Wave Modulation

I wasn't sure what else to call it... (but yesterday was reminded that it's amplitude modulation, heh. Update: nope. It's filter modulation because the filter is what's being modulated BY the amplitude)
Got playing around processing audio sources through thor and fell into this one. It takes the audio and uses the incoming waveform to modulate it's own LP filter frequency, so the resultant sound depends entirely on the wave-shape of the instrument/audio it's hooked to, it'll be interesting to see what it does to regular audio, I haven't tried that yet.
It does some strange lo-fi things to drums, and gives a different character when inverted.
Threw in a panner for good measure, along with a cutoff pulse. Pan speed/pulse have adjustable rates on independent lfos, so the cycling can get pretty varied.
Wave Modulation

1985

Long overdue video.

The refill can be found here: 1985 Refill

5 Minute Instrument #3

5 Minute Instruments: #2, a la THX

So last week was the beginning of the series that youtube user MrBrandonPeoples and I started. Here's week 2.



Here's Brandon's video

5 minute instruments: #1

Last week I was messing around in reason and wondered what kind of instrument I could come up with if I had a time limit. One thing led to another and I ended up having a Youtube account and the beginning of a video series. I'll warn you now: I am by no means a video producer, so I expect the first few videos will be rather dry.

New stuff all around

So I've got the new versions of Reason and Record now, and am just getting out of the "whoa" phase. Gotta say, Propellerhead did a great job with the Kong Drum Designer. The new machine does for drums what Thor does for synths. I'll still be making drums with Thor for the refills, at least until most people have upgraded to version 5, though I may program them in Kong as well and release v5 refills too. It seems like refills made in this version with the new refill packer will work in reason 4 as long as the new features aren't used, but I'll be doing a bunch of testing to make sure before I release the next refill--which I'm in the home stretch on right now. Lots of drums in this one. One more thing I'll have to test out is whether there can be a folder of v5-only instruments within a refill and it will still be able to be opened in v4, just with those specific instruments being unusable until Reason is upgraded. If not, we'll figure something out.
In any case, the instrument emulations are nearly done for the next release. Off to do more right now.
B.

How Far We've Come

Today I was searching for the name of a sound that was on every early 90's drum machine and I fell into researching the history of the drum machine--which is 45 years older than I thought--and that led to a search into to history of synthesizers. Suffice it to say I learned quite a bit and got nothing done that I meant to. It turned into a very long post on the propellerheads forum. Here are the results...

1875 Elisha Gray, Electric Telegraph For Transmitting Musical Tones

1916 Arseny Avraamov, Graphic-Sonic Art "By knowing the way to record the most complex sound textures by means of a phonograph, after analysis of the curve structure of the sound groove, directing the needle of the resonating membrane, one can create synthetically any, even most fantastic sound by making a groove with a proper structure of shape and depth"

1920 Leon Theremin playing the... Theremin

1928: Ondes Martenot - h/t to SSGamelord over on the propellerhead forum for this one

1930: Theremin's Rhythmicon (craziness! at 2:45)

1939: Hammond Novachord

Novachord and Theremin - incredible sound here

1947: Chamberlin Rhythmate

1959: Wurlitzer Sideman

1964: Raymond Scott's Rhythm Synthesizer (make sure to check out the creepiness at 3:10)

1965: Good ole Bob

1967 - Ace Tone (roland) Rhythm Ace

1969 Robin Gibb - Saved By The Bell (drums)

1971 Can - Peking O

1972 Eko Computerhythm

1978 Roland CR-78

1980 Linn LM-1
Roland TR-808

1983: MIDI!!!

1984 Apple and C64

1985: Atari ST

1989: "Sound Tools"

1991 General MIDI (and TMBG)

1992: Samplitude

1994: ReCycle

1996: Cubase VST

1997: Rebirth

2000: Reason

After looking over this collection I think this could make one hell of an ad for PH (leaving out any competitors of course)
Oh, I never did find the name of that sound, either.