Darren's posts with tag: oscillators
|  | Via Vintage Synth Explorer:
"The AX-60 is among some of the last true analog polysynths of the mid-eighties. It was Akai's answer to the hugely successful Roland Juno series and Yamaha's new digital DX-series. The AX-60 is a programmable six-voice synth with a nice LFO, lowpass VCF filter, envelope sections, and more. An eight-voice version, the AX-80, was already available.
Programming this synth is easy using dedicated sliders, knobs and/or buttons for its parameters. It also has a useful noise generator and some other cool functions that include auto-tuning, chorus, a multi-mode arpeggiator and a keyboard that can be split into two key-zones, making it somewhat bi-timbral. All six voices can be stacked in unison mode for a powerful and thick lead sound. Its features and sound make the AX-60 a worthy alternative to Roland's Juno 106. The AX-60 may have been used by Bjork."
This baby sounded old school... basic presets that sounded unexciting (not really phat) but a few gems within. Once you start screwing with the preset sounds with the VCO, LFO and VCF... the synth comes alive... the filters are not too bad at all... ranging from "woody" to "bubbly"... I can see this coming to use in some of my shows... and that's great! :)
Ignore the flowers if you must... my mom bought it for me for Chinese New Year... LOL! |
| | These are pictures taken whilst I compose and design for the play "Everything But The Brain" for Action Theatre. Now showing at the Esplanade Theatre. Here's the demo of three songs which I've picked out to upload (click on the title of the songs to listen):
EVER AFTER
This track, by approach was really simple. I mic'ed up a Hungarian Zither (CITERA) using a contact microphone and it's being fed into the KORG Radias audio in. Using a vocoder preset, I have made it to trigger a synth note (D flat) with a moderate attack and a long release. So everytime I plug a note, it will trigger the synth note. The signal is also routed through it's internal effects with delay and reverb. Another contact microphone was employed to sample the Citera with a BOSS RC-20 and the playback is reversed... This track was recorded live with me improvising on the Citera. (I have no idea how to play it so I just did what I think sound right) You can find a picture of the Citera below...
BEDTIME STORIES
A Plogue Bidule composition using a patch I've designed. The group has a couple of sequencers that triggers the risset bells and sine tones, which was passed through a rebuilder and some effects. Crytal Synths were employed for the generation of the glassy ambient. KORG Radias was used for a base drone...
EINSTEIN'S BRAIN
An abstract of the 10 minute long piece. The piano was from KORG Triton ST88. An improvisation based on the scenic mood was recorded and then reversed and picthed down to underlay the original recording. Another Plogue Bidule patch was designed to sound scape subtley underneath this track...
DISCLAIMER: There are pictures of other synths which was employed for the composition and design of other songs and sounds but I did not include the demo here... It's sad to see the way they treated my music in production... director's call, so what to do :/ |
| | Yummy... From unboxing to setting and hooking up. This synth looks swanky, with wooden side panels (narrow though). The KORG RADIAS... I shot it up and started noodling through its presets (NEAT! But did not like the self plugging vocoder presets of reading "RADIAS"). I am impressed by the versatility. The oscillators are quite flexible, which pretty much says for first impressions: It's a versatile VA synths. The dual filters look the part, but it's not as cut-through as I hope it to be. Rather conservative I must say. This synth, on first impression, sounded warm but hardly phat enough. Well, naturally. In anycase, I shall spend more time with this baby and in time write a short user review.
Due to job commitment, I don't think I will be cutting a demo song on it so soon. But will do so once I have time to noodle on it. Actually, I even thought the adapter looks cool. With an on/off button to it. The sliding frame for the module is simply too cool as well. Man, I can be real shallow. :P |
| | Thingamagoops... never really had a chance to take proper mug shots of them so here we go... cute little fellas with a life of their own :) |
| | Some shots of my Sherman Filterbank II... wicked addictive analogue duo filter...
You can listen to how a Sherman Filterbank II can screw up your sound HERE with descriptions... or go directly to listen to the DEMO. :) |
| | I've decided to keep a photo update of my studio state... to see how it grows over time (or diminish)... so here's some photos of my current studio. I will be upgrading it soon so keeping it for visual posterity...
I have also categorized synths collections in my photo index page... I am a little lazy and see it unnecessary to take out Korg Prophecy, Korg padKONTROL, Oberheim Matrix 1000 and Marion... :S so I have to keep them here...
UPDATES: New stuffs that are way over-due. Doepfer A100 Modular System with all other analogous processors, Radias, etc. |
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