After posting the vintage footage of Kraftwerk performing Das Modell, Keep Werking’s John Shilcock sent me a link to this equally interesting historic performance in Russia of The Robots.

via rmfigue:

Originally Broadcasted by USSR TV at 1980

This video captures Defaudio’s first power on of the rare Soviet Synth Alisa 1387 MIDI version.

via DeftAudio:

Synth track has only long hall and compression. There are no EQs, warmers, impulse modeling and so on.It has been real-time operated with already prepared midi sequence.Made by Deftaudio.ru

The Formanta Polivoks is a duophonic, analog synthesizer that was manufactured and marketed in the Soviet Union between 1982 and 1990.

The Polivoks was engineered by circuit designer Vladimir Kuzmin with the appearance of the instrument influenced by his wife Olimpiada, who took inspiration from the design of Soviet military radios. Its retail price upon release was 920 rubles and over its lifetime around 100,000 Polivoks were manufactured – sometimes with a production rate of up to 1,000 units a month.

According to Kuzmin:

We simply wanted the musicians to have the same colors of sound that all American and japan synths have. But at that time I didn’t know that for example the ordinary sawtooth signal can sound so different on the different analog synths and this depends on electronic circuits and components and their combinations. And of coarse I wanted the VCF to sound so sweety as on Minimoog. It seemed to me that VCF was the most complex module among all others. So I’ve spent hardly a year to develop the schematics of filter that was very different from others.

The Polivoks has some features that are either unusual or uncommon on most analog mono synthesizers including a filter that can be switched from low pass to bandpass and two envelopes that can be looped over the AD sections.

If you’ve used the Polivoks synthesizer, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Resources:

• Wikipedia entry on the Polivoks
• An interview with Vladimir Kuzmin
• Polivoks info at Russkeys

via lesingemonotone:

Trying out a Formanta Polivoks that has been modified with external CV/gate. A x0xb0x is the sequencer used in the clip.

This is some Russian coverage of the ANS Synthesizer – a photoelectronic musical instrument created by Russian engineer Evgeny Murzin from 1937 to 1957.

The basis of his invention was a method of photo-optic sound recording used in cinematography (developed in Russia concurrently with America), which made it possible to obtain a visible image of a sound wave, as well as to realize the opposite goal – synthesizing a sound from an artificially drawn sound wave.

In this case the sine waves generated by the ANS are printed onto five glass discs using a process which Murzin (an optical engineer) had to develop himself. Each disc has 144 individual tracks printed onto it, producing a total of 720 microtones (discrete pitches) available to the user. These are arranged vertically from low frequencies at the bottom to high frequencies at the top. The convolved light is then projected onto the back of the synthesizer’s interface.

This consists of a glass plate covered in opaque black “mastic” which constitutes a drawing surface upon which the user makes marks by scratching through the mastic, and therefore allowing light to pass through at that point. In front of the glass plate sits a vertical bank of photocells which send signals to band-pass amplifiers, each with dB trim switches.

The glass plate can then be scanned left or right in front of the photocell bank in order to transcribe the drawing directly into pitches. In other words, it plays what you draw. This process can be aided with a step geared motor drive (strangely similar to an engineering lathe) or can be performed manually. The speed at which the score scans has no relation to pitch, but serves only as a means of controlling duration. The ANS is completely polyphonic and will generate up to all 720 of its pitches simultaneously if required.

Murzin named his invention in honour of the composer Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (ANS). Scriabin (1872 – 1915) was an occultist, Theosophist and early exponent of colour-sound theories in composition; hence the tribute. The Synthesizer was housed in the electronic music studio situated above the Scriabin Museum (just off of the Arbat in central Moscow) before moving to the basement of the central University on the corner of Bolshaya Nikitskaya. It was saved from the scrapheap thanks to Stanislav Kreichi who persuaded the university to look after it.

The ANS was used by Stanislav Kreichi, Alfred Schnittke, Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina and other Soviet composers. Edward Artemiev wrote many of his scores to the movies of Andrei Tarkovsky with the help of the ANS.

After several years at the Theremin Centre, the ANS (there is only one – the original was destroyed and this is the improved version) is now located in the Glinka Museum in Moscow.

via senezh1:

Light-sound synthesizer ANS is transferred in a museum of Glinka

Synth music pioneer Jean Michel Jarre has been awarded Doctor Honoris Causa by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Jarre was decorated for “his outstanding contribution to the promotion of music as a culture and his commitment to protecting the environment.”

The official ceremony took place in an amphitheater at the Moscow Faculty of Sciences. The Rector bestowed the honor and the uniform upon Jean Michel Jarre before students and members of the Russian press and TV. A short tribute concert was then played by the university orchestra and choir.

The distinction was granted to Jean Michel Jarre during his stay in Russia, where he is to perform two concerts at the Kremlin Palace, and another one in St. Petersburg.

Why is this video so damn awesome?

Is it the hip hop opera of Nicholai Baskov, the Michael Flatley of Russian opera?

Is it the obligatory slow-motion shots?

Is it the brief shots of maggots?

Is it the flying steampunk ship?

Is it the levitating rapster?

Is it the generally lurid S&M vibe?

Is it the supermodel rapping in Russian?

Is it the fact that they’re rapping to Albinoni’s Adagio?

Is it the devil rapper with his blood-robed minions?

Is it the fact that the Russian Fabio of opera gets to rap, too?

Or is it the final shot, where Baskov stops a speeding semi-truck with a single glance?

Why is this video so damn awesome?

Dozens of partygoers at an outdoor rave near Moscow have been partially blinded after a laser light show burned their retinas, say Russian health officials. 12 cases of laser blindness were recorded at the Central Ophthalmological Clinic in the city.

Ravers at the Aquamarine Open Air Festival in Kirzhach, 80 kilometres northeast of Moscow, began seeking medical help days after the show, complaining of eye and vision problems.

“They all have retinal burns, scarring is visible on them. Loss of vision in individual cases is as high as 80%, and regaining it is already impossible,” Kommersant quoted a treating ophthalmologist as saying.

Great light shows are almost a requirement for big electronic music shows. Unfortunately, it sounds like the organizers of this light show were either irresponsible or ignorant of the potential dangers of lasers.

via New Scientist