Synth.nl Blog

Nominated for the SchallWelle Award

2012-01-12T11:53:00.000+01:00

Like the previous years I have been nominated for the yearly Schallwelle Award that is organized by the German Electronic Music club Schallwende. The price is decided by both a jury and the audience. As a listener to electronic music you can vote on your favorite artist and album in both national (that is German in this case) and international categories. Feel free to vote if you want. You can find Synth.nl under international artists and my Apollo album under international album. You can find the voting link here: http://voting.schallwelle-preis.de/.

Only 3 AtmoSphere copies left!

2012-01-09T16:32:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I visited the Ron Boots & Friends New Years concert and had a great time. At the stall that my record label Groove Unlimited had there I learned that from the original print of my second album AtmoSphere (2008) only 3 CD copies are left! After that they are out of stock and I don't know yet what is going to happen. All three copies are signed by me personally by the way. So if you don't have this album in your collection yet, NOW would be a good time to order one before they are gone. You can find more information on the album and also the link to the Groove website on: http://www.synth.nl/AtmoSphere

Merry Christmas!!

2011-12-25T11:14:00.000+01:00

I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas!! I was working on a little movie that I wanted to have ready for today, but unfortunately I didn't quite make it, but I still wanted to share some of it with you. I'll guess the movie will come next year or maybe some parts later this year in the demo reel I'm making for my website. Here is a simple scene I made with only primitives in Cinema 4D. The snow was done with the Magic Snow plugin.

But this one is a lot more complex and there for the movie took a long time too render. It ran on 10 machines here for a couple of days and then when it was done there was an error in it, because one render machine didn't have the Turbulence FD plugin on there that I used for the fire :( I also wanted to put even more decoration in the tree, but just didn't have more time. To be continued I guess.

And here is a close-up scene. As you can see the tree is very detailed. That also adds up to the render time. Ah well I had a lot of fun making this while I also made this years Christmas track called 'SynthHerald'. It got me in the Christmas spirit early. I hope it will help you a bit too :) Again have a great time with your loved ones today. Merry Christmas to you all!!

Syndae Christmas Special Online!

2011-12-24T12:56:00.000+01:00

The new Syndae Christmas special is online! It features my new Christmas Song called 'SynthHerald'. There are two editions my track is in the family edition. All the music on this Christmas special is especially made for this special by all the artists. I always find this a very cool concept.

You can listen to the Christmas special on http://www.syndae.de

20% Discount on All Synth.nl titles at Groove Unlimited

2011-12-18T22:31:00.000+01:00

I have some great news for you. My record label Groove Unlimited gives 20% discount on all its own releases until the 30th of December 2011! That means you can buy all my CD's now for a very low price now. Buy 5 and get 1 free :) This offer includes also all CD's from other artists that Groove released in the past years. I can recommend you to check out artists like: Ron Boots, Eric van der Heijden, Gert Emmens and Nattefrost might you not now them yet. And do also check out the Dutch Masters and Analogy compilation CD's. Highly recommended. Well more information on http://www.grooveunlimited.nl. Go to 'CD shop' and then press 'Groove Products' in the menu on top for an overview of all Groove Products. Don't let this offer pass! Right in time for Christmas I think ;)

Synth.nl Soundbank in Rob Papen's Predator 1.6.2 update

2011-12-16T16:19:00.002+01:00

I have some nice news for you. In the latest update of the Predator synthesizer made by Rob Papen you'll find a nice surprise. I made a complete bank with 103 sounds for Rob. All the sounds are in the traditional classic synthesizer music style that I also use in my own music. So now you can play with those Synth.nl sounds yourself :) The update is free if you already have a license and if you don't I would suggest you to check Predator out because it is really good in my opinion. You can find more information about the 1.6.2 update here: http://www.robpapen.com/nl/15Dec2011.htm and more information on Rob Papen's Predator here: http://www.robpapen.com/predator.html. If you download the update do let me know what you think of the sound bank. It is the first time I did something like this and I'd like to hear if you appreciate it.

Apollo now also on Itunes and Amazon!

2011-12-10T18:18:00.001+01:00

My Apollo album is now also available as an MP3 download purchase from Apple Itunes.com and Amazon.com. I guess that should make it available to anyone now. Here are the direct links to the albums:

Itunes: http://itunes.apple.com/nl/album/apollo/id485526488

and Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006H580EA/ref=dm_sp_alb

If you have any problems, please let me know and you can find the other sales links for CD's and more information about the album on http://www.synth.nl/Apollo

Building SammichFM DIY Video

2011-12-10T15:17:00.003+01:00

This year I build a Wilba SammichFM DIY synthesizer kit. It is based on the famous Yamaha OPL3 sound chip that was also used on the famous Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 and SoundBlaster 16 ASP sound cards. It is a 4 voice FM synthesizer that sounds a lot like the famous Yamaha DX series. During the construction of the synthesizer I filmed the whole process. This movie is an excerpt of the 4 hours total build time. I made the 3D animations myself in Cinema 4D. The music you hear in the background in a track called 'Thermosphere' from my 'AtmoSphere' album that I released in 2008. More information on the album on http://www.synth.nl/AtmoSphere.

Synth.nl on Last RoboCast Podcast

2011-12-10T14:15:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately Ian Price decided to stop producing is fabulous podcast called RoboCast radio. I think he did a great job in making this radio show over the last years together with his two droids. I want to thank Ian for all the airplay he has given my music and I'm honored to be with even two tracks on his last show ever. He played my last years Christmas track called 'HolySynth' and he also played a track from my latest Apollo album called 'Apollo 11'. I think most of the shows will remain online for a while, but go give this farewell show a play for sure. You can find the podcast on this URL: http://robocastradio.podomatic.com/
Thanks again Ian and I hope life treat you good in whatever your plans are!

BIT Project (Part 2)

2011-12-06T16:42:00.001+01:00

Last time I showed you the rough model of the building of BIT BV, but now it is time to add detail. Today I spend a couple of hours modeling this security camera. BIT has a lot of these all around the building. I modeled it as close as I could from some picture I took of them. It looks simple I guess, but I can tell you it is a LOT of work to model something like this from scratch in Cinema 4D. Well I'm quite happy with the outcome myself and I'll put them on the building soon. There is a lot of other stuff I also need to model and I'm starting to get an idea of how huge this whole project will be. I hope to update you soon with some more stuff I made.

Recorded some Seasonal Greetings

2011-12-05T16:52:00.001+01:00

Last week I recorded some Christmas and New Years wishes and send them to all the radio stations I know. Lots of them are preparing or already recording their Christmas and New Years specials so I though better early than late :) So the chances are big that you will hear me talk through some EM radio shows here and there ;) I also send them the Christmas tracks I made the last years. I'm still working on a new one for the yearly Syndae Christmas Special. The deadline is the 17th of December, so I still have some time. I guess you will hear it somewhere around Christmas.

TC 4000 Reverb and RME ADI-8

2011-12-05T10:41:00.000+01:00

Recently I added two new devices to my studio. My friend Hans found a very cheap deal on two TC 4000 Reverbs, so we both bought one. I didn't use it until now, but I can tell you it is very good. I missed the VSS3 and NonLin2 algorithms since I sold my PowerCore X8, but they are back :) And more! This reverb really sounds top notch. I also bought a very cheap RME ADI-8 AD/DA converter that was traded in at one of the music shops I come a lot called Live Music in The Netherlands. Both of them are now in the spot where my Eventide H8000 was before. This one is now on it's way to the USA for repair. When it gets back I'll have to find another spot for these two, but they are here to stay for sure :)

One set of MB-6582 knobs left!

2011-12-05T10:28:00.000+01:00

A while ago I build a Wilba MB-6582 synthesizer kit. I was too late for a group buy and had to buy a full bag of knobs for myself. In the mean time I have sold a large part of the remaining knobs and today I'm sending away another set of them. I just counted my knobs and I still have one set left. So be quick if you need these knobs, they are hard to get by in small numbers. If you are interested just send me an E-mail and I'll make you a nice deal.

