There is so much to love in this video. If you have any interest in synths, then you know Mr Oberheim is one of the true greats. In this video we get to watch him look back over his amazing contributions.
Synth history
Jarre’s Oxygene: Performed Live
If you’re aged 50 or over and have a love of synths / synthesis, then you’ll understand how Oxygene is a seminal moment in the history of electronic music. It transformed my life when I first heard it, as it has many other people.
That said, I must have been living under a rock when Jarre re-recorded Oxygene live in 2006 to coincide with the album’s 30th anniversary of its release in December 1976. I was totally unaware of this until today, and just watched the whole shebang today.
If like me you haven’t seen this, it’s more than worth a watch to see the level of complexity involved in faithfully recreating the whole album using the original synthesisers. For the past 40 years I’d assumed the iconic lead part in Oxygene Part 2 was a pre-programmed sequence – how wrong I was.
Enjoy:
A Selection of Bob Moog Interviews
Thanks to falling down a YouTube rabbit hole and also some specific recommendations (thanks Mark!), we thought we’d post a handful of Bob Moog interviews that will interest and maybe even inspire you. Enjoy!
- 2016 interview on early synths and instrument design
2. Bob Moog interviewed at his factory in Asheville, North Carolina (circa 1980s?)
3. For something educational and amusing, here’s three Robert Moogs on camera, but only one is real. Which one is it? (Circa late 1970s?)
4. 50th Anniversary of the Moog Modular (2014)
5. Moog – The Documentary (2004)
JV-1080 ROM Play: Have A Listen
Today I had the pleasure of firing up my ROlan JV-1080 after having its internal battery replaced and the capacitors replaced on my expansion cards after there had been some issues (if you own any JV80 expansion cards you may want to read this). Aussie synth heads will definitely want to check out Elk Elektronik if you need any repairs done, they’ve done a brilliant job.
Once I’d fired up the 1080 firing on all cylinders, I decided to listen to the ROM Play for old time’s sake. And boy did it take me back. So for those you used to own a JV-1080, here’s the three demo songs in all their glory, enjoy!
Eduard Schneider’s Amazing Keyboard Creations
As you may have already seen, we were a little blown away by Eduard Schneider’s amazing DIY project with an 1886 grand piano. We were so impressed that we asked the man himself, Eduard Schneider to answer a few questions on the project, and he kindly responded in addition to providing some amazing pictures that you can see in full in the gallery below.
KC: When did this passion start for you?
ES: Electronic music has been my passion since my childhood. I grew up in Romania, a communist country in the 70s and 80s and electronic (instrumental) music was the only music style from the western world that was allowed to be aired on radio. As soon as I could afford equipment, I bought some and started to make music myself, not only listen to other people’s music. Transforming old things which have lost their utility by breathing new life into them has become a more recent passion, about 5 years ago. Here is some more insight: https://www.facebook.com/fromjunktosteampunk
KC: Can you describe the specific 1886 piano you have modified?
ES: Yes, it is the largest size Grand Piano I have seen (although I don’t know much about pianos) and the friend of a friend bought it with an old house. It’s a Pokorny – who was a pupil of Boesendorfer. As it was partly damaged by moisture and beyond repair, it was given to me and so I saved it from becoming firewood. I did not know the year until I removed the huge metal plate, which had the year handwritten underneath it. Nobody has seen that writing in 130+ years …
KC: How many hours did the restoration take from start to finish?
ES: I have not counted the hours, it must have been many hundreds of hours, from cleaning the dust, removing the strings (most of them rusty), making the custom subwoofer snug fit into the tail, performing the paint job and making the electronics & automation, etc. Dozens of people have been involved and contributed with their passion and skills to help me make my crazy ideas to become reality. Unfortunately I have not filmed all the steps of the process, but quite many – enough to make a nice documentary, which I will make time to edit at some point. Acoustic Density – who made the custom speakers and subwoofer were the only company involved, all others were just friends and enthusiasts like me. Here is some insight of the process – a small fraction of it:
KC: Can you explain exactly how the piano is linked to the software?
ES: I ended up buying a used Doepfer PK-88GH keyboard – which was the cheapest hammer action keyboard I could get. Unfortunately, it was an old version, with just Midi Out, no USB. So I had to add a Midi interface between the keyboard and the Mac Mini, which runs any DAW or Software and so makes it one hell of a Midi keyboard. Some say it’s a waste of space for only “being nothing more than a Midi controller” but I tell you, the feeling you have when you sit in front of it and start playing … that’s priceless.
Layering the Grand Piano sound with a Modular Synth such as those from Arturia opens completely new perspectives to the piano player who would normally expect this huge thing to be nothing more than a piano. In theory, as the Mac Mini is connected to the internet, it should be no problem to play the piano remotely in realtime, let’s say by somebody with a Midi keyboard in the US – something I have not tried yet, but soon will. I run Cubase 10 Pro and Ableton as DAWs, with Arturia V-Collection 7. Somebody commented on YouTube: “this is the utmost setting for playing piano digitally”. I take that as a great compliment.
KC: Is this likely to be a once-only piece or could you see this becoming a business for you?
Yes, I think this will remain a once-only piece and I don’t see myself making these as a business, although if concerts and gigs will keep us artists from earning money, I might reconsider that :). I have other crazy projects in progress, such as the military communication switchboard which I call “SheVa” and a Harmonium from 1900 which will be converted into something their makers never dreamed of :). Imagine going modular on these old cabinets …
All of these I made for fun and not with business in mind. I might not have the most expensive and sophisticated equipment in my studio but I may compensate a little by the “unique character” of these instruments. Here is a presentation of the place:
KC: Where / when do you plan on demonstrating this great creation? I can imagine most major industry showcases would love to have this there?
