mixer and filter technology into one box.

via gearjunkies:

Rodec and Shermann collaboration. Mixer and Filter technology in one. The Rodec Sherman Restyler.

Musikmesse: TC-Helicon today announced VoiceTone Synth, described as radical vocal processing in a pedal.

VoiceTone Synth brings together a collection of extreme exotic and contemporary sonic effects, including jagged HardTune effects (Auto-Tune), classic Vocoder effects, a voice-controlled synthesizer and vocal distortion and megaphone effects.

VoiceTone Synth Features:

• HardTune effect with user-selectable key or instrument-sensing
• Vocoder carrier can be driven by internal voice-controlled synth or instrument input (such as guitar)
• Transducer effects, such as megaphones, distortion and radio voices
• All effects can run simultaneously
• Includes Tone feature for adaptive live engineer sound processing
• Presets that can be edited and stored
• Instrument Thru allows normal instrument amplification and vocoding

Details below.

If you’ve used the TC-Helicon VoiceTone Synth, leave a comment with your thoughts!

HardTune

The jagged, stair-stepped vocal sound of key-based hard tuning is everywhere in contemporary R&B, Hip Hop and Electronica. This feature has eluded the majority of performing musicians until VoiceTone Synth came along. Now musicians can produce this effect live by simply recalling a preset and hitting the ‘On’ button. Easy key input methods include auto-instrument sensing or pushbuttons with a clear display of the current key. Other features of the HardTune effect include dry voice mixing, octave shift and character modification.

Vocoder

The vocoder in VoiceTone Synth is called ‘Massive-Band’ for a reason. It effectively scales resolution from ultra-clearly-enunciated Robot voices to the sound of the classic, analog low-band-count vocoders we all know and love. The benefit is that, while typical vocoders require a lot of pre-processing like distortion and EQ to hear the effect properly, with the VoiceTone Synth vocoder effect you can input signals such as clean acoustic guitar and vocode perfectly for sounds that until now have been impossible to achieve.

Voice-controlled Synth

The Vocoder also features a voice-controlled synth mode – considered by many as the Holy Grail for vocoding. Prior to VoiceTone Synth, vocoding required your voice (the exciter), and an instrument input (the carrier) to make cool vocoded sounds. Of course VoiceTone Synth supports the dual input method, but for artists who don’t have another instrument or don’t play one, VoiceTone Synth can generate a synth part directly from your vocal and vocode that. The result? Generated vocoder parts with one input: your voice.

Nice documentaty on stompboxes – Fuzz: The Sound That Changed The World.

More below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

via crazy-fuzz

Image: Chris_Carter_

Throbbing Gristle’s Chris Carter reports that “Our only (and as far as we know the last) surviving original Gristleizer died today, it was Cosey’s own model from 1977.”

“We were about to start running some LFO test on it for Charles Howes, who is designing and making the new Gristleizer reproductions, when it spluttered and stopped working. No amount of coaxing, fiddling, tweaking, encouragement and new batteries would revive it. Pretty good going for a 32 year old hand-made unit but a sad day nevertheless.”

If you’ve got ideas on how to resuscitate the Gristleizer, leave a comment on Chris Carter’s photo at Flickr.

About The Gristleizer:

Carter’s original Gristleizer units were based around the Roy Gwinn ‘GEP’ design published in Practical Electronic and sold in kit form (just the PCB & components) by Phonosonics in the UK in 1977. This LINK takes you to the current location of the schematic (look under Effects\PE Stuff\Guitar Effect). Carter added some mods and designed a new case and made units for himself, the band (TG) and friends.

via the Synthtopia Flickr Pool