Apollo on CDBaby.com as CD and MP3 Download

2011-11-30T17:29:00.004+01:00

I have good news for all of you living overseas (well from my point of view). My Apollo album is now also available on CDBaby.com. If you order the CD there from outside Europe it will save you serious on the shipping costs. I think this is just in time for your Christmas Shopping ;) You can also download it as an MP3 download in high quality if you don't want to wait.

You can find it on this URL: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/Synthnl3

My other CD's are also for sale on CDBaby.com of course you can find them on this URL: http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/Synthnl. Thanks for your support!

BIT Project (Part 1)

2011-11-27T15:07:00.001+01:00

At the moment I'm working on quite a big and ambitious project. If you have read my biography you will know that music is just a hobby for me and that my main job is actually operating a business ISP company that is running a couple of data centers in The Netherlands. Our current website is Dutch only and needs a big overhaul. I'm currently working with my colleagues on some ideas for the new website. The first this is that is needs to go in a multilingual CMS system. So the good news is that you guys will be actually able to read it later on :)

One thing we want to have on there for sure is a virtual tour through our data centers. The idea is to use real video footage in combination with 3D animated graphics. But before you can create any animation you need to build a model of the whole building. And that is what I'm currently doing. Bart Auceps made a start with the model a while ago in Autodesk 3D studio max and I just completely redid large parts of his model in Cinema 4D and also made some adjustments and additions already to the model. I'm also redid the texturing already.

So now the rough outside of the building is almost done and I need to work on the detail and the interior and after that I need to build the server rooms of the data centers. Most things here I did from the top of my head, but next week I'll take some pictures of details of the building to be able to reproduce that also in the 3D model. I guess this will be project that will take a couple of months for sure. I will post updates on this blog from time to time so you can follow along.

In our house style we use a couple of Dutch bridges as a metaphor for stability and reliability. In the past we took pictures of these bridges and altered them, but for the new website I'm also experimenting with a rendered approach. In the picture on the right you see a bridge that in real life is in Amsterdam, but now it is in my computer. In this way I can get it from any angle and position the water and clouds etc. anywhere I want. I don't know if we will use it yes, but I hope so, since I think it is starting to look quite realistic. If you are interested in the old website and the company you can have a look on http://www.bit.nl/. This website is Dutch only, but I guess you can use Google Translate to read what it is about. There is a lot of text on there btw, but the new site will have more graphical elements and less text for sure. You can click all the pictures for a bigger version btw and every thing you see is computer generated. No actual pictures where used anywhere.

New Groove Unlimited Website Online

2011-11-21T19:06:00.000+01:00

Yesterday my record label Groove Unlimited launched the first part of a new web design that I did for them. I made the 3D logo design in Cinema4D from an EPS file of their old logo. The website was build with the Joomla CMS. I think it looks quite new and fresh compared to the old website. The old website is still running by the way since there is a CD shop on there with lots of articles. In the mean time we are also working on a new webshop, but it is a LOT of work to complete that project. So this is step 1 of a 4 step project actually. If there is more news I'll let you know of course. But for now I'm happy that this first step is live. You can find the new website on http://www.grooveunlimited.nl/ or the good old http://www.groove.nl/ which redirects to the new site for now. P.S. you can actually buy all my music from the CD shop ;)

SammichFM (Part 7)

2011-11-17T12:28:00.001+01:00

The next step in the process of building the SammichFM is the painting of the letters for the front and back panels. The idea is that you put paint on the paper that is on the panels and then peel it of to reveal the letters. Somehow that is not really my thing :) I always end up having paint everywhere. Maybe I'm to impatient I don't know. But somehow I also do manage to get it of with some thinner and don't screw up that bad, so it kind of looks OK I think.

The most tricky part is that the inside of letters like 'P' stay on when you peel of the paper and you have to get that of somehow and if the paint is not completely dry yet, you smear it out. Ah well now you are warned at least ;). On the right is a picture of the back panel. As you can see it has two audio outputs. You can assign any of the four parts of the synthesizer to an output, so it is a real multitimbral synthesizer actually. Quite more than I expected when I started to build it.

And here is a picture of the fully assembled and fully operational end product. The SammichFM :) On top you can clearly see the buttons to select the 4 parts of the synthesizer. So you really get 4 for the prince of 1. Looking back on this project I think it is not a beginners project. Especially the soldering of the SMD components is quite challenging and not suitable for anyone without proper soldering experience. The rest is fairly simple, so maybe get some help if you want to build one for yourself and you are not so experienced.

And here is one final picture: a nice family portrait. On the left is the SammichFM and on the right its sister the SammichSID. Nice shot I think :) I personally like the blue leds and blue backlit display better on the SammichFM. But to conclude this series: These synthesizers are very similar in looks, but very different in character. The SammichSID is way more analog sounding and fat, but the SammichFM is very complementary I think.and they make a nice set together. OK now I'm going to work on the movie and hopefully I'll be able to show that any time soon.

Virtual DIY Project (Part 4)

2011-11-16T15:54:00.001+01:00

I worked a lot on the virtual DIY project the last days. I also modeled some new components again for it. In the picture you see a white Molex connector on the bottom right corner of the PCB that I made myself and in the middle you can see two black Heat Sinks on the power regulators that I modeled. It is so much fun to create this stuff from nothing.

On the right is an overview render I made just before I put these components on the PCB, but I think it looked nice in this perspective so I did want to share this one as well with you. All components on this PCB are hand placed, so I think you can imagine how much work this has been. On the bottom right are also some new components I modeled. Some capacitors in green, red and broken white.

Here is another overview picture from another angle that I made using the 'depth of field' feature in Cinema 4D R13 to make it look more artistic. I think it turned out quite OK even though I'm still trying to improve my skills especially on lighting objects. I focused the camera somewhere in the middle of the picture so you see that the foreground and background is a bit blurred out.

And here is one more overview picture on the right. The modeling of the PCB is now completely finished. I'm just working now a bit more on texturing and lighting to make close-up shot nicer. But I'll call this project as good as done now. Next thing up is make some kind of intro animation with it for a DIY movie that I'm planning. More following later on that. I guess that this will take a while before it is done and ready to show. So a little patience please :) I hope you enjoyed this so far at least. Oh and just in case you missed it in the previous posts. You can click on the pictures for a larger version.

Analogy 3 on CDBaby, Itunes and Amazon

2011-11-16T14:59:00.000+01:00

One of the first releases I did was a track called 'Synthology' that I made for the compilation album 'Analogy 3' that was released in 2007 by my record label Groove Unlimited. The nice thing about this sampler concept is that the artists involved were only allowed to use analog synthesizers. It is a very nice and very varied album that was mixed together as one long mix by Ron Boots. I just found out that the album is now also for sale as CD both also as MP3 download on the popular sites like CDBaby, Itunes and Amazon. More information about the album and also the direct links to the album on these sites can be found on this URL: http://www.synth.nl/Analogy3

New track coming on EM Portal CD II

2011-11-16T02:02:00.000+01:00

I recently finished a new track for the upcoming EM Portal sampler CD. (vol 2). I was inspired for this track by some samples that I took in the London Underground in 2008 when I visited the Oxygene tour by Jean Michel Jarre in the Royal Albert Hall in London. The track will be called simply 'Underground'. Highly appropriate since I made it underground in my basement as well :) I did have some trouble finding inspiration after the long work on the Apollo project, but I got it done in time to make the deadline. The CD will be released in the first quarter of 2012 to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the EM Portal forum, so you'll need to have a bit of patience, but that will for sure be my first release coming up now. Do have a look at the forum as well by the way. Lots of info on electronic music and also concert information etc. to find there. OK when I have more information on the CD I'll let you know for sure.

