Wednesday 26 October 2016

Automatron


Here is a completely automated patch on 2 Buchla systems - a 200 series Easel (clone) and an original 100 series modular. The famous Low Pass Gates weren't introduced until the 200 series in the early 1970s, and there are two of them in the Easel. They are doing the percussive noises here. The rest is sustained tones from the 100 but it is all connected together using one randomised clock and the 8 step sequencer from the 100 and the 5 step sequencer from the 200. I added a very long delay from the Bel AD80 (around 3 seconds) and some EMT Plate reverb for good measure

Tuesday 25 October 2016

Barbican Birthday Bashes


We had a marvellous time on Saturday playing at the Barbican in London as part of the Rough Trade 40th Birthday bash. It was a year ago that I played on that great stage for the Brian Eno Discrete Music Birthday bash! See this post

However, this time we (Wrangler) teamed up with John Grant and performed a brand new set of music for our headline show - which was pretty scary for us but A LOT OF FUN. Thanks to John, Ben Eyes, Dancon, Gary and the whole team it was an epic adventure!


Photo: Antonio Pagano

Thursday 13 October 2016

Music School


This is how we did it back in the day...

Wednesday 12 October 2016

Good Company


Speaking of John Foxx, here is a list of his favourite ambient albums - and it features ME! Thanks John!!


Click below for the full text

Oscar Men


Ooh look here are some vintage Oscar owners. Via Chris Paynter

Friday 7 October 2016

More Oscars


More Oscar sounds - and this time more trippy! I figured out how to use the internal sequencer (not easy, but fun once you get used to it) and how to lock it to a clock from my computer. All sounds from the Oscar, a bit of delay from the Bel BD80

Tuesday 4 October 2016

Oscars


An exploration into additive synthesis on the 1983 OSC Oscar duophonic synth. I created a few simple harmonics and played two layers in duo mode, so there are 4 voices with each pair going through a digital delay line (BEL BD80). I then added a long reverb using the Lexicon 224

The video is made by me filming the sound going through an oscilloscope then messing it up with a vintage video mixer



Here is lovely little Oscar:

Saturday 1 October 2016

Octaveizer


This is a demonstration of the Emu Modular doing something unique. It has a module called the Triple Latch which if patched in a certain way will divide down the pitch of an audio input by one octave. As there are 3 latches available it can create 3 downward octaves. So I patched an oscillator into latch one, then into 2 and 3, and the original signal and the divided ones into an Emu mixer to get 4 octaves from one VCO. Pretty cool! I used the ARP2500 sequencer to send the Emu a pattern, and used the Emu Voltage Controlled Transient Generator to vary the envelopes (using other outputs from the ARP Sequencer as CV sources, which locks it into rhythm). There is also an LFO'd notch filter and a very early Ibanez digital delay mixed in



Here is a description of how the Triple Latch works: