Cats

CatSynth Pic: Milali and Korg Prophecy

Milali sleeping against a Korg Prophecy

Milali has found a most peculiar napping position and location beside a Korg Prophecy synthesizer. From Caroline Sommer via our Facebook page.

A bit more on the Prophecy from Vintage Synth Explorer:

The Prophecy Solo Synthesizer was unveiled in 1995, and was a purely monophonic solo/lead synthesizer. It employed DSP synthesis first developed for the Korg OASYS synthesizer, with algorithms for producing realistic analog timbres, VPM (Variable Phase Modulation) tones similar to FM synthesis, and physically modeled brass, reed, and plucked string instruments. At your finger tips were tons of real-time control over traditional analog editing parameters like filter cutoff and resonance, envelopes and the arpeggiator. It had a pitch wheel, a mod wheel, an expressive dual action ribbon wheel, six effects processors and more!

http://www.vintagesynth.com/korg/prph.php

CatSynth Video: Big Merp & Rick-and-Morty Pocket Operator

I managed to order one of the new Rick & Morty Pocket Operators from Teenage Engineering, and it arrived at HQ yesterday. I decided to film the unboxing and initial attempts to play it for CatSynth TV, but Big Merp decided to get in the act. You can see our fun in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2xiHxWHg4c

The Pocket Operator is a tiny synth from Teenage Engineering that comes in several models of which the Rick-and-Morty-themed version is the most recent. Once I fully get the hang of it, I will do a proper demo, probably in conjunction with the modular or Field Kit.

CatSynth Video: Battery Powered 0-Coast + iOS Airplane Jam now with more Cats

From Tim Cox via YouTube:

I was just on an airplane with my 0-Coast hooked into a battery pack with patch cables everywhere and the flight attendant was super cool with it and everything.
So I jammed. I even ordered a sparkling water during the set. It was refreshing. AUM + BLEASS Reverb + Perforator + Vatanator for the steady beat. I don’t want to pay for SoundCloud pro right now so I put some psychedelic cat footage over top and I think it works. Let me know what you think!

We at CatSynth love it and are in fact inspired to do another cat-centric synth jam of our own 😸

CatSynth Pic: Big Merp, Modular Synths, and the Cone of Shame

Big Merp with synths and the cone of shame

Big Merp jumps up on the ledge behind the modular synths (the main system as well as the RackBrute). Also present are the Deptronics Thunderbell, Moog Mother 32, Roland Boutique VP-03 (with owl), and the Korg Volca Beats.

Poor Merp has had to wear the cone of shame since his surgery on Friday, but as this picture shows, by Wednesday he was feeling much better and back to his regular mischievous self. So we decided to liberate him from the cone.

He seems much happier without it 😸

CatSynth Pic: Eggo and Korg DW8000

Eggo the cat sits atop a Korg DW8000 synthesizer. From Sam Oliver via our Facebook page.

Eggo the waffle kitty, aptly named from Stranger Things, is having a rest on my vintage 1985 Korg Dw8000 which happens to have a small piece of a much larger stranger things pop figure collection

“Stranger Things” has definitely brought some of the mid-1980s synthesizer sounds into mainstream consciousness – although those sounds and instruments have been popping up again in music for some time now. Around 1986/1987, the DW8000 was Korg’s “out-of-my-league” synth, the big flagship compared to the Poly800 v2 that I was initially looking at – and I thought the graphics for the waveforms were pretty cool. Of course, this is the time period when the Yamaha DX7 and their other FM synths were dominant. Ultimately, I went for analog/DCO and FM options in my first synths, but recently I have found myself rather curious about the DW8000 (and its rackmount version the EX8000) again.

CatSynth Pic: Yogi on a Matrix 6R

Yogi found a nice place to sit atop an Oberheim Matrix 6R rack-mount synth module. By Sayer Seely via Facebook.

The 6R is the rack-mount module version of the classic Oberheim Matrix 6 from the 1980s.

The Matrix 6 was one of the last few synthesizers from Oberheim to come out during the mid-eighties following the classic OB-series. The Matrix 6 utilized high-tech but less expensive digital and midi features and still retained a totally analog sound. It did this by using DCOs (digitally controlled oscillators) to provide stability, programmability and more. All the Matrix synthesizers featured Matrix Modulation which allows for extremely wild virtual patching for almost unlimited range of sounds and modulation capabilities!

http://www.vintagesynth.com/oberheim/mat6.php