SammichFM (Part 6)

2011-11-15T15:23:00.000+01:00

In the last post I was at the point that the MIOS booted OK and now it was time to take it to the next level and program the software for the SammichFM. To do this you hook it up with the Midi input and output to your PC and run an application called MIOS studio. It actually talks to the processor of midi. It didn't work to begin with and after a few minutes I found out that one jumper on the main PCB was in the wrong position. After changing this the software was uploading alright.

The uploading of the software doesn't even take that long, but after that the SammichFM reboots and at first boot it starts to format it's memory banks. Since there are quite some installed by default that process takes a little while. Then finally after that you have a working synthesizer. So the big question was if it would actually produce sounds as well. I still was not sure about the soldering of those SMD components.

So I hooked up a midi keyboard and it worked! :) Always a very satisfying feeling when you can actually play on a synthesizer that you just build with your own hands. There was just one odd thing, there was only one preset in there. After reading a bit in the documentation I found out quickly that this was normal behavior and that you had to put in the factory presets by uploading a sysex file to it over midi. So I did and had some fun with it. It is a nice polyphonic synthesizer and it sounds very .... FM like :) Reminded me right away of the Yamaha DX series that were very popular in the 80's. All in all a very musically usable machine I think :) OK. Enough for today. Next up is to finish up the enclosure. Coming soon!

Apollo 7 on Elektroland #135

2011-11-15T08:47:00.000+01:00

My new Apollo album has gotten airplay on radio stations all over the world. Unfortunately I mostly hear it afterwards, but some radio stations also post their show as podcasts on the Internet, so you can listen to them later if you missed them. The Danish radio show Elektroland does the same thing fortunately. Bjorn Jeppesen played my Apollo 7 track on his 135th show. You can download the show or listen to it online on this URL: http://www.nattefrost.dk/elektroland

Virtual DIY Project (Part 3)

2011-11-14T16:23:00.000+01:00

I worked a few more hours on the virtual DIY project. The first thing I did is to bend the leads of the transistors to match them with the holes on the PCB. During this process I also experimented a bit with the new physical rendering engine of Cinema 4D R13. It is a completely new render engine and it supports depth of field now. This engine looks way better than the old one, but I have to learn how to use it now. Here was my first attempt.

I'm sure it will get better :) The rest of the pictures on this post are rendered with the old render engine by the way. In the picture on the right you can see the new part of the PCB that I made last night. I didn't make any new objects this time, just a lot of copying, pasting, rotating and placing objects. I think it is starting to look quite OK already, but still lots to do.

And in the picture on the left is an overview picture. As you can see I'm about half way now. I think I'll need about 2 more days to get all the components on the PCB. I don't mind though it is fun to see this project grow and I'm learning a lot in the mean time about Cinema 4D R13. A lot of new features to discover and also I have to get used to the fact that some functions have moved to different places in the user interface. More soon!

SammichFM (Part 5)

2011-11-14T13:17:00.000+01:00

With the electronics all done it is time to assemble the case. It is made up of several pieces of plastic that are hold together by bolts and nuts. It is kind of a sandwich construction with a bottom panel and top panel and the side panels will be squeezed between those eventually. In the picture on the left you can see the bottom panel of the whole construction. I only think I will add some rubber things under the case since now the screws are sticking out.

Then on top of this the base PCB is mounted. And on top of that go the spacers that will support the front panel PCB. On the left of the base PCB you can see the connectors that will eventually connect the base PCB and the front panel PCB. It provides power to the front panel PCB, but also the IO of the display, knobs, leds and rotary encoder. So it is kind of a bus system. Very clever I think. No need for extra wiring at all.

And on the left is a picture of the whole sandwich. Again some spacer go on top of the PCB that will eventually support the front panel it itself. I think this is quite an ingenious construction actually that Wilba came up with. It allows for easy access of the PCB's and it keeps everything easy and tidy. I'm not too good with mechanical stuff and case building, but even I can do this :) The rest of the case construction will follow later.

So when that done it was time to put the power on it and see if it actually was doing anything :) After switching it on you can see in the picture on the right that it worked. It shows 'Ready' in the display. Telling that the MIOS operating system is running on the PIC. It is kind of like the BIOS of a PC, but not the Operating System yet. Through this MIOS system you can upload software in the Midibox based synthesizer and that software determines its functionality. So that will be the next step in the next post. So far so good :) Still no smoke ;)

Virtual DIY Project (Part 2)

2011-11-13T13:04:00.000+01:00

Last night I worked some more on the PCB. I downloaded some of the components you see here, but also designed some of them myself. I'm quite happy actually about the blue Bourne trimmers I created. So slowly but surely I'm filling the PCB. I also had some work on bending the legs of the components. I ended up using the bend deformer in Cinema 4D. Great stuff once you understand how it works :)

And here is the project again a step further in completion. Now I also added some header connectors and capacitors. I also made the ceramic capacitors (brown) and polyester capacitors (red) from scratch. As you can see the three modules on the PCB next to each other are identical, so it was easy to copy paste them. I only had to make some minor adjustment to the placement of a few parts.

And here is a complete overview of the whole PCB, so you can see how far I'm into the project now. You can click on all the pictures for a bigger version by the way. I still have lots of work to do, but it is so much fun that I seem to lose track of time when I'm working on it. I can't wait to start animating it. I think I have most necessary components now, so for the major part of the projects it will be copying components and placing them in the right spot. More coming soon :)

Anatek SMP-16 Manual

2011-11-13T12:32:00.000+01:00

The Anatek SMP-16 is a very versatile automated Midi and Audio patch bay. I have two of them in my studio and I love them. They are noise free and you can patch from the menu on the front and even save presets. It is an ideal studio tool. (If you have one on sale let me know because I'll buy it from you). It is just impossible to find a manual online apparently, since I had a lot of questions about it already in the past. I was lucky enough to get a manual on paper and even in English :) So today I decided to scan it and share it for anyone else that is looking for it. Since the company is bankrupt for years now I guess they won't mind me putting it online ;)

You can download it here: http://www.synth.nl/files/Anatek%20SMP-16%20Manual.pdf

SammichFM (Part 4)

2011-11-13T10:30:00.000+01:00

The next step in the building of the SammichFM is to solder all the components on the front panel PCB's. In this picture you can see all the IC sockets, switches, transistors, resistors and capacitors already on the PCB. Actually this is a quite straight forward job. Only on the bottom two right switches you have to cut the leads very short, because otherwise they would touch the heat sink of the power regulator on the base PCB when the whole synth is assembled. Something not to forget.

Then you have to put some spacers on the PCB again. This time to put the front panel in place in order to solder the leds in place. By putting the front panel on, you can stick the leds through the holes simply by turning everything upside-down. Then the leds fall into their intended positions. Because the whole thing is upside-down the leds can't fall out anymore and you can solder them on the bottomside. A simple trick but very effective. Everything looks good.

After this the PCB's are done and it is time to do some power tests, just to see if there are no short circuit. Everything turned out OK, so I put in all the IC's. Basically the electronics part of the project is done now, so it was time for the famous 'smoke test'. I put power on the construction while holding the upper PCB up so that nothing touched each other. And they after applying power feel the IC's to check if they get hot. Well no temperature and no smoke. So all looks great.

And here is a final picture with both finished PCB's. So far I still filmed the whole process and I'm into 3 hours of film by now. Which means I build the whole thing effectively in three hours, but of course over a period of a couple of days. Usually I spend about an hour a day working on a project like this. The next thing will be to assemble the whole case and test the synthesizer. I'm very curious if it will work of course. I'll let you know soon!

