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.

Why I Love My Stylophone

Guess what I bought today:



Yep! A STYLOPHONE!

It may not mean much to you but it's a slice of my childhood. I wanted one for ages and, after much pestering, I got one when I was nine or maybe ten. I played and played that little box. I composed maudlin elegies and triumphal marches which, had they been preserved by sympathetic white-coated EMI engineers, would have made humanity weep, laugh and gnash its collective choppers in a wild-eyed funk. Alas, nothing remains of this output... only my memories...

Yes, I loved my Stylophone.

Unfortunately, I broke it.

This was in the phase of my life where I was taking everything apart but hadn't quite figured out how to put it back together again. A year later, I took apart a transistor radio and actually managed to re-assemble it, none the worse apart from some suspicious scratches around the casing. Had I opened up my Stylophone at 11 or 12, it would have been fine. But I was a little too early and, yes, it was fucked.

Ever since then, a corner of my soul has missed my hornet-toned first electronic instrument. Imagine both how happy and sad I was to hear Stylophone all over Kraftwerk's 1981 Computer World album. If I hadn't broken mine, I could have played along! Waah!

The decades passed by... synths came and went. Always, part of me pined for a Stylophone. But I never bought one on Ebay or elsewhere because... well, I don't know why, really. That seemed a bit too cold. Stylophones are warm, idiosyncratic beasts, their personalities as individual and unpredictable as the drift of their tuning. I didn't want to just go and get one off Ebay.

I wanted one to find me.

Today, browsing round the current hobby-horse of apathetic, apolitical whingers, I went into a shop.

And there was a Stylophone.



Brand new.

In a box.

For fifteen quid.



How could I resist? There was a rainbow, rooted right in that shop. And at the end of the arch was my little electronic friend.

He's been updated a bit - there's now a swanky socket named 'MP3,' to which one attaches ones iPod. The sound of doing that is, of course, gratifyingly terrible. (But it's still better than all you pesky kids playing music on your goddamn phone speakers. Where's the bass? GET A GHETTOBLASTER! Suckas!)

I've been playing it all evening. It's as magical as I remembered. The stuttering contacts, the glisses from white to black note (damn hard to perform on a normal keyboard), the honking, farty, wobbly loveliness of it all. It's one of the best instruments I have ever played, it's so expressive and very human.

I've recorded a little demo tune for you, so you may revel at its stentorian wonder. Here's the Stylophone, all by itself:

Stylo 1

And here it is in a slightly more musical context:

Stylo 2

If you already own the best album ever made, the tune should be recognisable. If you don't, check the ID3 tags.

I'm now tempted to do a whole tour only using my Stylophone. And maybe that mousemat that plays horrendously distorted drums. Watch out, Scandinavia!

I think I'm in love!

(Click here for a gallery of Stylopics!)

RIP Daniel Hansson

I just found out about Daniel's death.

I never met Daniel but we exchanged emails about MIDI, quantisation, timing - the usual geeky stuff that electronic music types love to talk about. He was always unfailingly polite, helpful and friendly. He even offered to give me a tour of the Elektron facility the next time I was playing in Gothenburg. I wish I'd taken him up on that last year.

Daniel Hansson is an example of how one person can reach out and positively affect myriad others' lives. If Elektron hadn't invented the Monomachine, I would never have come to this realisation. I might be still stuck in a musical rut, wondering why nothing felt as good as it used to and wasting money on plugin after plugin, vainly attempting to re-capture a lost feel.

And, of course, I'm not the only musician who loves the gear he helped create - I'm part of a legion of Elektron fanatics. Each of us has been touched and blessed by Daniel's creativity.

You'll be sorely missed, Daniel.

Machinedrum Macros

Say hello to my leetle friend....

(Click da pic!)