5 Synth Legends Captured in 2005 and Bob Moog’s Final Public Appearance – Synth Journal
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Captured on April 19th, 2005, a symposium featuring five of the greatest American synth legends took place. 20 years later, we can now bear witness to their collective genius.
This week’s Synth Journal takes in a symposium of synth legends, a Supersaw for your Drumlogue, and an Audio/CV Mixer and stem ripping device for the Eurorack crowd!
The Synth Legends Synth Journal!
The Bob Moog Foundation Synth Legends Stream
The synth industry and community are entering that phase of their existence where they have begun to lose important pioneers. Some have already left us far too soon, and those original trailblazers that are left must be treasured deeply as time marches on.
Shortly after this article is published, arguably five of the greatest American synth legends will feature in a very special screening of a symposium captured in 2005. Little did we know that four months after its recording, the most important one, Dr Robert Moog, would leave us and his beloved family behind.
The event was organised by Russ Jones of AudioMIDI and, thankfully, was captured on video. For one hour and thirty-eight minutes, Bob, Tom Oberheim, Dave Smith and Marcus Ryle gave fascinating insights into their careers, moderated by another of the synth legends himself, Roger Linn.
This premiere will be the first time this event is broadcast in its entirety, having had an extremely limited DVD release some years ago. It is being shown to mark 20 years since Bob Moog passed and, of course, Dave Smith is no longer with us either.
Many companies and organisations have helped the BMF make this Synth Legends screening possible and it will be free to view on YouTube, at the Bob Moog Foundation channel at 8pm EDT/5pm PDT. Tom, Marcus, Dave’s widow Denise and Michelle Moog-Koussa, Bob’s amazing daughter, will be live in the chat to answer questions.
Frostmod Audio Riffline – A Supersaw In Your Drumlogue
KORG’s Drumlogue is a fantastic drum machine that combines both analogue and sample-based sounds to deliver a fun and unique experience. Based on the Logue 2.0 technology, this means that using an SDK supplied by KORG, third-party developers can create new and interesting additions to the instrument.
Rather than provide you with something drum-related, FrostMod Audio’s first Logue 2.0 plugin is actually a four-voice polyphonic synth that utilises a Supersaw waveform. It features two ADHR envelope generators, one LFO per voice and a switchable 2-pole lo/hi-pass filter!
And yes, being a Supersaw, you’re going to get those classic Trance sounds, blended in with the Drumlogue’s excellent drum patches. It’s quite a heady mix, as the demo below shows…
This is a pretty cool first attempt at a Logue plugin, and there will be a certain subset of Drumlogue users who will be over the moon at this edition, not least for the fact that it is “pay-what-you-want”!
ALM Busy Circuits Stem Ripper
Ever come up with a truly awesome riff on your modular rig and wish you could easily capture each part individually as an audio file to process later in your DAW or other audio tools? Well, thanks to those lovely people at ALM and Busy Circuit, you can with the ALM Busy Circuits Stem Ripper!
This relatively simple device features 8 audio connectors, a microSD card slot and a big, red Record button. Everyone loves a big, red button, don’t they? Simply hook up your device’s audio output to one of the Stem Ripper’s outputs, and it will record that as part of a multi-channel audio file at 44.1kHz/16-bit wav files, complete with date stamps.
It will also generate a separate 2-track stereo mixdown of the audio fed through the unit when recording. An optional 2HP output expander duplicates the eight inputs to a set of unbuffered outputs, reducing the need to stack patching cables when, for example, you want to route certain tracks via FX and back into your monitor outputs.
You can then hit Record, deliver your performance and then pop the microSD out and upload the content to any device that will allow you to process the stems as you wish. Recording capacity is limited only to the space on the card, and it supports cards up to 1TB in capacity.
Stem Ripper retails for £299 GBP and the Output Expander is an additional £59 GBP, available from your local ALM Busy Circuits stockist.
MonstaGuru – Audiothingies MicroMonsta 2 Free Editor
Audiothingies MicroMonsta 2 packs a huge amount of synth into a small box and doesn’t charge you a small fortune for it either! It features 2×6 voices of polyphony powered by 3 oscillators, a multimode filter, 3 EG’s, 3 LFOs and 10 modulation slots.
Those oscillators feature a combination of frequency modulatable varieties and multisampled wavetables. The multimode filter has eight filter types and there’s also delay and reverb per program. It’s a tiny little powerhouse, make no mistake.
Of course, something this compact will suffer from a few usability issues, so that’s where MonstaGuru comes in. Developed by Ralph Wiedemeier, this third-party, WebMIDI browser-based editor and librarian opens up all of the MicroMonsta’s settings for both A and B engines.
Stylewise, it has a clean, almost Roland-esque style to it and makes using the hardware infinitely more simple to use. Whilst I have nothing against WebMIDI, browser-based tools, it would be even nicer to see this as a VST/AU plugin that can control your MicroMonsta 2 from your DAW.
That said, MonstaGuru is free, contains no adverts and requires no registration or login. For those things alone, you should buy Ralph a coffee!
MiXFOUR 6hp Audio/CV Mixer
Bringing up the rear this week is a handy little utility module from AXiSMODULAR, aka Richard Hider. MixFOUR is a simple 6HP, four-channel CV and audio mixer for Eurorack that features four input channels, each of which features a useful mute switch and level trimmer.
You have a choice of normal or inverted outputs, and that’s really all there is to it! The unit comes fully assembled, although there is a kit version available also. You Eurorackers, of which I am very much not one, tell me this is an incredibly useful and affordable tool so, I’ll take your word for it!
I’m always keen to support the one-man-band makers out there, and Richard has built a reputation for very useful modules, all of which you can check out on his Etsy store. Tell him we sent you, ok?
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