Virtual DIY Project (Part 1)

2011-11-12T13:16:00.001+01:00

I currently also working on a virtual DIY project. I'm making some video's about my DIY projects and I want to make a nice intro for that. So I started looking for a nice 3D model of a PCB on the internet, but I could not find anything I like actually. So I decided to make on myself. I started out by taking high res pictures of an EFM Wild Cat PCB that I still had laying around. At the moment I'm creating, downloading and adjusting the components. The idea is to fill the whole PCB. That will be a lot of work I can tell you, so it will take a while before I finish this project. I'll post some updates on the progress on this blog from time to time.

Synth.nl visits Sea World 2011 Video

2011-11-11T19:56:00.002+01:00

This video was initially made for a lecture at school of my youngest daughter about the Killer Whale (Orcinus Orca). On my OceanoGraphy album I also did a track about this magnificent animal called 'Orcinus'. I put that track under this video. I decided to put this video online to promote my OceanoGraphy album that was released in 2009 by Groove Unlimited.

Last summer we visited Sea World in Florida USA with the whole family. I wanted to show these magnificent animals to my kids, of course I'd rather have shown them in the wild, but that is almost impossible. I shot all the video with a little mobile camera from the audience. I made the animations in Cinema 4D. More information on OceanoGraphy here: http://www.synth.nl/OceanoGraphy

SammichFM (Part 3)

2011-11-11T11:13:00.000+01:00

Next up was installing all the electrolytic capacitors. You have to pay attention here since their orientation matters. One leg is clearly longer than the other and the long leg is always the + (positive) side. In this picture you can see a little pile of them (green) between my tools. Maybe a nice moment to point out that is is the minimum of tools you would need for such a project: multimeter, cutting pliers, holding pliers, de-solder pump,some screw drivers and a soldering iron.

Here you can see the capacitors already on the PCB. As you can see most of them lay flat, so you need to bend the legs for those, and two are mounted standing up. On this picture also the connectors are already installed: Two midi connectors, two audio jacks, a power connector for the external 9V power supply and a Commodore 64 style power switch. On the front right is also a crystal install. I did solder that too quickly so it is not so neat on the PCB, but it'll work.

The next step is a tricky one. You have to install the big power regulator with two heat sinks. The whole construction has to be put on top of each other with heat pasta in between. That stuff is nasty and stick to everything, so you will have to practice the assembly first without the pasta and when you got the hang of it you do it one more time with the pasta on and try not to get it on your hands, cloths and the rest of the PCB. As you can see I did OK ;)

And then it is time to fit the LCD display on the front panel PCB. For this you have to put the spacers between the PCB's and put the connectors in place. Only like this you can solder them in the right height. The tricky thing though is that you can solder the connectors on the base PCB from the bottom, but you will have to solder the rest from the top, since you can't reach the bottom of that PCB this way. Once everything is soldered you can cut the leads and take the whole construction apart again.

SammichFM (Part 2)

2011-11-10T12:45:00.000+01:00

The next task in building the SammichFM was to install all the resistors. As you can see they are all 1% resistors and I always find it challenging to read the color codes on those. You easily mistake a 1K for a 10K resistor, so I tend to measure them all with a multimeter. Just to be sure. Luckily the resistor values are written on the PCB of the SammichFM, so it is easy. So measure a resistor and look for it on the PCB. You don't even need a part list for this process.

After the resistors it was time for the IC sockets Nothing difficult about that. The only trick I always use is to hold them with one hand with the PCB up-side-down and solder just one pin on the edge with the other hand. Then I look if it is in straight and if not I reheat just that one pin and readjust it. When you have already soldered multiple pins that is almost impossible. Then I solder the diagonal opposite pin (furthest away) and check again. After this you can solder the rest, since the socket can't move anymore.

Then it was time for the capacitors. And also a ferrite bead, a crystal and two diodes. Especially for the latest two you need to pay attention because their orientation matters. So far all the components are very flat and in this way you can easily roll the PCB over and solder on the bottom side. This, of course, is also the reason why you should solder in your components in this order. If you start with the highest components you lose this advantage.

And here a final picture of the OPL3 chip more up close, just because I thought it was a nice picture :) You can also clearly read the text on it. The PCB is full with little 'Easter Egg' jokes by the way. Wilba must have been in a very funny mood when he designed it, but I enjoy them while working. Not everything in life has to be so serious. I'm also still filming it all and it looks like I'll have enough nice material later on. In the mean time I've put my camera on permanent power, so that an empty battery won't spoil the fun again. Next post coming soon!

SammichFM (Part 1)

2011-11-09T16:05:00.000+01:00

Today I started a new DIY project as well. I'm going to build a SammichFM synthesizer. Like the name suggests it is a sister of the SammichSID, but this time not based on the Commodore SID chip but on the Yamaha OPL3 chip (also know as YMF262). This was also a famous sound chip from the 8 bit computer era. It is a 4 voice stereo FM synthesizer. It was used on several famous sound cards like the Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 and the Sound Blaster 16 ASP.

The first task in building this kit is right away the most challenging one as well. The sound chip and 4 other components are so called SMD components. SMD components are surface mounted which means they don't have leads sticking through holes in the PCB, but they rest flat on the PCB and you have to solder the pins to pads on the PCB surface. These pads are very small and very close together. I did need my glasses for this and a magnifying glass to check if I did everything right afterwards.

Wilba was so nice to put some flux in the kit to help improving the flow of the solder. That made things a bit easier. I did solder some pins together though. (It is almost undo-able not to make this mistake by the way) So you need some means to remove excessive solder as well. I used my de-solder pump for this. But in the end I got it right. In the picture on the left you see the remaining parts that I still have to put on there. But those are all conventional 'trough hole' components, so that should be a lot easier :)

Next to taking picture for my blog, I'm also filming most part of the construction of the SammichFM. So hopefully I can show you a nice video as well when it is done. Only during my work I'm not paying much attention to the camera of course and today already the battery ran out during filming and I didn't see that until after I had put on all the SMD components. I just watched how far it filmed and I have enough I think to show the process, even though I can't film to close but I guess you'll get the idea. OK enough for today. I'll continue this project soon and I will post updates on this blog from time to time.

SammichSID Repair

2011-11-09T14:19:00.000+01:00

Today I heated up the solder iron again. It was a really long time ago that I used it due to all kinds of other projects. The first thing I wanted to do today is repair the SammichSID. I had been laying disassembled on my desk for a long time and I always worry then that parts might be lost. I found out earlier that it was behaving strangely because two leds didn't function properly. Actually this is the first time in my life that I encountered leds being broken, but apparently it can happen.

Luckily I was able to buy the exact same leds on E-bay from a shop in Hong Kong. Otherwise I had to replace them all. First I cut the leads of the old leds and tested them while out of the PCB. They still didn't work so my diagnose was right. I de-soldered the cut of leads from the PCB and then put in the new ones. After that I tested it and everything was fine :) I also upgraded the SammichSID to the latest OS and then couldn't resist playing on it for a while. The sound coming from those Commodore SID chips is still something special for me :) OK. At least I could take one point of my todo list again today :)

Radio Interview with Bruce Gall

2011-11-08T14:10:00.000+01:00

On Sunday the 6th of November 2011, Bruce Gall did a 2 hour Synth.nl Special on my music. He played all 12 tracks of my Apollo album and we did an extensive interview between the tracks. The show was broadcasted on AR FM. With kind permission of Bruce, I put a copy of the interview on my website. I shortened the music and removed most of the commercials so that it is easier for you to listen to the interview. You can find it on my website on this URL:

http://www.synth.nl/interviews.

There you can also find my previous interviews. I hope you enjoy it, at least I did :)

Back to some DIY projects soon

2011-11-06T17:07:00.000+01:00

I know some of you are following this blog for my DIY electronics projects. I didn't have much time the last period to work on that unfortunately. I had an album to release and I just finished another release for a sampler CD that is coming beginning of next year. The only thing left to do for this year is another Christmas track for the Syndae Christmas special. But in the mean time I put some project on my work bench. I have to replace to leds on my SammichSID and I have a new SammichFM synth to build, and then there is more than enough work on my DIY modular and still lots of cabling jobs to do in the studio. So stay tuned and hopefully I'll have some nice non-musical posts up for you in the coming period for those who like electronics.

