About a day after flying back to Greece from the US (and still jetlagging, but happy to be away from the crazy election shit going on there), I got to attend the Dreadbox 10th Anniversary Fest last weekend in Athens. Was enjoyable meeting a bunch of fellow synth fans, and the event was punctuated with the official presentation of the new Dreadbox Artemis, 6-voice polysynth, with effects by Sinevibes.
As I posted someplace else, the Artemis is like the Nymphes and the Typhon had some talented offspring. I also got to chat with Mr. Sinevibes himself (Artemiy Pavlov) a bit. Seems the Artemis isn't merely reusing the Typhon effects, but offers some different choices, and they were even streamlined a bit by one of the Dreadbox programmers, so it was truly a collaborative effort.
I very much like the layout and controls, and based on earlier pictures, I didn't expect it to be much larger than the Nymphes, but it is. Pic is below...you have to click to fully expand it.
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Got to visit the Dreadbox folks a couple weeks ago in Athens, and I saw this on the floor in the main demo room. Yiannis informed me it's NOT a working model unfortunately (the insides are "pasta" as he said), but it's still a sight to behold. This was the synth that started it all for Dreadbox, when they first went to NAMM in Jan 2014. I ALMOST bought one back in 2015. Now I wish I had, just for the collectors value it would have had. Given that it had the exact same synth engine as the Murmux Semi-Modular (which I did buy), I still have access to the same sound as the pedal synth, but aesthetically, it's not quite the same. (Click on the pic to see the entire synth).
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Hey, I'm still alive!! Normally not a thing someone would have to proclaim on a YT channel, but given the cancer fun last year, and the ongoing corona shit, well, it makes more sense in this context, eh? (or "oder" as my German friends would say). I figured I would write SOMETHING since another video is at least a week or two away, and the last video I posted was more than 7 months ago.
And VERY strongly today, I considered deleting the channel entirely. Discovered that YouTube is monetizing my channel with advertisements whether I want to or not. I was fucking pissed, but the little woman (aka "the wife") convinced me to at least think it over a bit before I do.
I'll probably post a few more things for the near future, but if this greedy, Google shit keeps getting out of hand, I will probably just delete the channel and/or migrate it to another platform. The problem is most the other platforms are all greedy bastards too, and they only WISH they were raking in the dough like Google/YT. And that really doesn't leave a lot of options.
So...hopefully all of you out there in corona-land are doing ok, you're considering getting vaccinated (when it's available), and you're still rocking out with your gear and synths!!
PS. I picked up an ASM Hydrasynth! LOVE the features, crazy about the play-ability of the keyboard (polyaftertouch is the shit!!), it's built like a tank, and it is awesomely programmable, but I'm still not that moved by the core sound of the synth. It's just...uh..."ok".
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Well, despite being locked-down here in Germany, but fortunate enough to be able to telework, I've been jamming with a few of my friends over the last couple months. No pix of those jam sessions, but here are a few of the friends I've played with since we got here. : )
Now I just need to finish setting up the music room.
On a serious note, I hope folks are weathering through this shit situation. As much as possible, let some music take your mind off things when able...stay safe and stay sane. Cheers...
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Yep, finally made it to Europe, 99% of my music gear is packed on a boat going across the ocean, and the thing I miss most right now are my DRUMS. Love synths, but playing these puppies is physical and cathartic in a way playing synths or keyboards just isn't. Of course synths scratch that "melodic itch" that drums just can't either. It all kind of balances out, I guess.
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Yeah, I already mentioned it in the last video, but I'm moving back across the Atlantic, to mainland Europe, happy to be "sprechen Deutsch" and tossin' back some Teutonic beverages. In an effort to knock out a couple more videos before we pack up and vacate, I'm working on: 1) a one-synth-song video for the Emu Proteus 2000 and 2) a video doing a quick overview of the Andromeda A6 filter section. More specifically it will cover how the dual filters offer serial and parallel routing and how the mixing of the filter sources (waves, subs, noise, line in) and outputs (post filter) really let you finely sculpt and play around with the harmonic content of the synth.
I recently got the A6 cleaned up, and short of having the encoders replaced (which is hard to do, as A6 replacement parts are unique and no longer produced), it's probably as good as I will get it for the short term.
Oh yeah, I got a Dreadbox Nyx v2 about a month ago, and I've had very little time to play with it. Want to do a Nyx v1 and v2 comparison, but who knows when I'll get to it. I think I slightly prefer the sound of the v1, but I definitely prefer the organization and interface of the v2...just easier to work with in my opinion.
