this is an awesome performance by Dataline on the Elektron Octatrack sampler.
Most of the sound come from the OP-1 synth by Teenage Engineering.

www.dataline.bandcamp.com
www.projectdataline.com

Here is a cool video that shows the awesome capabilities of the Elektron Machinedrum UW used to make idm and glitch style music.
A great part of the job is focused on the control tracks that can play a morph on the instrument traks making the machine change in quite unpredictable way the programmed sounds.
IMHO this is one of the BEST video about the ELEKTRON MACHINEDRUM on the net!

On 21-5-2011 “MEET THE KNOBBERS” has been the first synth meeting in Tuscany, Italy.

The meeting has been conceived as the first of a serie of musical events regarding synths and the application of electronic music in different enviroments, from interactions between art and music to live performances.
The location was the ” SOUNDY Musical Center ” , a recording studio with live hall and various live rooms, settled near Siena, in the beautiful country hills of the Chianti shire.
The meeting was a “One day only” event, with an afternoon in “total addiction” tweaking feast and a night of electronic music live.

The afternoon was spent with two “live rooms” full of machines and “knobbers” who played them but with a lot of curious people too!
Knobbers came from nord and south of Italy, everyone with his “toy”, as special guest Enrico Cosimi , the famous italian synth guru.
One room was dedicated to vintage stuff and DIY Modulars and synths, the other was based on Eurorack modular systems and pedals effects.
The afternoon led to interewsting electronic jam sessions with acoustic and electric instruments too such as guitars and bass.

The after dinner live sets was focused on various type of electronic music played by different artists, ambient electronica with GATTOBUS and his group, glitch/IDM with MICROSWITCH , electro with YES EXPRESS and deep house with ANDREA PEDRA.

MEET THE KNOBBERS are :

Andrea Pedrazzoli (producer, dj, live performer as Andrea Pedra/Whitesushi)

Francesco Poggianti (producer, live performer as Microswitch/Xtal/Notchsider)

a little list of the “knobbers” who made this meeting such a succesful event:

• Maurizio Falconi with his DIY analog modular synth and lots of DIY material
• Ludus Pinski with his awesome  Formant DIY modular
• Niccolò “Cardinen” Caldini with his Cardinen DIY modular synth
• Daniele Borri with his glitch mutant sound generator
• Noctivaga with his eurorack “trolley travel”
• Hatefish with his eurorack modular
• Giacomo Frati  & Paolo Zemauno with their custom pedalboards
• Gianni Proietti with his Minimoog model D

and last but not least Mimmo Nocera for his kindness and friendship, helping us to make this event come true giving the availability of the Soundy.

Really cool drum ‘n’ bass rhythm on the darbuka!

Electro harmonix Electric mistress Deluxe vintage flanger and Sequential circuits Prophet 600.

Electro Harmonix Q-Tron and the Korg R3 in action.
The Q-Tron is the recreation of the Vintage Mu-TRON III , it’s an Envelope Follower with a multimode resonant filter , it’s an auto-wah.
The pedal reacts to the volume of the signal processed and control the sweep of the filter.

Today the interest is focused on ground-breaking  technology or in knob laden keyboards, but what about the sound??

The Roland JD-800 was in the early ’90s the first synth with user interface full of sliders and buttons , in its way it is the predecessor of what came after it until todays…

the heart of the JD is a “sample & synthesis” generator, a 4 layer for patch synth with wave oscilators, multimode filters andextensive modulations and effects.
The JD800 was the D-50 done right!
Compared to the D-50 the jd lost the wave-synthesis (a sort of fm generator that emulates the analog generation of saw and square waves) but gained a lot of features , first of all the beautiful programming interface.
A year later Roland came out with their flagship JD in rack version, the JD-990!

The JD990 is based heavily on the JD-800 but has some intersting adds.
At first we could think that loosing the big programming interface will lead the JD990 to become the classic “sound-module” to be used with presets… but this is wrong!
The JD990 has in its way a wonderful and clear programming interface, a big LCD display that shows every parameter in a graphic way in order to make programming easy.
Together with the good display Roland addeed the ability to load expansion cards from the Roland  JV serie, the SR-JV, that could improve the waveform palette, as type and number of waves but also with full quality.

The structure is the same of the JD-800: every Patch is composed of 4 layer, every layer has 1 wave generator, a multimode filter, 2 LFO, 3 ENV (1 for pitch, 1 for the filter and 1 for the AMP).
Every patch has the ability to configure the 4 layer in different chains/”structures”, in order to create more complex sounds and simple FM synthesis called FXM.
At the and of the patch chain we have a multieffects processor with modulation effects and ambient effects.

Speaking in terms of sounds , the JD-990 can produce a really vast range of sounds, from classic “analog- like” sound to complex evolving textures.
But the most important aspect is the “sound” itself.
The JD-990 is claimed to be the best sounding digital synth Roland produced till today.
It uses really hi-quality DAC , 44.1 KHz audio playback , against the 37KHz of the JV serie.
The really good audio converters and the warm sounding filters made this synth a classic!

With the ability to load SR-JV80 expansions the JD990 can be not just the box with its factory waves but can be expanded with many type of sound expansions from classic or acustic intruments to electronic o etchnic instruments.
As the JD is a master of pads and textured sounds , using the expansions can lead to interesting experimentation as layering strange asian sounds with electronic backgrounds.

The main carachter of the sound engine is however given by the “warm” dac , that tend to sound really “hi-fi” with a great definition on high frequencies and a tight but extended low-end.
Compared to the JV-1080 / 2080 the jd sounds smoother and rounder, while the jv is more edgy on high frequencies and more “loudness” but with less definition.
The result is a warmer and clearer sound.

exile from paradise / undertow by Samadhisound

A beautiful live recording taken from last year’s Punkt festival featuring a remarkable line up of musicians

jan bang – exile from paradise / undertow

(bang/ endresen/hassell)

jan bang: samples
lars danielsson: double bass
sidsel endresen: vocals
jon hassell: trumpet, keyboards
arve henriksen: trumpet
erik honoré: live sampling

recorded by geir østensjø at punkt, september, 2010.
mixed by erik honoré and jan bang at punkt studio kristiansand.

see also:

… and poppies from Kandahar (http://www.samadhisound.com/janbang/)
Released by: samadhisound
Release/catalogue number: sound-cd ss018

Anthony Rother speaks about his music, workflow and set up in his studio.