Rob Papen visits Synth.nl Apollo Studio Video

2011-11-05T19:48:00.000+01:00

A while ago Rob Papen visited my Apollo studio. Together with his crew he was filming some footage for his upcoming book and DVD about sound design on synthesizers. While they were filming in my studio I filmed them with my own camera. So this short movie is sort of a 'making of'. More info about the DVD will follow on http://www.robpapen.com. I made all the 3D animations in this movie with Cinema 4D. You can watch it here:

Korg Kronos and Roland Jupiter-80 in the Studio

2011-10-31T20:20:00.000+01:00

When I visited the Musik Messe in Frankfurt last year, there were two new synths being presented: the Korg Kronos and Roland Jupiter-80. I saw and heard the potential of these two monster synths directly and ordered them right away on the way back home. It has taken a while and I had to sell some stuff beforehand to make room in both the physical and financial sense, but finally they arrived. Never did I wait so long for something to arrive, but I'm sure I won't regret it. I'm still busy with a release that needs to be done in a week, so I haven't gotten much time yet to play with them, but looking through the menus is very promising. Both synthesizers have one thing in common though: The factory presets are very bad. I really don't get why manufacturers do that. Always the same standard sounds :( Well that does leave room for creativity I guess. I already wrote a little review about the Jupiter-80 before on my blog, but now I can finally compare it to the Kronos as well.

The first thing I noticed when I turned on the Kronos is that it has a noisy fan :( I don't like that at all. Another thing is the build quality: compared to the Jupiter-80 the Kronos feels like a toy. The knobs are very cheap. The keyboard of the Jupiter-80 on the otehr hand plays like a dream and it feels like a tank. I can't say the Kronos keyboard is bad, but the Roland is more my thing. In terms of sound they both are fat, but the Kronos is obviously more versatile with it's 9 different sound engines and much more modulation options. The Jupiter sounds a bit bigger though in my opinion, but I have always preferred the Roland sound so I'm biased I guess. I really can't wait to start programming my own sounds on both of them, because the possibilities are there for sure. I'm very sure you will hear the both of them on future albums :) I'll write a bit more about them in the future when I have more hands on experience.

Live Radio Interview with Terry Hawke

2011-10-30T14:27:00.000+01:00

Last night I did a very nice interview with Terry Hawke during his weekly Hawkes Chill Out Sessions at Harbourough FM

We especially talked about my new 'Apollo' album and what it means to me, but of course some other stuff as well. You can find a copy here:
http://www.synth.nl/interviews

Next week I'll do another interview with Bruce Gall on his Sunday Synth radio show. I'll try to record that as well, but you can also tune in live on Sunday 6th of November from 10-12 AM (UK time) at http://www.arfm.co.uk
I hope you enjoy it! At least I did :)

Synth.nl on Sound Cloud

2011-10-22T13:15:00.001+02:00

Since yesterday I also put my music on Sound Cloud. You can find all the samples I also have on my website there. But still some people can't use the flash player I have on there apparently. This seems to work on Apple Ipads as well and so on. You can also comment on certain pieces of a track if you want. I think this is a very nice new way to share music and interact with the artist. I also put the new Apollo sound clips on Last.FM, ReverbNation, iLike, MySpace and Hyves. So all of you should have a good chance to listen to my music now. I hope you like it and buy the CD when you like what you hear. You can find my SoundCloud profile here: http://www.soundcloud.com/synthnl

Synth.nl - Apollo Promo Video 2011

2011-10-16T18:28:00.003+02:00

Here is a video I made for the promotion of my newly released Apollo album. I made all the 3D animations myself with Cinema 4D. This video was shown during the E-live festival that my record label Groove Unlimited organized on the 15th of October 2011. You can watch it full screen in 1080p (Full HD).

Synth.nl visits Electronic Circus 2011

2011-10-07T12:03:00.000+02:00

Last weekend I visited the Electronic Circus Festival (EC) in Gutersloh Germany. I went there this time together with fellow musician and friend Remy Stroomer. Every year the EC team organizes a nice pre-festival dinner with the artists and we decided to go there this year as well, so we already arrived on Friday. We had a very nice dinner at a Greek restaurant were I met some familiar faces but also some new ones. Next to the EC team (Hans Herman Hess in the picture with me on the left) I had some time to talk Glenn Main Hendriksen, Bernard Poulard and Steen Chorchendorff Jørgensen. After the dinner I went to a small pub together with Remy Stroomer and we concluded this nice evening.

The next day we went to the circus early and we arrived about the same time as Ron Boots from Groove Unlimited. We helped Ron unloading all his stuff and started to build up the stall from where both Groove and myself sold CD's during the day. In the picture you see Ron in the middle, his wife Monique on the left and myself on the Right. When the stall was ready I had the pleasure to meet Michel Huygen who is also known as Neuronium. We had some very nice talks during the day and we are still in touch even after the festival now. It is always great to meet a lot of interesting people during a day like this. Also Gandalf was present and I did meet him, but there was not much time to talk for me. Later on the day I agreed to play a little video I made for the promotion of my album and I wanted to test this on the beamer that the Wave World guys brought a long.

It was nice to meet these guys as well and the funny thing is that Gert van Santen actually lives a few hundred meters from my house and I met him there for the first time. I had a lot of trouble to get the beamer working and in the end it turned out that the HDMI cable was broken. Luckily the Wave World guys brought their own cable and we could fix it. Glenn Main Hendriksen didn't have anything with him with HDMI though so we agreed that I would play his video and backing track from my notebook. He gave a great concert I think and luckily my notebook didn't give any trouble. I must admit that I was quite nervous for that. I also saw part of the Wave World concert later on. Great to see how these guys go all the way with costumes and make-up and everything. Great show.

Then it was time for my video. Unfortunately the timing was not great for that. People already had to wait a long time before the Picture Palace Music concert was starting. Also they build up a big modular wall in front of the screen. Ah well. I was happy that it played and I hope someone will look up my album because of it. I even did sell some CD's after the concerts were over which is quite unusual. I will play it again at the E-live festival on a better moment I hope. But the disaster stroke for me. I agreed with Thorsten Quaeschning to start their video on the laptop that was next to mine. And then something awful happened. After switching over the HDMI cable to their laptop, it all looked fine, but when I pressed play after Thorsten did his count down the video player just crashed and the video froze. :( I felt very bad at the moment, but we just could't get it to work anymore. We rebooted the notebook and there was even a password on there. Luckily Thorsten was cool about it and came down from the podium to fix it himself and they just played on like nothing happened. So this last hour was a bit stressful for me to be honest. Luckily the concert was great and there was an after party with some beers to relax again.

All in all I had a really great day. Thanks a lot to everyone involved in the organization of this marvelous event and to all the nice people I talked to during both the dinner and the event itself. It is surely a day to remember. Too bad these days always fly by. I'll be back for sure next year! Now I'm looking forward to the E-live festival on the 15th of October! Maybe I'll see you there?

Apollo 9 and 11 on KlangArten Podcast #34

2011-10-06T09:33:00.000+02:00

This week my Apollo album is also featured on the German KlangArten podcast #34. Brammi played two tracks: Apollo 11 and Apollo 9. This last track is not on my own website so you can listen to it by listening the podcast online or download it and listen to it later.

You can find KlangArten on this URL:

http://www.klangarten.de

EarthRise on Elektroland #133

2011-10-05T15:42:00.000+02:00

Slowly but surely I'm sending out Apollo promos to radio stations and it is getting some airplay. This week the song 'EarthRise' was played by Bjorn Jeppessen on his radio show Elektroland. It is also available as a podcast so you can still listen to it or download the show and listen at a more convenient time. You can find his radio show including my song on this URL:

http://www.nattefrost.dk/elektroland

Synth.nl - Apollo Released on CD!

