Keytar Night

My friend C.A. has recently gone into a keytar buying spree. Within a month or so, he managed to score 2 keytars from eBay. The first one he got was a non working russian synth, the Junost 21, pictured bellow, and the second one he got was a Lync LN 1000, also pictured bellow. The lync is actually a Midi controller, rather than a synth as the Junost is. So, since he had not seen/heard my avr synth and I had not seen/heard his keytars, we decided to meet yesterday for a "show me yours and I will show you mine" night.

So we tried the Lync conected to my avr synth. Here we have C.A. with the Lync:

Is that cool or what???? And now myself with the Lync (and the avr synth) in my "keytar pose" (not bad for a guitarist :-P ):

I was quite impressed with the lync, it was realy confortable to use and extremely cool. My friend is considering covering those pink/yellow/green button legends and logo, but I certainly consider he should not or he will remove its soul, its mojo...

And now the Junost 21... As I mentioned before, it is not working, so another reason for my visit at my friends place was to take the Junost home for service. Checked out the schematics from here but I am not sure if I will understand the comments in russian. Hopefully the problem will be something simple, otherwise it will probably go back to my friends place as it came (any help will be greatly appreciated). A picture of the Junost here (more to come soon, stay alert!!):


My conclussions from the keytar night were:
1) We need more keytars!!! if a midi controller manufacturer is reading this, please, buid a new keytar... and do not try to trick us as behringer did, adding a strap button to a regular midi controller (here and here), we want a proper keytar!!!!
2) I need to learn some russian.

UPDATE: my friend is selling the Lync. More info here.

Kazooka

A Kazooka is an electric Kazoo (AKA trompetilla eléctrica, for those from spain). I found out about it from this post in MusicThing. I listened to the samples in here, checked the price ($20) and told myself... got to have one... 3 weeks later a parcel from Texas came home with my kazooka. I recorded the following samples, using some of my diy guitar pedals (wah-SansAmp-Small Stone-Pulsar Tremolo, IIRC):

http://www.desordenado.googlepages.com/kazooka2.mp3
http://www.desordenado.googlepages.com/kazooka3_cut.mp3

Here is a picture from the electrickazoo webpage:

Freescale new DSP development platforms

Freescale has announced a couple of DSP development platforms which sound pretty interesting for the DIY Musician. The first one was made with the help of Line6 and aims mostly to the stompbox people:

http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAMM08/Content/Line6/PR/ToneCore-Developer-Kit.html

I assume it will be cased like the other tonecore pedals from line6 but they will add a USB port to allow re-programmability.

The other development platform is this one:

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=SYMP_SOUNDBITE

Which has a more general purpose (synths, effects, whatever...).

I have worked in the past with Freescale development platforms for their starcore chips and I did not like them at all, they were full of switches, jumpers and trimmers, but this board seems to be quite nicely done.

AVR Synth update

I have just uploaded a sample of how the AVR synth sounds like here:

http://www.desordenado.googlepages.com/avr_rendered.mp3

The Drum sound comes from a PC sequencer, which is also generating the arpeggio that repeats again and again (and again and again and again...) while I change the AVR Synth settings. Not very musical sample, but a good way to show what the AVR Synth can do.

New case for my AVR Synth

I had some trouble painting my Big Muff Pi clones so, while waiting for the paint to dry, I decided to finish recasing my AVR synth. Since I bought the PCB from Elby Designs, it had been living in many different temporal cases (all of them made of cardboard), so it was about time to get it a new stable home. Enough writting, check out the pictures (click the images for a bigger view):


A closer look:


And now the guts:


For those of you who have not heard about the AVR Synth before, it is a monophonic virtual analog MIDI synth based on an AVR Atmega16 Microprocessor, check the link above for more info. I did not put any labels on knobs or switches, because I plan to use the AVR Synth as an open platform in which to test my AVR assembler programming skills.

Check this post for a sound sample.

What am I up to these days?

Yes... I am making a Big Muff Pi, actually I am making two of them. More pictures soon.

Soundlab Minisynth

Here are some pictures of my soundlab minisynth. I recently added the Sample and hold option, the external input and also a ring modulator (using the extra OTA available in the board) and I had to recase it, cause the new additions would not fit in the old case.

I decided to use a flightcase that I bought in a DIY store and made the frontpanel using a piece of acrylic (with the front panel design printed in paper bellow the acrylic). I think the results are pretty good, don't you think?
Click on the images for a bigger view.

So... what will come next?

Mostly Pictures and samples of my diy synths and effect pedals, mixed with some other random internet findings (mostly music related).

Stay tuned!!

Desorden, Los Planetas

Shit... the name I gave to the Blog is becoming an obsession to me...
The band I was talking about in my second post, "Los Planetas" have a song named "Desorden" (apart from the mentioned "Disorder" cover). This song has the following lyrics:

Hay un cuerpo girando en la cocina
al final de una cuerda atada a una viga.
Toda la tarde viendo películas.

Hoy es 18, ella se ha ido.
Hace demasiado tiempo ahora ya no está conmigo.
Demasiado tiempo metido en este sitio.

Y ahora estoy hablando sin sentido,
la vida pendiente de un hilo.
Me gustará saber de qué ha servido
si nunca nadie ha entendido.

He estado dando vueltas por toda la casa.
He encontrado algunas fotos
que hace tiempo no miraba.
Estos recuerdos parten mi alma.

Si hubiera encontrado las palabras
ahora no estaría sólo en casa.
Tan sólo dos palabras exactas,
pero no pude decirte nada.

¿Qué puedo hacer si no puedo hacer nada
para acabar con algo que no acaba?

Which google translates the following way:

There is a rotating body in the kitchen
At the end of a rope tied to a beam.
The whole afternoon watching movies.

Today is 18, she is gone.
For too long now it is not me.
Too much time getting in this site.

And now I am talking nonsense,
Life on a pin.
I will like to know what has served
If anyone has ever understood.

I have been running around all over the house.
I found some pictures
Not long ago it looked.
These memories part my soul.

If I had found the words
Now is not only at home.
Only two exact words,
But I could not say anything.

What can I do if I can not do anything
to end with something that does not end?


Not a very good translation, but I guess you get the idea... it is Ian Curtis last day, the day he committed suicide. Wikipedia says the following about Ian Curtis' death:

In the early hours of Sunday, May 18, 1980, in his kitchen after having viewed Werner Herzog's film Stroszek and listening to Iggy Pop's The Idiot, Curtis hanged himself. Many rumours surround the possible reasons for his suicide, with his poor health and failed marriage most often suggested.<sup>[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Curtis</sup>

Disorder, Joy Division

While looking for the video in the previous post I found some more videos about Joy Division's "Disorder".
A Fan Work videoclip:


Disorder with Fruitty Loops: