AHNE 2007 – Happy Syntho De Mayo
Every year synth die-hards migrate East for AHNE. It is an amazing gathering filled with vintage gear as you will see in the links that follow. This year’s event looks like it did not disappoint. Unfortunately I was not able to make it due to having to make a trip out East just before the event due to unforeseen circumstances, but one year I will make it! The following are links to photo sets and some video of the event.
Stretta’s Flickr Set
AHNE 2007 via alt-mode
AHNE Collage on SonicState – features some great video coverage and words by Dave below.
Minimoog & Minimoog Voyager Side by Side via Dave
Here’s an example of some of what can be had at events like AHNE. This video was done by cartoonist and synthesist, Dave of umop and his synth toon classic The Packrat. BTW, check out Dave’s video for Weird Al Yankovic’s Virus Alert.
Custom Synth Madness
CustomSynth UK
What you are looking at is a Roland SH-09 monophonic analog synth. They are normally white font and details on black. Why is this one Orange? Before purists rank on the change in design, well, the original was in pretty bad shape. It was picked up by an outfit that goes by CustomSynth they do custom designs for a number of synths including a white Juno-106, JX-3P, Korg Polysix and more. Check out this JX-3P with the PG-200 knob box built in. They are very well done and surprisingly well received in the synth community.
The Harvey TR-808
Meet the Harvey TR-808, a rack mounted Roland TR-808 built by Studio Electronics. Before Studio Electronics began building their own synths, they used to rack and MIDIfy the old classics including a TR-909 rack, the original MIDIMini Minimoog rack, the Oberheim “Obie Eight” rack, and the Sequential Circuits “P Five” rack. If you look at the Studio Electronics News page you will see mention of the old school racks as of 5.20.05:
“5.20.05: OLD SCHOOL STUDIO ELECTRONICS RACKMOUNT CLASSICS RETURN!
“Harvey” 808s, P5s, a new TR-909 rack (minus its sequencer), OBIE RACKs, and even OB-8s (I think) are back in the fold!”
I have no idea if they are still taking orders. The Harvey pictured is currently up for auction.
Monster Drum Machine
In this case, literally. This beauty was actually up for auction for a whopping $5000.
The following are the details:
“Add a useful member to your band, an interesting piece to your collection or BOTH… is it Art? Is it an instrument? (Well, the debate is still open on whether or not a drum machine is actually an instrument, but I digress) IT’S BOTH! This fully functional artistic drum machine is perfect for the edgey musician or DJ who needs a pal, the collector of one of a kind art, or the lover of cool electronica… Measures 42″ tall, 21″ at base and 18″ at its widest on the top and has 3 cord jacks… don’t let this lil mutant guy (guys?!?!?) languish in artistic limbo, he needs to lay down some bomb beats with you today!”
Check out this link for the images if the auction is down. It is an interesting piece.
If you know anything about the construction of this one, please feel free to comment.
The Lyricon
The Lyricon is essentially an analog synth that can be played by flute [see update below]. You can find more images and info on MASA, a Japanese site on the instrument. You can find a Google translated version of the site here. The following is a translated excerpt from the site. Apologies for the poor translation. If you know more about this piece feel free to comment.
“‘performing in the orchestra, was the idea like the electric flute which is audible sufficiently in the hole’, so is. It has started from the place where it tries probably to reproduce the performance method of the wooden bobbin musical instrument and the constitution of the timbre electrically. Being afterwards, appeared, become constitution of the general analog synthesizer VCO, VCF and VCA…. whichWith there is no similar point yet, changes harmonic overtone constitution and on the other hand, it can call with the point which does the sound making that it has been similar to [dorouba] of the organ. At this point in time as for [ririkon] of the first generation [ririkon] II which it mentions later, formation differs from [doraivua] completely.”
Update via brian t in the comments: “Small correction re the Lyricon: it’s played saxophone-style, not like a flute. There’s a summary in English at 120 Years of Electronic Music. Probably the most high-profile Lyricon gig was with Steely Dan, tracks like “Hey Nineteen” have Lyricon solos by Tom Scott.”
Viva Commodore64!
And finally I leave you with a little C64 action.
Magnetron by Golgoth 13A
“”Magnetron”, funny Clay animation music video clip from french band “GOLGOTH 13” and their album called “Bruce Lee died in Galway”. Official golgoth 13 website More of Seb’s work here too.”
“The Mighty MB-6582!”
“four channel stereo synth (8x 6582 SIDs) and the up-coming release of MB-SID V2 is going to blow away all other SID hardware.” via C64Music! You can find the full flickr set of images here. This is a custom version of the MidiBox SID. Via beaker in the comments of this Matrixsynth post: “Yes, this guy is from Australia and he made this version of the Midibox SID himself. It is still based on the Midibox design though. The 6582 was not used in the C64, but it is a 9V version of the SID much like the 8580. They are hard to find, but there was some new old stock floating around that has mostly been bought up. I doubt this will become a production synth (at least not is any real quantity) due to a shortage of 6582 SID’s, especially since he’s using 8 of them in one unit. But apparently he’ll be selling boards for those that have, or can find some SID’s. One thing for sure, it did a bloody nice job of it.”
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