2011-10-02T17:18:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I released my fourth solo CD. For this album, I was inspired by the Apollo Moon missions, undertaken by NASA during the 60’s and 70’s of the previous century. Since I was born in 1969, the same year that Neil Amstrong set foot on the Moon, I have always felt a very strong connection to this event. Listening to this album will take you on a voyage from the Earth to the Moon and back again. Many of the astronauts that actually took this journey have stated that they went up there to discover the Moon, yet really discovered Earth. Before Apollo, no-one had ever traveled far enough away to actually see the whole planet in one view. Pictures of that beautiful blue marble floating in space have become famous the world over and have made mankind feel more interconnected than ever before. In my opinion, the Moon landings represent human’s greatest technological achievement up to date. I really hope to live the day that we will be able to return there.The album was released by Groove Unlimited at the Electronic Circus Festival in Gütersloh Germany on the 1st of October 2011. You can find more information, sales links and sound clips on this URL: http://www.synth.nl/Apollo

Apollo Sound Clips Online

2011-09-27T13:05:00.002+02:00

It is always very scary to put a new album out there in the wild, but I guess waiting won't make it less scary ;) So, today I decided to put 5 tracks online for you on my website. Just like it did with my previous albums these are Low Quality MP3 files. The Quality on the CD will be much better and there are 12 tracks on the CD with a total length of 71 minutes. I selected these tracks, but I could have taken others as well. I think the album is very varied so it is difficult to take a few tracks to represent the whole album, but I guess this will give you a rough idea. The tracks are in a Flash player, so in able to hear them you will need a recent version of Adobe Flash player installed on your computer. If you don't have Flash you will have to wait a little longer until the tracks come available on various other websites. You might need to clear you browser cache by the way if you visited this page before and don't see tracks in the player. I hope you like the music you can find it on http://www.synth.nl/Apollo. The album will be released on CD on the 1st of October 2011. You can already order it from Groove Unlimited. The sales link is next to the player. Enjoy!

Another Apollo Premiere on Dreamscape Radio

2011-09-25T16:39:00.000+02:00

Today a second track from my upcoming Apollo album is getting its first airplay. Ron Boots played the track 'Apollo 13' on his latest Dreamscape Radio podcast #158 today. You can listen to this podcast only this week so be quick to tune in. You can find the podcast at this URL: http://www.dreamscaperadio.nl

More information about the album: http://www.synth.nl/Apollo

Apollo Radio Premiere on Syndae #148

2011-09-24T10:18:00.000+02:00

I know I made you wait a long time for this album and I'm sorry for that. It took a lot more work this time than I anticipated to finish off the album, but now I have good news. Finally you can hear a first glimpse of the music of the album. On Syndae podcast #148 Stefan has another premiere. He plays the opening track of the album called 'LaunchPad'. It closes of the show, so it is the latest track. Stefan didn't play to whole track by the way, but at least it will give you an idea how the album starts. More will come soon, I'm sending out the album previews to several radio shows this weekend. I hope you enjoy it and do let me know what you think. It is always scary and exciting at the same time to release a new album out there. You can find the Syndae podcast on this URL: http://www.syndae.de

Some Apollo Aftermath

2011-09-21T17:16:00.000+02:00

For the musical side of my upcoming Apollo album I have only one more thing to do and that is to compile the final Master CD for the pressing plant tomorrow together with Ron Boots. After that we are going to bring it together to the pressing plant, but even last night I visited my friend Hans for some last second changes in the masters. But today I had time to do some after math and archive of all the files from the project. And then I just realized how much time and data has been involved in this project. So I guess it would be nice to share this information with you and let you in a bit on the process that took me to the end result.

The Apollo project has know several stages. It all started out with an idea to do an album about the NASA Moon mission, since I was born in 1969 and always felt very connected with the Moon Landing by Neil Amstrong. So after I decided this was going to be the subject for a new album, I started looking for original NASA recordings that were broadcasted on the radio in that time. I ended up buying a royalty free set of CD's with 211 original recording of the astronauts and ground control talking. That was about 138 Mbyte data in mp3 format that was the spark that started this album. Then I started reading about these mission and also collected a lot of pictures from the Internet that I use to give my inspiration. In total 124 of them being 272 Mbyte of data.

After that a pre-production stage started. In this period I always start with making a whole library of sound effects on my modulars that I can use later on as details for the music. Don't ask me why I start with this, that is just my workflow and mostly either the samples or the SFX in spark a melody that starts to become a song later on inspired by a picture from the collection that I made. In total I made 387 sound effects being 899 Mbytes of data. In this period I also started to look a lot of documentaries about the Apollo space mission. I also involved the kids in this process and we even started to build plastic model kits of the Saturn rocket and the Moon Lander etc. Very inspiring I must say.

Then the inspirational stage started were I started to play melodies and tried to make arrangements from these song. By then I already had the idea including a picture in my head for 12 tracks that would represent the whole story over the CD. So in fact I had like a story board that animators also use to make a movie. There actually also the idea started to make a movie along with the music. But I'll get back to that another time. In this period I recorded a lot of stuff. I ended up with 941 recordings representing 44.7 Gbytes of data that I had to chose from later on to make songs. I do all my recordings in 48 Khz / 24 bit by the way in case you are interested in that kind of stuff.

Then it was time for the production stage. Here I start selecting the recordings and producing arrangements in my sequencer software that happens to be Cakewalk Sonar X1 Producer Edition. I ended up with 489 files representing 47.7 Gbyte of data where I combined the music I recorded with the Apollo samples and Sound Effects I made before. Since I did 12 tracks on average that was 40 tracks per song and 4 Gbyte of data per song. Some songs even make version 30 or 40. I worked on this process for about 2 years. And based on the calculations of my version numbers per track that represent normally a days work I worked 293 days in this process with on average 8 hour work days.

Then it was time for me to step back a bit and let my good friend Hans Landman do the mastering. He asked me to mix my original tracks down to sub buses that he could work with. He got 237 files from me being 23.8 Gbyte of data. Still in 48 Khz / 24 bit by the way. From these buses Hans made a new mix and added EQ and compression on each of these bussen resulting in much louder, but also more polished and cleaner track. I really liked what he did, but we had several sessions making adjustments. Big in the beginning small in the end. On average for every song there were about 12 versions before we were satisfied enough to go to the next stage.

Hans also did the sample rate conversion from 48 Khz to 44.1 Khz and dithered everything so that I was left with 12 tracks in 44.1 Khz / 16 bit that could fit on CD. In total that was 720 Mbytes of data left from the original 47 Gbytes or so. Amazing right? These track I will take tomorrow to my other good friend Ron Boots who compiles the final CD for me. In the mean time I also worked on the Artwork of the CD and I am still working on the movie with 3D animations that will go together with the official launch of the CD on the 1st of October. I hope this little aftermath has given you a bit of an insight in the whole process of creating this CD. And as always if you have questions feel free to ask. Pictures Courtesy of NASA (www.nasa,gov)

Final Text Apollo Album Online

2011-09-20T12:04:00.001+02:00

Today I finalized the artwork for the Apollo album. It had to be sent to the pressing plant today in order to make the release date on the 1st of October. My friend Hans helped my out a lot with correcting and improving the text and Remy Stroomer helped me out with the layout. Thanks guys! I just put some of the text online for you to read on my website, so you can already read what inspired me to create this album and you can also read what all 12 tracks will be about. There is some more text in the booklet that goes with the CD. So you can read that later on if you buy the album. Concerning the music I just suggested some minor last second changes after listening to the masters again today. Probably nobody will hear the difference :) So we are as good as done with all the music as well. Two radio shows will probably air the first tracks from Apollo this coming weekend. After that some previews will be online, but I'd like to give them the premiere. You can read the text here http://www.synth.nl/Apollo also the pre-order link is on there ;)

Apollo 3D Project (Part 14)

2011-09-17T14:48:00.000+02:00

Last week I was in the USA for a business trip, but I took my notebook and headphones with me. In this way I could continue the mastering process with Hanz by listening and giving feedback. But I could also work more on my 3D project in the time I had left between meetings. On the left you see a picture of the Saturn V rocket on the launch pad. As you can see the crawler that transported it is gone. I simulated the filling of the rocket with liquid Oxygen. During this filling you can see the fumes coming from the rocket. An awesome sight. Of course this will be all animated in the movie.

