The most notable new offering this year from Moog Music, Inc. was the Theremini, a very accessible incarnation of the classic theremin.
The design of the instrument evokes classic science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s (in which the theremin was a mainstay), and it features modern enhancements including a variety of tones and effects, support to stabilize pitch, and CV and MIDI for external control. And it’s MSRP is $299.
I decided to try my hand at this fun and photogenic instrument.
You can see a bit of my attempt to perform one-handed in this video.
I can see this being a great tool for live performance, both standalone and as a controller for analog synths. I look forward to learning more about it.
Make Noise has introduced several new modules this year. You can see Tony Rolando of Make Noise demonstrating them in this video. There is much delightful noisy crunchiness.
The most notable new addition is the Teleplexer, which has a series of metal plates that can be tapped with leads from other modules, creating quite a bit of expressive variation, even chaos. The paradigm of touching conductive plates was inspired by the telegraph.
I tried this out myself, but like other Make Noise modules, it will take a bit of practice to make it work musically.
Our friends at Teenage Engineering were back at NAMM, with the latest iterations of the OP-1 and OpLab.
The little screen on the OP-1 continues to delight, with one of the most unique interfaces from a non touch screen. They added a new module that allows one to use the device as an Etch-A-Sketch and draw out pitch contours. It even includes the shake-to-erase gesture. The little cranks that go on top of the knobs are also new.
The OpLab, including some branded sensors, seems to finally be ready for prime time.
The OpLab does allow one to use alternative sensors, and outputs control voltage suitable for analog modular synths in addition to controlling the OP-1.
I have long been impressed with the offerings from Dave Smith Instruments, such as the Tempest pictured above. They’re easy to play and offer rich sound possibilities that one can either keep tame or push towards more extreme. Last year I was quite taken with the Prophet 12, and still coveting one of those. This year, they have introduced a tabletop version of the P12. I was fortunate enough to get a demonstration from Dave Smith himself! You can see it in the video below.
The Prophet 12 features 12-voice polyphony, anchored by digital oscillators that feed into analog high and low-pass filters. It has some aggregate controls for the oscillators with odd names like “Air” but are pretty intuitive once one tries them out.
So maybe the tabletop edition would be a practical alternative to the keyboard?
One of our perennial stops at NAMM is to the Big City Music booth to see what’s new and play with old favorites. There is always an impressive display of analog modules, including the “wall of synth” from Analog Solutions.
Of course, Big City Music also prominently displayed a full complement Metasonix modules. This included the new spring reverb (at the bottom) that does not conform to the usual yellow color.
I spent a little time with the Mellotron, including a demonstration of the original instrument and its extensions. You can see a bit in this video:
Towards the end, you can see the mechanical elements for the tapes at work.
We also visited again with Leon Dewan, who presented his Swarmatron instrument. Here he demonstrates, and I tentatively try to play as well (one handed as I am also holding the camera):
Although most of these instruments were familiar ones, it is great to see them in action again.
We at CatSynth take ear protection very seriously, so our first visit and first article of NAMM 2014 was Sensaphonics for custom ear protection, now in a variety of colors. These devices better preserve overall frequency response while attenuating volume. They are also good for those of us whose ears don’t fit the “average”. These will come in handy when I play out with my bands.
Once again, we at CatSynth are going to be attending the big NAMM show in southern California, starting on Thursday. I will be focusing on synths and other music technology, but I also enjoy finding fun and esoteric musical instruments of all sorts.
Stay tuned to these pages for full coverage during the show, along with live updates via Twitter @catsynth and Instagram. And if you’re attending, maybe I will see you there 🙂
The visit the Analogue Haven booth is another of the annual pilgrimages at the NAMM show. The highlight of my visit this year was a performance by Richard Devine on a system consisting exclusively of Make Noise modules.
This virtuosic performance showed what these modules are truly capable of with practice. The music moved between rhythmic staccato textures and longer resonant tones in multiple layers. It was also a showcase for the DPO, Make Noise’s oscillator, which was the only tone generator in this system. I have a Make Noise Maths and an Ecophon, and the performance inspired me to practice these along with the other modules to get more complex musical results.
Analog video is looking like a potential area of creative expansion, and LZX Industries was prominently demonstrating their video modules. Here we see our mascot being processed live.
One thing I would like to see more in video synthesis is interaction between analog audio, video and control signals.
On the opposite end from the modules was the massive Schmidt Eightvoice Polyphonic Synthesizer. A beautiful looking instrument with an interesting set of filters inspired be Moog and Oberheim:
This synthesizer is truly a labor of love by its creator Stefan Schmidt, who spent many years on this project. It remains to be seen if it will sell.
Other quick views from around the Analogue Haven booth included this demo of modules from Snazzy FX:
Percussion modules and a novel sequencer from Delptronics:
And the distinctive orange controls of the Harvestman modules.
There were three new releases from Harvestman, including a new Hertz Donut.
And the distinctive clean white design of Koma Elektronik, including the SVF-201 Vactrol Filter module and their infrared controller.
It is great to see the popularity of the analog instruments and new designs coming each year. If there are any drawbacks, it is that the field of available modules and effects boxes has become quite bewildering, and that the Analogue Haven booth is always quite crowded.
There are analog synthesizers, and then there are instruments that are even more analog than analog. The Wheelharp from Antiquity Music falls in this category.
The Wheelharp is an electromechanical instrument in which a performer accesses 61 bowed strings via the keyboard. There is a cylindrical version, as illustrated in the photograph below, as well as a standard linear-keyboard version:
The instrument evokes the Baroque era in its appearance, both the reversed coloring of the keys and the details of the construction and wood finish. The sound of the bowed strings in response to pressing the keys is quite eerie.
This video shows part of the mechanical system that drives the Wheelharp as it is being played.