ES: Well, as for now, because of the Covid-19 situation, there is no other place to demonstrate it than online, on my YouTube channel, but I’m open for proposals. Although it’s much lighter than it was in its original state, we are still looking at about 400 lbs …
So far, I have won the Grand Prize award of the Arturia Sound Explorers contest but no other software / hardware manufacturer. There is still a lot of potential to showcase products on this instrument, in a very special way. By the way, I’m a filmmaker and I know how to make things shine 🙂
KC: If people want to make enquiries of you, where should they contact you
ES: They can email me at edi.schneider@gmail.com or look me up on Facebook as “Eduard Schneider” or Instagram “edischneider13”
And now onto some amazing pictures of the grand piano, the ShEva and more. Click on any pic for the full-size versions. Warning: drooling may ensue.
We for one think that Eduard’s creations would have one hell of a niche in the industry – what do you think? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
The 1886 Custom Electric Grand Piano
We’ve only been following this project relatively recently, but it’s certainly caught our attention. We’ll be featuring an interview here with the brains behind the operation, Eduard Schneider, but in the meantime lay your eyes on this:
Uploading patches to your DX7 on a Mac with OSX
Oh the fun day I’ve had. Yesterday I took delivery of an original DX7 (see disclaimers below) and obviously the default 32 factory patches aren’t going to maintain anyone’s interest for long. Hence the fun day.
Over the past six hours I’ve trawled around a bunch of great information spread across a bunch of locations, and have come up with this easy guide to transferring Sysex data to your DX7 from your Max running OSX (Catalina at time of writing).
First, some disclaimers:
- The DX7 I own is the original one i.e. a ‘Mk 1’ machine. These instructions won’t work in full on the subsequent models (DX7s, DX7 II, DX7 IIFD etc)
- The USB audio interface you use will play a BIG role in how successful this process is. I initially tried on a PreSonus Studio 1824c and it would not work – the DX7 froze every time I connected the MIDI cables up. I then tried the Komplete Audio 6 interface and it worked like a dream.
- Check the 5-pin DIN MIDI cables you use – if the below process doesn’t work this could be why if you’ve dredged up a 1987 cable from under the house.
- I only did this on a Mac – but most of the info is usable on other operating systems. I hear MIDI Ox is a great app for non-Mac users.
The process:
- Connect your DX7 and Mac. You need an audio interface that connects to your Mac and that has MIDI IN and MIDI OUT 5-pin ports.
- You need two MIDI cables. Connect one from the MIDI OUT of your interface to the MIDI IN of your DX7. Connect the other from the MIDI IN of your interface to the MIDI OUT of your DX7.
- Now you need to get your DX7 ready to accept the SysEx data from your Mac. There’s three steps (this handy video shows you the exact buttons):
- Press the Function Key then the ‘8’ button. If ‘MIDI Ch=1’ is displayed you don’t need to do anything, otherwise use the ‘Yes’ button or Data Entry slider to change it to 1.
- Press the ‘8’ button a second time. If the display says SYS INFO AVAIL you don’t need to do anything, otherwise use the ‘Yes’ button or Data Entry slider to change it to SYS INFO AVAIL
- Now press the green Internal Memory Protect button. If will display MEMORY PROTECT INTERNAL ON as the default. Use the ‘No’ key to change it to MEMORY PROTECT INTERNAL OFF
- For younger synth users it will seem strange that you don’t save these settings but they are now set up how you need them.
- Now you’re ready to transfer SysEx data.
- SysEx Librarian is the app you need on your Mac to do this, and here’s where you get it. It’s free!
- Install SysEx Librarian
- You now need some patch SysEx data to transfer. This is where the wonderful Bobby Blue DX7 page comes in. I downloaded the ‘All The Web Collection’. It’s a standard ZIP file – just unpack it wherever you want.
- In SysEx librarian, you can either drag the downloaded SysEx files straight into the window of the app or use the ‘Add to Library’ option under the File menu in the app.
- Important: the interface needs to be selected from the destination drop-down as shown in Figure 1 below. ‘Act as a source for other programs’ won’t work for this task.
- If you’ve imported more than one file, select the one you want and then click on the Play button.
- A dialog will come up showing that the transfer is happening. On your DX7 it will display MEMORY PROTECT MIDI RECEIVED.
- If you get an error, in SysEx librarian preferences adjust the transmission speed to be lower. I actually set it at 2% to be super-conservative.
- That’s it! Now press the green Internal Memory Select button and then the number button of your choice to see each patch,
I hope that’s of some help to you. If the transfer isn’t working and you’ve checked cables, tried a different interface etc, then you may have an issue with your DX-7. Have a deep search of the internet for that: there’s a thousand and one causes.
Enjoy! I’m off to look at some commercial DX7 sound banks
Detailed rundown of Yamaha CS-80
A classic beast gets a comprehensive examination
GForce Software, makers of great softsynths such as The Virtual String Machine, have done a brilliant in-depth look at the Yamaha CS-80. Commonly on the must-have list of synth lovers, this video does quite the deep dive into the intricacies of Yamaha’s 1977 flagship synth.
And those sounds! Enjoy.