FM radio and electronic music making: they just go together. Sure, to Moog Music such combinations are the stuff of April Fool’s pranks. Yes, I’m late with this one, but that’s just what Moog came up with last week — and promptly leaked onto the Web before April Fool’s Day even hit.
The MF/FM has an on-board analog radio tuner, capable of locking into frequencies across the FM radio band. Mix any instrument with live radio signals, and tweak the voltage controlled oscillator for modulated madness and creativity.
The MF/FM accepts instrument to line-level input and the signal is passed through drive and mix circuits (for dry/wet balance). The VCO section features frequency and waveform knobs, all controllable with an expression pedal.
Check out the product page. I think the sound sample sound superb. Of course, why buy a specialized (erm, imaginary) device for this, when your guitar amp will happily pick up radio signals for you?
Or, you can go to the other extreme, and build a high-tech Max/MSP software setup for sampling FM radio and integrating it into a performance, as Joshua Fried does with his Radio Wonderland project. Somehow, this concept got melded with the idea of controlling Max using a drum built out of shoes (you know, the ones you wear on your feet), and a giant steering wheel controller constructed by robotic MIDI mastermind Eric Singer (whoops, not that Eric Singer, the other, MIDI-savvy Eric Singer). Skip the ad for Sondheim and it gets better as it goes on. Enjoy:
As it happens, while the Moogerfooger MF/FM will be coming to stores absolutely never ever, Joshua will be playing the Warper Party tomorrow night. I, on the other hand, will be performing with a keyboard, not shoes, and won’t be sampling anything. Unless everything I’m saying is a lie and this is a day-late April Fool’s joke.