Doepfer Locks

Doepfer Locks from Jyoti Mishra on Vimeo.

I got the power adaptor for my Encore Expressionist MIIDI -> CV converter today so the first thing I did was hook it up between my Monomachine and my Doepfer.

Then, I assigned two of the MM's CCs to CV outs from the Expresssionist, patched them into the cutoff frequency and resonance amount and that's the above vid!

Sorry for the shaky camera work and, for some reason, the sync is a bit off.

I love the Expressionist - the CVs it provides are smooth with no zippering whatsoever and it's very simple to program. It's lovely being able to bring the power of the Monomachine's parameter locks into the analogue modular domain.

I've assigned the two MM CCs to cutoff and resonance amount but there's no reason, of course, that they can't be plugged into any CV-able destination on the modular.

Imagine the mayhem! :-D

Doepfer A-107 Filter Demos

Doepfer A-107 Filter Demo1 from Jyoti Mishra on Vimeo.

I've made a couple of video demos of the Doepfer A-107 Multitype Morphing Filter. A lot of people seem curious about how it sounds and there aren't many samples around so I thought I'd help out! :-)

Above, the filter is being stepped through its types as a bassline loops. The resonance level is being swept by an LFO at the same time so you can hear how/if each filter type self-oscillates.


Doepfer A-107 Filter Demo2 from Jyoti Mishra on Vimeo.

In this slightly more musical example, I'm tweaking everything by hand, showing some of the lovely sounds you can get out of the A-107. It really is a killer filter that I've only touched the surface power of so far. I didn't go through each filter as the loop was driving me a bit barmy! :-)

By the way, both times the A-100 is playing a sequence from my Monomachine and in the second vid, that's providing the drums too.

Doepfer Bass Mutations

Doepfer Bass Mutations from Jyoti Mishra on Vimeo.

More mucking around with my new baby. It all starts off pretty normally and then goes silly.

This modular is amazingly good fun. If you're a synthesist who's considered going modular, all I can say is DO IT!

Doepfer Drums

Doepfer Drums from Jyoti Mishra on Vimeo.

This is a patch I created using my new Doepfer modular synthesizer.

Basically, the LFO (A143-3) I'm tweaking goes into the clock divider (A160) and clock sequencer(A161), giving me the gates to trig the quad ADSR (A143-2). I'm using three filters, one set to resonate (making the tinkly sound) and another resonating swept very low for the kick. The source is white noise.

Hope you like it!

(By the way, although the Doepfer is going through a Nanoverb, it's bypassed. The reverb you hear is the A199 Doepfer Spring Reverb.)

Doepfer Modular

This morning I got my Doepfer modular synth. This is the spec I ordered:

2 DOEPFER A-100 LOW COST CASE
1 DOEPFER A-107 MULTITYPE MORPHING FILTER
2 DOEPFER A-110 STANDARD VCO
1 DOEPFER A-114 DUAL RING MODULATOR
1 DOEPFER A-115 AUDIO DIVIDER
1 DOEPFER A-116 WAVEFORM PROCESSOR
1 DOEPFER A-118 NOISE/RANDOM
1 DOEPFER A-120 24DB VCF (MOOG)
1 DOEPFER A-130 VCA (LINEAR)
1 DOEPFER A-131 VCA (LOGARITHMIC)
1 DOEPFER A-132 DUAL VCA
1 DOEPFER A-134 VC PAN
1 DOEPFER A-135 VC MIXER
1 DOEPFER A-143-2 QUAD ADSR
1 DOEPFER A-143-3 QUAD LFO
1 DOEPFER A-148 DUAL S&H
1 DOEPFER A-150 DUAL VC SWITCH
1 DOEPFER A-160 CLOCK DIVIDER
1 DOEPFER A-161 CLOCK SEQUENCER
1 DOEPFER A-162 DUAL TRIGGER DELAY
1 DOEPFER A-170 DUAL SLEW LIMITER
2 DOEPFER A-180 MULTIPLES
1 DOEPFER A-181 MULTIPLES 2
1 DOEPFER A-185 BUSS ACCESS MODULE
1 DOEPFER A-199 SPRING REVERB

As you can see, Andy EMIS stuck the modules in for me as I'm a modular newbie and he packed it all up beautifully:



I've got loads of room for expansion so I'll be looking for other stuff to stick in there. Maybe some Cwejman alongside the Doepfer? Any other suggestions?

And that's enough typing as I'm off to play with it now! :-D

Click here for modular synthpr0n! :-P

Birthday Blofeld!

It was my birthday yesterday! My mrs. baked me this lovely cake:



And she also bought me this fantastic little synth:



Click the pic to have a look at a lascivious unboxing of the wee beastie! :-)

Sadly, my new baby is a bit poorly, generating grotty chirruping sounds, background distortion and spontaneous glitchtronic odysseys. So, I'm waiting to for it to be exchanged. Even so, with the burps, it's a great synth and I can't wait for a working machine! :-D

Mattel Synsonic Drum Machine / Pads

When I first got the Mattel Synsonic, I went mental.

Finally, I could act-out all my Kraftwerk fantasies and pretend I was Wolfgang or Karl, tippy-tapping away on my ubercool drum synth pads.

There was a kick, snare and two tom pads. They weren't up to Simmons drum standards but for what was essentially a novelty toy, they were pretty damn good. I used to whack the crap out of mine, so much so that the little piezoelectric transducers under the rubbery pads would occasionally fall off.

What's more, these weren't just whackalong pads - the Synsonic was also a drum machine. Yeah, programming was a bit hit and miss, there was no quantising of events unless you used the repeat buttons but it was awesome.

In some ways, it was more advanced than the beatboxes of today. My fave feature was the choke button that turned the open hi-hat sound into a closed. It wasn't a simple switch, like you would have on a sample-based machine, this was a gradual closing. Sounded lovely!



Eventually, I even modded my baby as you can see above, adding trigger ins and outs. This meant I could play my JX-3P and Rogue from the pads. Or play the pad sounds from my synths!

Can you imagine how many hours I spent, triggering great bursts of white and pink noise?

Ahhh... now that's what I call fun! :-)

Alesis A6 Andromeda Sounds

I only bought my Andromeda recently but I love it!

It's certainly one of the most powerful polysynths I've ever played or programmed. The sound is immense, I really haven't got to grips with all the modulation possibilities.

I've started to create my own patches so I thought it might be fun to post a few of them up on here, with little audio demos. Here we go:

Mod Cheez
This is a slightly cheesy sound, a bit organy which breaks up in a rather nice way when you tweak the mod wheel. I was going to assign the breakup to the ribbon but I kept that for the filter and used the mod wheel as it felt more natural and immediate.

MP3 here and the patch here.

Bassik
Just a bread'n'butter big bass sound. Little bit of release to give it a bit of, um, follow through but quite good for staccato lines. There's a touch of portamento to give the sound some movement and it could also be a lead bippy noise, as you hear near the end of the mp3.

MP3 here and the patch here.

Syndrum
I was trying to get a moany, groany synthtom sound here, halfway between the tom on Depeche Mode's 'Leave In Silence' and the Dr. Who scream. Note the lovely, deep bass frequencies as the sound grinds down the octaves.

MP3 here and the patch here.

My playing is a wee bit dodgy but hopefully you'll hear some of the loveliness the Andromeda is capable of. :-D

Alesis A6 Andromeda Synthporn

I love my new Andromeda! :-D

Click the pic for full-on synthporn...

Studio Pictures

Click above to see some shots of assorted synths and other gear in my studio.