And in these videos, I'm also trying to get in a few last endorsements for North American beers because they will be in short supply once I get over to Europe. I have to say as much as I like German beer (with the Reinheitsgebot and all), there is PLENTY of good beer in North America, and I'm a little disappointed I didn't get to highlight it a little more.
Oh well. Some fine German fall festivals await to help me forget American beer and get reacquainted with some tasty German brews. Cheers!
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Yeah, for the curious, I am still working on that Casio VZ-10M video. The main part of the video is recorded, and I'm in the editing stages, contemplating how to best arrange it and make it work. Started 2 other videos as well, when I had a nice open window of free time about 5 weeks ago, but that free time has since disappeared. I'm now swimming deep in a big project at work and a class that's demanding more time than expected. Might be a while more before I get it out. And such is the working life...
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Good news. The Casio VZ-10M fired up fine, and I've been diving back into programming it a bit. The thing is built like a tank. Seriously, if someone broke into my house, I could use this as a deadly weapon, take out the intruder, clean it up, and it would still probably make music.
As I play with it, I'm remembering what I liked about it, and what I didn't like about it so much.
Positives:
- For me, it's fun to program, and once you learn the basics, it's not too hard to program (better than a DX7 for sure)
- It's just a unique way to produce sounds (in that FM, phase-modulation kind of unique way)
- It's not intuitive, which leads to some interesting and fairly random results
- It excels at bells! (and other klangy, metallic sounding stuff, much like the Yamaha DX line of FM synths)
- I seriously like the build quality. This thing is about 30 years old, I've owned it about 14 or 15 years, and it dependably works. Buttons feel great, sliders don't have any problems...it's just really nice that it is so well-made
Negatives:
- Though fun to program, it becomes fairly tedious to program after a while. I find myself burning out much quicker with this than using the average subtractive synth layout/interface (oscillators, filters, amplifiers, LFOs, etc)
- It's not nearly as easy to program as Casio's CZ line of synths, nor is it as capable of easily creating a diverse range of sounds (the types of sounds it can produce are somewhat limited in variety)
- Though it can achieve bright sounds, it can't so easily produce WARM and bright sounds. Weirdly, as the wave forms are more heavily modulated (becoming brighter), the fundamental harmonic (the bass) drops off somewhat, instead of staying constant, and running it through an oscilloscope confirmed what I was hearing.
So, I'll likely highlight most of these points when I make the video. As interesting as it is as a synth, I'm curious why Casio decided to move in this direction when they did, instead of producing some kind of "Super CZ" (interestingly both the CZ-1 and VZ-1 were released in 1988). The VZ is not as flexible as the CZ for creating standard sounds, and it more closely resembles Yamaha's DX line of FM (phase modulation) synths which in 1988 had already been out 5 years, so this concept or idea for producing sounds had already saturated the synth market fairly well. That's part of the reason the Roland D-50 (introduced in 1987) sold so well...it offered more realistic sounds than the DX7 and had on-board effects.
I still think the VZ-10M is a cool synth, but you have to manage your expectations of what it can deliver. It has a niche, and I don't think it was ever good at being a "bread-and-butter" synth (offering a bunch of assorted sound categories for lots of music styles) which was what Casio seemed to market it as. For competition, the Korg M1 hit the market the same year, it was only $100 more than the VZ-1, and I suspect the M1 offered a LOT more of what the average synth user was looking for (a greater variety of sounds and also on-board effects!) over the VZ-1. And of course, the M1 went on to become the largest selling digital synth of its time (not sure if any one synth has passed its sales numbers as of today).
And those are my thoughts so far...
Back to the VZ exploration. Cheers!
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Woo-hoo!! We have a winner. With a full 30 votes counted, the Casio VZ-10M crosses the line with a full 10 votes, followed by 8 votes for the FutureSonus Parva, 7 votes for the Yamaha DX200, 3 votes for the Yamaha FS1R, and 2 votes for the Novation KS4.
Since the Casio VZ-10M was an unexpected win, I have to fire that up tomorrow and see if there are any issues. Got the Parva OS updated today (after some initial difficulty), so it will likely be covered again fairly soon. Thanks to all who voted! Cheers...
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Just video blog stuff discussing mostly synths, progressive rock, music in general, recording music, music recording gear, music recording software, music producing gear, and occasionally beer!