Knobcon in Chicago

Again, this year was a blast.  It was great to see old friends and meet new faces.

I presented a concept this year called 'Sample Proof'.  It has to do with my philosophy and ideas behind some of the musical instruments that I build.  

I have been working on several instrument concepts and the one that I presented was what I am calling 'Sample Restraint #1'.

Sample Restraint #1 is a one-off instrument that I have been developing for a few years, working on it as I have time or inspiration.  It is loosely based on the Hammond tonewheel concept, but uses fast spinning BB's  to generate the waveforms.  Because the BB's can group in arbitrary clusters, the resultant waveform is arbitrary and each note of the scale has this arbitrary timbre.  The control keyboard works on displacement, rather than velocity or aftertouch, and has a feature that will change volume and tone depending on the amount the key is displaced.  One of the many 'Sample Proof' concepts about this instrument is that every time it is turned on and goes into motion, there is a completely new set of waveforms and therefore can't be easily sampled because of its mechanical complexity and arbitrary nature.

Earthquaker Day 2019

I will be speaking at Earthquaker Day 2019 in Akron, Oh!  August 3rd.

I will be talking about one of their new products! (and it has to do with synthesizers!) 

If you are in the area, be sure to check it out!!!

Wave Replacement Seminar at last year's Knobcon

Check out the seminar that I presented at last year's Knobcon.  Special thanks to Suit & Tie and Jill for putting this together and uploading it!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3WGyJqUM9o&feature=youtu.be

The new Good Glass Records comp that I am on!

here is the ad.  please go and purchase your copy today!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVioBNRGT3A

Voltage Controlled Motor Oscillator

This is the prototype that I developed a few years back (in 2015) for a new tonewheel oscillator.

Arturia Beat Step Pro

I bought an Arturia Beat Step Pro a few years ago when my friend Andrew Horton decided to sell his.  I had been interested in them but hadn't got around to buying one yet. So... I agreed to buy Andrew's and was excited to use it.

...  then it sat on a rack next to modular gear for about a year and a half.  I hardly even turned it on.  Though I have a lot of equipment, I like to have uses for things.  I simply had not found a use for it yet and I was wondering if I should sell it or pass it on. 

... until I was rearranging some equipment and I realized that I needed some clocks to reach across the studio to another part where some mono synths were.  I didn't want to run several 1/4" clock cables from various modules and devices across this space, so I took 1 sync cable to go to an MSQ-700, which is connected to sequence the Jupier-8, then the sync is daisy chained to another MSQ-700, which is connected to sequence a Juno-60, then the sync is daisy chained to the Beat Step Pro, which is distributed to clock the Sequential Pro One, CSQ-600, etc.  It finally has a very useful spot in the studio!

Patch routing for Wave Replacement Synthesis

Please know that at this time, Patch and Tweak has not released their standardized symbol language for modular synthesis and I am using older notation that was popular throughout the 70's and 80's, but I think you will get the idea anyway.  :)