The Prophet VS is a synthesizer released in 1986 by Dave Smith’s Sequential Circuits. The Prophet VS introduced Vector Synthesis - two dimensional crossfading between waveforms.

Sequential folded shortly after the VS was introduced, but many of the ideas from the VS lived on in the Korg Wavestation. 

The video above, via Retrosound, demos some typical VS sounds. 

Features:

• 8-voice polyphony
• Multi-timbral (2 part)
• 96 preset waveforms + 32 user waveforms
• Two LFOs, each with own envelope generator
• Curtis analog (digitally controlled) 4-pole lowpass filter, with dedicated envelope generators
• 5 stage amp, filter and mix envelopes
• 61 note keyboarded with velocity & aftertouch
• 100 patch memory
• Twin chorus, stereo effects, panning of individual oscillators/individual voices
• Arpeggiator

Resources:

• Unofficial Prophet VS page
• VS info at Wine Country
• Info at Vintage Synth Explorer
• Prophet VS clone project
• Prophet VS Yahoo Group

The latest episode of the Mondo Modular series.

The Yamaha CS-05 is a single oscillator monophonic synthesizer, released in 1979, that has been described as “an unremarkable synth”:

It was a one oscillator job with a single ADSR envelope that controlled both the filter and the final amplifier. A simple LFO was provided for modulation and it also had a noise generator for sound effects.

Its saving grace was the multi-mode filter that offered low, band and high pass options which was unusual on a budget synth of the time.

Features:

• 1 VCO with pulse or sawtooth waveforms and noise-gen
• LFO with sine, sawtooth, sample and hold
• 12dB/oct High pass or Low pass; 6dB/oct band-pass

Resources:

• Yamaha CS-05 user manual
• Yamaha CS-05 at Fantasy Jack Palance
• Vintage Synth entry

This is a video sneak preview of version 3 of Gleetchlab.

Sound is live output from the footage.  Samples used are 3 acoustic pianos loop passed trough gleetchlab 3 processors. No post editing.

Sonicstate.com takes a look at the nanoKey mini USB keyboard from Korg. 

I wasn’t interested in the nanoKey at all, but after seeing this demo, I could see how this could be great for working while travelling.

This video demonstrates using TouchOSC, OSCulator, Ableton Live and AudioDamage’s BigSeq plugin. TouchOSC is an interactive control surface that outputs OSC messages, which can then be converted to MIDI notes and CC data by OSCulator and other programs.

Very cool demo and the video is very effective at combining the different sources to make clear what’s going on. 

Are you doing music using an iPhone/iPod touch?

Resources:

• TouchOSC
• OSCulator (for converting OSC to MIDI)
• Ableton Live
• AudioDamage BigSeq

chromedecay via CDM

This video demos using Percussa AudioCubes with FL Studio.

Read more…

5Volt has published a design for a simple light to sound converter:

The circuit is very simple and is based and pretty well known building blocks. The whole device can be built on a small piece of perfboard and the output can feed a pair of head phones or a small speaker.

PC speakers could replace the amplifier stage but at the cost of portability. The circuit would easily fit into an Altoids tin box.

The use is immediate, just put the battery on and play with the gain and volume while pointing not directly to a light bulb : you should hear a strong buzzing noise (the 50/60 Hz mains), then try any TV (CRT or LCD), any remote control or flame.

Looks like a fun project. Details at the site. Read more…

Sid Player is a new iPhone app (App Store link) that puts the sound of the Commodore C64 on your iPhone and iPod Touch.

Description:

Enjoy game classics such as ‘Commando’, ‘Arkanoid’, ‘The last V8′ or listen to the music of ‘Rob Hubbard’, ‘Martin Galway’, and many others.

Sid Player gives you access to the High Voltage Sid Collection (HVSC) consisting of over 33.000 songs from 1125 authors. Thanks to the unique sound aesthetics, Sid music is now considered an art of its own and there’s a constant flow of new creations.

A Sid file occupies only few kbytes, thus you can quickly download C64 music via EDGE or UMTS and listen for hours. The search function enables you to find your favourites in a blink.

Stargazer is a cooperation PC demo between Orb & Andromeda, released at NVScene 2008 in California and that ranked #1 at the demo competition. Requires a GeForce 8800 or equivalent.

Is this the best Demo ever? Let me know what you think!

via Jeremy Rice