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.

You know what else raises the hackles around here?

Sample libraries with porn movie names.

You know you’ve seen them.

Ghetto Grooves, for example, is a pretty descriptive title. You can figure you’re going to get some solid hip hop and r ‘n’ b loops, with a title like that.

By the time you get to Ghetto Grooves 3, though, you’re moving into porn movie title territory. You gotta figure that the sound developer has put things on autopilot.

Ghetto Grooves 3 sounds like something that you’re going to find in the back room at Guitar Center….through the 18 and over door.

Here are a few more titles for you to consider:

• Heat Seekers 2
• Nu Jointz II
• Big Booty Remix 2
• Ethno World 4
• V-Spot
• Bollywood Bangers
• Black Butta 2
• Backside Bounce 2
• Urban Jointz
• Funky House Grooves 2

Sample libraries or porn movies?

You make the call!

Laurent Garnier’s Pay TV

If you thought that simulated sex sounds went out of style in dance music back in 1975, think again.

It’s still October – but it’s not too early to declare the worst trend of 2009: sexy 3D renderings in ads for virtual instruments.

Here are a few of the most annoyingly sexy 3d renderings for virtual instruments that we’ve seen in the last year.

HG Sounds’ Black Magic Loop Generator, above, looks awesomely hands-on.

Look at all those knobs! And the matte black finish – well you know my position on that.

Too bad it’s an “artists” 3D rendering.

And how about this awesomely cool-looking D16 Nithonat vintage-style drum machine:

Give me that thing! Put it in my hands! Take my hard-earned cash!

It’s not really a gorgeous retro-styled drum machine, though – it’s a 3D rendering of a non-existent piece of hardware based on the design of the virtual instrument Nithonat.

Here’s the new Audio Damage BigSeq2 effect and gate sequencer:

It looks cool enough to make you a little disappointed when you see that it’s “available for vst and au”.

What’s with the giant, poorly lit knob, then?

Finally, MOTU really confused people this year with their ads for BPM, their cool new MPC-style drum instrument.

BPM looks like a totally badass piece of hardware – even cooler than the BoomChik.

It’s got:

• 16 MPC-style pads
• knobs galore
• a very nicely placed pair of headphone jacks and
• a generous screen….

Unfortunately – MOTU brought sexy back with the BPM, but it was just virtual sexy.

These companies are by no means the only culprits, and their apps ARE actually pretty drool-worthy.

Next year, though, how about some ads that get us excited about working with software?

They include these recommendations for Electronic Music For Sex:

Electronica
If you like to chill out and go through various speeds and tempos while doing the deed, then this music will serve to give you and your girl exactly what you’re looking for. This music, along with a good bottle of wine, can turn your session into something hypnotic.

Suggestions:
Cafe Del Mar Volumen Once
Paris Under A Groove – Stylistique Vol. 1

Dance
Considering you’re doing your own horizontal dance, listening to some soft, original dance music will serve to make her sway her hips more so on your penis. Personally, I think this is the best kind of music to have sex to.

Suggestions:
Beautiful Tomorrow – Blue Six
Nude Tempo 1 – Muguel Migs
Penetrate Deeper (Reis) – Deep Dish
Addictive Beats – Saeed & Palash

Never mind the horrifically bad commentary – Sex advice FAIL!

Perhaps Donna Summer & Giorgio Moroder’s I Feel Love?  Klaus Schulze’s Body Love soundtrack? Art Of Noise’s Moments In Love?

I don’t claim any special expertise in this area – but I expect that Synthtopia readers can do a lot better than AskMen’s cheesy advice.

Got a recommendation? Leave a comment below!

NSFW?

La Film Fabrique
Playboy’s Bend
Mefamo et le collectif Physalis

présentent
Production/ Jonas Luyckx
Réalisation et cadre/ Jonas Luyckx
Avec/ Caroline Dehareng
Amandine Bevalot
Marie Airo
Alice Piette
Emilie Hermans
pour le collectif Physalis
Estelle Bibbo
Ornella Vernica
Melody Willams

Montage/ John Pirard
DOP/ Shaban Krasniqi

Avec le soutien de Oxfam solidarité et de Jules Gazon

Guru Josh Project’s Infinity 2008 has received something like 64 billions views on YouTube – which I guess just goes to show you how much people have been waiting to hear some trance sax.

DJ/Producer Gaudi scratches the theremin at Techno-Tribal, “the North Bay’s largest and most epic dance party of the year.”

It looks like Gaudi dispenses with the tradition of theremin playing and takes it in a new direction.

A very cool performance from a party that does truly look epic.

Sorry synth fans, but this Saturday Synth Porn entry is a little less synthy than usual and a little more porn-y.

The image above is from a performance of Technosexual, from Micha Cardenas and Elle Mehrmand’s Mixed Relations.

Mixed Relations consists of a series of performances and workshops that explore the relations between bodies and technology within mixed realities.

If you can handle avant garde lesbian erotic multi-reality performance art, with motion sensors & a Nintendo Wii, see the details below.

Otherwise, here are the kitties and synthesizers.

The project involves two people performing in actual and virtual space. Live audio synthesis is achieved using Puredata to respond to body movements. These movements are detected through various technologies including marker based motion capture, flex sensors, pressure sensors, light sensors, accelerometers and the Nintendo Wii.

The performers’ movements are mirrored into Second Life, which is projected into the physical performance space. Live realtime video is also streamed into the virtual performance space, from cameras that are attached to the performers’ bodies. Scaled projections, scale models in virtual space and the projection of virtual instruments onto actual objects are used to create a mixing of the actual and virtual, blurring the lines between the two.

Technesexual consists of the performers engaging in playful erotic acts in physical and virtual space, while using handmade electronic stethoscopes to play the sound of their heartbeats in both spaces, blurring the lines between the two. The stethoscopes consisted of analog stethoscopes connected to piezo sensors wired to 1/8″ audio jacks.

The perfomance captured above was part of the Trasnocheo performance space curated by Susana Cook as part of the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics 7th Encuentro at Mapa Teatro in Bogota, Colombia.

Kosma’s compositions frequently use radical or bizarre methods of working with music and its relationship to the human body and ask alternately for specific forms of human interaction or endurance.

If this sounds inappropriate for you, you may want to check out the kitty synth video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kosma’s Blow Job explores microphone feedback, controlled by a performer simulation oral sex. This is apparently the two girls, one mic version of the piece.

The in-your-face sexuality of Blow Job provokes reactions, with many people questioning whether it’s music at all, or just sensational performance art or soft-core pornography.

What do you think? Does Kosma’s piece have any merit beyond titillation?

This is the video for Peaches‘ latest track, Take You On.

It starts out relatively tastefully, at least for Peaches, but moves on to feature a bearded, cross-dressing Peaches engaging in an onanistic pantomime, on top of what looks to be an EMS Synthi.

It’s notable just for that – but watch for all sorts of classic synth gear flashing by in the background, too.

via XLRecordings

Remember Calvin Harris’s Humanthesizer video?

It’s predictably going viral, moving towards 100,000 views since it was released yesterday.

And, just as predictably, Harris is getting criticized for being sexist for his use of bikini-clad models.

Computer Music magazine goes further, though, calling Harris a “synth pervert”:

We’re all for experimentation here at CM, but we can’t help feel that synth geek Calvin Harris had something more that technological innovation on his mind when he performed this suspiciously tight-sounding version of his latest single using what can most accurately be described as a workstation keyboard made out of young model types.

We’ve criticized companies in the past for advertisements that are blatantly sexist. For example, when Image Line introduced Deckadance with a shot of a woman’s butt in a thong, we asked if it was the most offensive gear ad ever.

Calling Harris a “synth pervert”, though, is over the top, to the point of being potentially libelous.

I’m not really a fan of Harris’s music, but his video is going to do more to expose Max/MSP, Arduinos, conductive ink & the idea of incorporating the human body into electronic music instruments than anything more “serious” artists have come up with.

What do you think? Does Harris’s video qualify him to be called a “synth pervert”? Or do some electronic music bloggers just need to get out a bit more?

Pixie Lott’s Mama Do – Linus Loves Version is a glossy bit of mainstream sexy electro dance music, but it gets extra credit for turning the Beat It confrontation into a Pussycat Dolls vs rednecks game of patty-cake.

via MamaDoremix:

NSFW: This video, for Make The Girl Dance’s Baby Baby Baby!!, is a video response to Matt & Kim’s wonderful Lessons Learned video – except with 3 charmantes filles (Mathilde, Sarah et Marine), more electro beats and Ohrwurm synth hooks.

Sexy or just sexist? And is this going to lead to naked videos from every city in the world? That can’t end well….

Leave a comment with your thoughts on this electro concoction!

via BadGones3169

Not sure what the story is behind this: ChubaMedia’s The fresh girls who dance in synthesizer music 01.

If you know what’s going on, leave a comment…….

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?

Jeki Zaborov in Zimmer Tel Aviv peforms Blow Job V, by Wojciech Kosma, a performance art piece that explores microphone feedback, modulated by the proximity of the performer’s mouth.

via thejobblow

Image: Andrea Marutti

Saturday Synth Porn: Ventolin Orchestra Performing Live at il Circolo, Mariano Comense, with an unusually phallic theremin.

If you have any information on this bizarre “adult” theremin, leave a comment!

via the Synthtopia Flickr Pool

The latest performance of Wojciech Kosma’s Blow Job, by Dganit Elyakim in Uganda Jerusalem.

The piece explores microphone feedback, modulated by the proximity of the performer’s mouth.

To some, Kosma’s work is cutting edge audiovisual performance art. For others, it’s wankery for intellectuals.

Leave a comment with your thoughts!

Here are the instruction for performing Kosma’s Blow Job:

A microphone is used to simulate a fellatio. It’s connected to a sound system and adjusted to a level, such that an audio feedback will appear if it’s placed inside a person’s mouth (this can be achieved with no modi?cations to the equipment, but ?ltering out of the high frequencies on the mixer helps to obtain a higher level). The effect should be easy to control for the person – feedback should appear/disappear quickly when putting microphone inside/outside of the mouth. Different levels, ?ltering and position of the speakers and microphone should be tested, also taking in the account the in?uence of audience on the acoustics of the room.

This is the position of the person and the microphone (mounted on a stand). Movements and rhythm should mimic the person’s style of performing the blow job. He/she should use different techniques and positions to bring out different tones and volume. Feedback frequency will change depending on which part of the microphone is covered. Usually this position will produce a higher frequency (the volume can be changed by opening and closing lips) and this position will produce a lower frequency. Any accompanying noises like breathing or the teeth or the tongue sounding on the body of microphone should also be audible. Similarly, the use of hands or any other body part should be used as normally in the fellatio.

The duration is not de?ned. A short condenser shotgun or similar microphone type should be used.

The effect will differ with various sizes of speakers and (but to a lesser degree) of ampli?er and mixer.

About Wojciech Kosma

Wojciech Kosma lives between Berlin and London, working between art and composition. His artworks and performances are often spatial, sonic, obliquely interactive and poetic, creating speculative aesthetic interventions in public and gallery space. He has exhibited, undertaken commissions and residencies and performed widely in a variety of institutions and arts organisations, as well as informal networks of cultural producers. Most recently in MOMA Warsaw and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.