synthvibrations.com

The TB303 Diode Ladder Filter by OAKLEY.
This is a great sounding filter!

Oakley PCB

This is a glitch/random bend by Finlay Shakespeare  http://www.futuresoundsystems.co.nr .
The mod was originally done on the casio sa1 but it should work with all the sa-serie.

Here is another random/glitch mod I found in a couple of forums:

The Yamaha PSS 390 is the “toy keyboard” claimed to have the better and best sounding FM synth engine in the toy range.
It has 100 tones that can be widely modified with the tone controls, instead of button +/- it features sliders to edit the synth parameters.
The only lack is the midi control that however  can be added by retrofit.
It can be seen in action in the videos of the band “the Apparat Organ Quartet”.

Doing some circuit bending on my casio keyboards  I collected some useful schematics to “safe-bend” the casio sa serie (sa 1 2 5 8 10 20 etc).
The main mod is the one from Casperelectronics that adds interesting bends as the “glitch/randomizer” , “feedback” , “5th add”, “pitch shift” and the classic “power crash”.

In the forum www.circuitbenders.co.uk I found another scheme based on the casper mod but with some adds.

A song made with Ableton Live and the Casiotone MT45 with realtime recording and looping.
Really fun!

The Monomachine is an interesting instruments not only for “classic” synth sounds but can even work as a 6 elements drum synth sequencer.
The Six machines are not a great restriction for rhythmic composing, as the beatbox on one track only can keep the rhythm busy, while I can synthetize kicks snares, percussions and cymbals on the other channels/machines.

In this post I want to examine the monomachine as a “kick generator”.
The best “Kick machines” are without any doubt the GND-sin and the EFM machines.
The best way to start is to genearate the SINE wave, with the envelope with the decay  set to do a 808 type kick and hold and release at ZERO.
The first thing to understand it’s that the punch in the sound is given by the typical pitch sweep.
Faster is the sweep , harder is the punch.
So to make the pitch sweep you can use the LFO , set to TRIG , with the EXP wave, getting the right amountand the right Speed.
As you have created your kick sound , then applying the “dynamics” efx in neighbour mode (on the folloowing track ) and setting the compressor to work in a rude way with a high ratio, medium attack and short release you get the final punch to the kick.

The 4 filters:

1. Doepfer A-120
2. STG Soundlabs Post-lawsuit LPF
3. Analog Systems RS-500 e
4. Analogue Solutions SY02 Multimode filter

The oscillator: MFB OSC02 Triple VCO

The two filters that can be directly compared are the A120 and the STG, they are both 4 pole, 24dB slope ladder filters.
Ladder filters copy the classic “moog filter” (electronically speaking) so they have a very definite cut , a really fast response to modulations and oscillates at full resonance generating a sine wave.

The DOEPFER A120 was concived as the classic moog emulator but it doesn’t sound moogish at all, it is very clear and have a minimal touch to the sound, it lacks the organic carachter of the ladder moog, but it’s perfect for other tasks as aggressive minimal sounds or percussions.

The STG LPF emulates the ARP 2600 filter “post lawsuit” (the one used after the legal problems with R.Moog). I tried this filter face to face with the original and it is quite similar but not the same, but it retains the warmth and power. The only downfall of this filter is a kind of bleed you can hear as the resonance increase, not very pleasant but all in all tolerable. This filter has 2 freq inputs and 2 signal inputs all without attenuators, 1 amount input and a audio output.

The Analogue Solutions SY02 was dsigned as a Korg MS 20 filters and vca clone. It consist of a highpass + lowpass filters both with resonance and amount and a vca. The sound is raw and the filter can distort easy, this module is used even in the Vostok and Black Coffee . The fourth filter is the Analog Systems RS500e, a diode filter with 18dB and 24dB slope  clone of the classic EMS VCS3 and AKS Synthi (pre and post 1974). This filter has the classic frequency, amount and response  (resonance) controls plus a level in and level out (to get a kind of overdrive sound) and a cv slew (fast or standard), a mod that was usually done on the original synthi.

The first set of demo is based on arpeggio and bass sounds as they show the behaviour of the filters in simple sounds.

TIPTOP AUDIO Z8000 – Resonating Percussion Poly-Rhythms – Part 3 from Richard Devine on Vimeo.

Jam by Richard Devine and Josh Kay on the TipTop Z8000, generating some resonating percussion poly-rhythms.

The old 4 tracks tape sound of an old Fostex X18.
Think I’ll get one of these to use in post-production to make some tracks sound like tape-recordings.

Fostex X-18 Multitrack Recorder from Petteri Karjalainen on Vimeo.

The drum processing for the live performance on the last Depeche Mode tour.
The main tool used is Ableton used like a rack instrument platform with various plug ins processing the drum elements.