Tony Rolando of Make Noise Music Company walks us through his shop and a few of his modules. Video by whiplashlabs.

Richard Devine recently hung out with Future Music where they conducted an interview, took pictures of his studio, and talked about modular synthesis at length. Make Noise Records, approaches to film/music, influences, and much more are covered. It comes with a dvd and is out now!

- Future Music Magazine

The record, like previous vinyl releases, sounds more aggressive with more of a bass response and smoother highs. I’m very pleased with how Shawn Hatfield dominated mastering and Roger Seibel produced incredible lacquers. You can read about the entire process of the creation of Embraced HERE.

I want to thank everyone for the support so far. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and I did not expect the music to connect with so many given how it lacks a proper genre specification and an associated record label. Again, thanks for the support and I’ll be giving out free download codes periodically on the Surachai Facebook page.

- Both Vinyl & Digital are available at Surachai Bandcamp
- Surachai Facebook

IMPREC podcast #3- “The Synthcast”

This weeks show will focus on the role of the analog synthesizer as a creative tool in the production of electronic music, modern composition, and sound art. This podcast highlights artists in the Important Records catalog that have made a connection with specific systems or instruments in the analog domain. Some artists have made momentary, inspired connections and managed to capture those results while others have spent decades exploring and mastering their given voltage-controlled instrument.

Each track represented in the podcast brings something unique and challenging to the table. This is not an attempt to fetishize or promote analog synthesis hardware; it is a snapshot of the results that are yielded by careful study, improvisation, and creative approaches to the technology available to artists at a given point in time. Although some may consider analog synthesis an archaic mode of expression, the tracks here attest to the opposite. There are three tracks featuring the EMS Synthi on this podcast but if you expect to hear something akin to “On The Run”, well…you’re in for a wild ride.

Track Listing:

Alessandro Cortini makes his Important Records debut with the track “Gloria” from the upcoming Forse 1 album. Alessandro created the Forse series of recordings using an original Buchla Music Easel. 2012

Pauline Oliveros- ‘A little Noise in the system’ (excerpt) from Reverberations (2012) was created on the Moog III modular system at UCSD in 1968.

Eleh- “Indictiva” from the Return LP. Eleh uses a custom Serge Modular. 2009

Jessica Rylan- ‘Phantasia’ (excerpt) from Interior Designs. Serge Modular feedback patch with home made electronics. 2006

Space Machine (Yamazaki Maso)- “Track D” from Space Machine 3. Maso uses multiple sound sources including the EMS VCS3, Arp Odyssey, Roland System 100M with various echo/tape delays. 2003

Christina Kubisch- ‘Ocigam Trazom’ from the Intorno al Flauto Magio exhibition, an interpretation of Mozart’s opera ‘The Magic Flute’. Performed on the EMS Synthi with processed field recordings. 1985

Astro (Hiroshi Hasegawa)- ‘Artificial Lake’ realized on an EMS Synthi with Tape Delay. From the album ‘The Echo From Purple Dawn’. 2008

Eliane Radigue- ‘Triptych Pt. 3′ created on the ARP 2500 in 1978. From the album ‘Triptych’.

Sprint “Dream” from zach goheen on Vimeo.

In collaboration with High_Lonesome Sound, Surachai sound designed a pre-feature spot for Sprint. We used modular synths as a source that was fed into tons of different plug-ins such as INA GRM, Twisted Tools, Sound Toys, UAD, and Valhalla. Mixed in surround. In the theaters now. Aren’t you disappointed you came here for a commercial?

- High_Lonesome Sound

Pouppee Frabrikk aka Henrik Bjorkk Nordvargr gets properly remixed by one of our TRASH_AUDIO crew, Justin McGrath aka Polyfuse. You can buy the entire EP below.

- Pouppee Fabrikk
- Polyfuse

If you’ve seen How To Destroy Angels live, you’ve heard a song a bit out of place, a little brighter, catchier, and if you’ve been following our site – familiar. The uniquely pitched snares, massive rolling bass, and pop song structure is a recurring theme in one of our member’s projects: Sonoio aka Alessandro Cortini. Sonoio gave How to Destroy Angels a proper remix and they have performed it live for the past few weeks.

- Sonoio

Video Summary
Input – Mono/Stereo
Output – Mono/Stereo
Mix – Controls the Balance Between Original (Dry) & Processed Signal (Wet)
Bit Depth – Highest Quality is 16Bit Fully Clockwise
Nyquist/ Sample Rate – Highest Quality is 48kHz Fully Counter-Clockwise
Waveshaper – 4 buttons with 4 modes = 256 Unique Combinations

Description from http://schneidersladen.de
The BigDaddy of all voltage controlled bitsrusher modules, the Malgorithm is back! The revised MarkII version offers a much better audio quality with 48kHz sampling rate and 16Bit depth, illuminated buttons instead of the tedious toggle switches, a brand new wave shaper and all that comes in stereo!

Bit crusher with adjustable sampling rate of max. 48kHz and up to 16Bit depth, both parameters can be controlled by 0-5V voltages and the CV inputs have a polarizer. The Bit reduction is non-integer and continuous in the Mk2 version i.e. you can get “between the bits” and there are no more audible steps when modulating.

After that the signal can be processed by a digital waveshaper that´s different modes can be activated with four illuminated buttons – this results in 256 possible conbinations for digital distortion madness.

The Malgorithm Mk2 can operate in stereo and thus has each two audio inputs and outputs. The input level and the wet/dry mix can be adjusted manually and with a CV.

2 audio inputs (L+R), 2 audio outputs (L+R)

CV inputs for controlling the input gain, the Bit depth, the sampling rate and the effect amount

Creating Gestural Sound Effects with the Intellijel Planar Module from Richard Devine on Vimeo.

I setup this patch to work on a sound design project for a client, which needed unique transformer like power ups and electrical like swooshes. I borrowed the patch idea from another fellow sound designer friend Joseph Fraioli who came up with the original patch. I then took that and further added and tweaked a few things to adapt it to this project. The planar X/Y CV out is controlling the pitch of three different sound sources, intellijel cyclebox, and two intellijel Dixies. There is also multiple outs going to three different delay modules, Synthesis Technology E580, MakeNoise Echophon, and Doepfer BBD. This is just a short excerpt from that session of recordings.

- Grayscale