Another scene I did is the famous Earth Rise picture. I animated this by moving across the surface of the Moon with a steady view of the partly lighted Earth in the back. I also did some work on the whole moon landing and take off sequence, but I don't have any nice still pictures of those at this time, since I'm not completely happy yet with them. But the animations are useable enough now for the movie.

After the take off from the Moon part of the Moon lander stays on the Moon. Only the cabin, called ascent stage, is returning to dock with the Command Module again. This is also called the Rendez-Vous. After this the 2 crew members that were in the Moon Lander return to the Command Module and the Ascend Stage is jettisoned into space, since it is no longer necessary.

After this they return the astronauts return to Earth in the Command Module, but before they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere the capsule separates from the rest of the Command Module that is then also jettisoned into space. So eventually from the whole Saturn V rocket you saw in the first pictures only the capsule on the left remains and lands back into the Ocean.

Tonight I'm going to visit my friend Hans again for another mastering session. I hope we can finish everything tonight actually. I'll keep you updated on that.

Synthesizers and Effects used on Apollo

2011-09-07T18:03:00.003+02:00

Usually when I release a new album I get the question what synthesizers I used and most of the time I don't remember, but now I think I do ;) So here is a list of the synthesizers I used to create the upcoming Apollo album and also a list of the effects that were used. OK here for the synths: ARP 2600, Elka Synthex, Moog Minimoog, Moog Memorymoog, Moog Taurus III, Moog Voyager RME, Roland Jupiter 8, Roland System 100m, Roland SH-09, Roland SH-5, Roland V-Synth XT, Roland V-Synth GT, Roland GAIA, Korg Radias, Korg M3, Access Virus TI Polar, Nord Modular G2X, Waldorf Microwave 1, Arturia Origin,Anywhere Instruments Semtex XL, Alesis Andromeda A6, Eminent 310 Unique, Novation Ultranova and a Acid Lab Miami drum machine. I also used some software synthesizers.

All songs were recorded and arranged in Cakewalk Sonar X1 Producer Edition. Recording was done using Lynx Aurora 16 AD converters and RME MADI interfaces. I used quite some effects from my UAD-2 bundle, but also these hardware effects where used. Bricasti M7, Quantec Yardstick 2402/F, Eventide Eclipse, Eventide H8000, Eventide 2016 reverb, Lexicon PCM96 surround, Lexicon PCM91, Sony DPS-V77, TC Electronic Fireworx, Korg SDD-3000, EH Electric Mistress and AKG BX-15. The mastering is being done in Steinberg Cubase 6.1 and Audiofile Wave Editor on OSX Snow Leopard by my friend Hans Landman.

I hope this answers all questions up front and if not do feel free to ask. I'd be more than happy to answer your questions.

Music for Apollo is done. Mastering has started!

2011-08-31T10:38:00.001+02:00

After working almost day and night in the studio the last months to further improve the music on my Apollo album, I decided last night that is was time to stop doing stuff that probably nobody hears anymore. So the music is done now and I'm going to focus now on the final mixing and mastering process with my friend Hans Landman. I can also start finalizing the artwork now, since all track times are final. Here another friend has offered me a helping hand. This weekend I'm going to visit Remy Stroomer who is a designer by profession as I found out. Everything still looks good for the 1st of October release, but it will still be lots of work to get it done in time. Let's hope nothing goes wrong, but at least the music is ready :) If you look close btw on the picture on the left you can see the version numbers on the tracks. In my workflow a version number update means about a day's work. So you can estimate how much work has gone into this album so far. All this work was done in a time span of about two years.

Kurzweil PC3 in the Studio

2011-08-29T15:21:00.002+02:00

Last week I bought a Kurzeil PC3 synthesizer. I have a Kurzweil K2600R and I love especially the strings coming from it, but since it is a module and it is stacked away (and makes a lot of fan noise) I don't use it often. All those sound and some more now are in the PC3 series and you can also easier edit the VAST synth engine since the 2.0 software update. It does like Kurzweil is coming up with something new soon, since the prices have dropped dramatically on the PC3's. It looks like they are being dumped. I decided to go for a 76 keys version with semi-weighted keys. The first synthesizer I actually have with semi-weighted keys. I put it in a nice spot where I can play on it easily in the studio, just between my Yamaha SY-99 and Waldorf Wave 2, which is broken by they way :( So I would say check your local store out you might be able to get the PC3 very cheap as well and I can tell you it sounds awesome :)

Synth.nl visits Formula 1 Spa 2011

2011-08-29T13:34:00.000+02:00

When you follow me for a while you might know by now that I have a passion for motor sports. I always watch every Formule 1 race on TV and one every year I try to visit a race, but the last time was already way too long ago. So last weekend I went to the Belgium Grand Prix together with a table tennis buddy who also loves Formula 1. I was at the Spa circuit before visiting the 24 hours of Spa, but never saw a Formula 1 race there actually, but it is always one of my favorite races in the season.

Since it rains a lot in this area at this time of the year, we decided to get some tribune seats that would keep us dry. Here is a picture on me and Ton on the right taken by a nice fellow Dutchman that was sitting next to us. But even though we hoped for rain, since that gives the most spectacular races, it stayed dry all the time. It had rained the day before though and that meant anyway that everything was covered in mud very quickly also the parking area was quite slippery.

We were sitting in a very nice spot along the track as well. We were right at the famous bus-stop chicane. There the cars arrive at full speed and they have to break very hard then to accelerate onto the straight again. And I don't believe how close to the track we were siting, no more than 50 meters I guess between us and the cars. I still love the noise these cars produce even though I put in ears plugs to protect my ears a bit.

We could also see the cars entering the pit lane right in front of us. Which is important to know he is in the lead or not, since the whole order is shaken up when the pit stops start. But luckily as well we had a very big TV screen right in front of us just across the track so we could follow the race very well and also see what happened on other parts of the track. The only downside was that there was a big fence in between us and the track. I brought my video camera as well and planned to film just like I did in Le Mans, but unfortunately that was not very successful. So no video this time, maybe next time. All in all I had a great day and a necessary little break again from the music of my Apollo album. But today I'm back in the studio working on the last bits and pieces. I actually must have the music ready by the end of this week, so time is running out. But don't worry I'm almost there. The finish line is in sight :)

Apollo 3D Project (Part 13)

2011-08-26T23:19:00.000+02:00

I worked a lot on finished the music for the Apollo album the last weeks, so I didn't have much time to work on the 3D stuff. But today I didn't feel very well and I couldn't set my mind to the music, so I picked up the 3D work. I did another version of the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building. This time I use an extra plugin called Vue X-stream to add an atmosphere. The clouds and the sunlight are generated by this plugin. They are computer generated and no pictures. This stuff actually moves too and you can use wind and everything. The only problem is though that this still picture rendered for like 28 hours. So I guess I'd need to cut back on the quality to make an animation from it.

I couldn't help myself and just had to try some other stuff with this software too. Here is a picture I rendered with only Vue. I think it looks so cool :) You see the Sun shining through the thick cloud layer and the water also looks amazing. And yes the water animates too and responds also to wind etc. I did color correct the picture a little bit afterwards, but not much. I guess this kind of atmosphere is a bit too dramatic though for the Apollo project. But I sure love it :)

And here was my first attempt of a sun set with Vue. Only a sun, some water and some clouds. It is amazing that you can generate this with a computer isn't it? I'm sure you'll see more picture like this from me and I can't wait to do animation as well. I think they will go well with my music. But enough distraction for now, I need to go back to the music. So far it is looking good. I'm still on schedule and Hans has also started the mastering process in the mean time. We are fine tuning the mixes now, but musically everything is as good as done. So still go for the 1st of October as it looks now. I'll keep you posted.

New Website Design for Apollo

2011-08-20T11:55:00.000+02:00

To get you in the mood for my upcoming Apollo album I decided to give my website a redesign. I made a new Apollo theme. I hope you like it. Have a look on http://www.synth.nl and let me know what you think of it. And please do report if you run into any kind of problems so I can look into it. Please also take the time two read the articles on my main website. If you do not want to miss out this kind of news you can subscribe to my newsletter. Instructions are on http://www.synth.nl/contact

Apollo Record Contract Signed!

2011-08-20T11:19:00.001+02:00

Last week I signed a record contract with my label Groove Unlimited for my upcoming Apollo album. So now everything is official. Apollo will be released on the 1st of October on the Electronic Circus festival in Gütersloh Germany.

You can already pre-order the album from Groove Unlimited and if you pick it up from either the Electronic Circus Festival in Germany on the 1st of October or the E-live festival in Oirschot in the Netherlands on the 15th of October you will get an additional 10% discount and of course no shipping costs.

You can find more information on the festivals on these URL's:

Electronic Circus Festival -> http://www.electronic-circus.net/
E-live Festival -> http://www.e-live.nl

You can pre-order the album from Groove Unlimited on this URL -> http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artiest=synth.nl

The album will be available later from more locations, both as physical CD and also as digital download in high quality. You can find more information on the album here -> http://www.synth.nl/Apollo

I'm currently still working hard on finishing both the album and the artwork. Also the mastering still has to be done. Preview will follow as soon as possible. Please contact me if you have any questions.

Making the last SFX on the SH5 for Apollo

2011-08-16T13:27:00.000+02:00

Today I started making the last sound effects I need for my upcoming Apollo album. I used my beloved Roland SH-5 for these sound effects. It has a lovely noise generator and excellent filter with perfect auto-oscillation for nice effects when you turn the resonance up. And also the LFO's are very nice to use. So I like it a lot for these kind of things. The Apollo project is really getting in the last stages now. 6 of the 12 tracks are done now, 5 almost done and 1 still needs a bit of work, but so far my planning looks still OK for release on the 1st of October. I'm currently fixing little errors as well together with my friend Hans and he is already starting up the mastering process for some of the finished tracks as well. I still need to finalize the artwork as well. But there is light on the end of the tunnel :)

5 Free SchallPlatte 13 CD's on DreamScape Radio Show

2011-08-14T13:07:00.001+02:00

Ron Boots played my Don Quixote track on his latest DreamScape Radio show. As you know this track was released on the SchallPlatte 13 CD that is normally not for sale. But Ron made a great offer. He is giving away 5 free copies of the CD with you next order from Groove Unlimited. To go to the Groove website and pre-order my new Apollo CD ;) or any other CD you like of course and then put in the note that you would like a SchallPlatte 13 as well. I'm sure he will run out of them very soon. I thought I'd let you know :) You can find the radio show here: http://dreamscape.groove.nl and order your CD here http://www.groove.nl

Rob Papen filming in the Apollo Studio for his DVD

2011-08-12T22:20:00.000+02:00

Today I had some special visitors in my studio. Rob Papen and his crew (producer Jeroen and cameraman Jochem) came over to film in my studio. Rob is a well know synthesizer musician in the Netherlands from playing in bands like Nova and Peru, but he is also well know sound designer and maybe even famous for his very good software synthesizers like Predator, Blue, SubBoomBass and recently Punch. As you might know Rob also gives courses in synthesizer sound design and he is now working with his crew on a book and DVD about sound design.

Rob filmed quite some material for the DVD in his own studio where he has a Moog Minimoog and a Jupiter 8, but he wanted to show the layout of some other synthesizers as well to explain where they differ from each other, but also what the similarities are. Here you see Rob playing with my Yamaha CS-50 where Rob especially focused on the Ring Modulation and the other features that make the typical sound of this synth.

Rob also had a lot of fun with my DIY modular and one of the dotcom sequencers. Here he explained how patching works and that you can use the sequencer to control the pitch of an oscillator but also to control the cutoff of a filter. He also showed some other examples of sample and hold on the ARP 2600. From time to time we did have to move some synths around to get a good shot and it is a good thing they brought some extra lighting since it is quite dark in my studio which is great for atmosphere shots, but not to explain stuff on synths of course.

Rob also used the Moog Memorymoog and Roland SH-101, but didn't want to stick with only vintage synthesizers. He also did some shoots with the DSI Prophet '08 and seemed to have fun with the D-beam on the Jupiter-80. The problem with filming this synth though is the touch screen so Rob explained that there were 10 Roland GAIA's in there and did some more in depth explanation on the Roland GAIA itself. There were many more things Rob wanted to do I think, but after about 10 of shooting hours we called it a day.

All in all we had a very nice day and I think it was very productive for Rob and his crew. They actually did a little introduction shot with me on it as well, so maybe I'll appear on the DVD as well. Judging from what I heard about what they did so far and what they did today I think it will be a great product to see if you are into synthesizers. I also filmed a bit with my own camera when they were shooting and Rob gave me permission to put it online, so I'll try to make a little compilation to give you an impression of what to expect. I'm really looking forward to the DVD. You can find more information about Rob Papen's software on http://www.robpapen.com btw. And I guess the DVD will be for sale on there later on as well.

Download the free Synth.nl Android or Iphone App!

2011-08-11T14:01:00.000+02:00

You asked for it and here it is! The brand new and totally free Synth.nl Android App (next to the Iphone app that was already available). You can read the latest news, listen to music, watch videos en see pictures on your Android phone.

You can find the Android app on this URL:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.reverbnation.artistapp.i15205

The only problem is that I'm not able to test it myself, but it should work :)

If you have an Iphone you can find the Iphone App here: http://itunes.apple.com/app/id442952466

Testing the Roland Jupiter-80

2011-08-10T19:07:00.001+02:00

At the moment I'm testing the new Roland Jupiter 80. Thanks to Live Music in Arnhem (NL) and Roland. I heard it briefly at the Musik Messe in Frankfurt and I was already pleasantly surprised then, but now that I'm able to play with it myself I'm totally convinced that it is a synth for me. Like I said before I'm not very into the acoustic sounds, however I did enjoy playing with some of those sounds a lot. Like the piano and violin sounds. But my main interest is the VA engine and now I'm sure it sounds like the GAIA engine (which I personally like a lot), but not 9 of them like I wrote before, but 10 actually :) You can even load a synth engine on the percussion part. So that gives a total of 30 1 oscillator synthesizers stacked all together. It is amazing what kind of power and movement you can get into your sounds. Each 1 oscillator synth has its own filter, VCA, LFO, envelopes etc. So imagine stacking that on top of each other 10 times in a single preset :) Bass sounds can have a lot of punch and low end, but you can also get screaming leads from it. But I think it excels really at string and pad sounds. From soft and mellow to grand and wide. That is what I'll be using it for most of the time I guess. Further more the build quality is excellent, the whole thing feels very solid and the keyboard and touch screen are excellent. I like the playing feel of the keys a lot. My kind of thing :) So I would say try it out! Stop whining that it is called Jupiter and that it is not analog, and don't judge it on the acoustic preset demos on YouTube demos with crappy audio, but find a real one and make some sounds yourself instead before you judge it! I'm happy and sad now actually. Happy that I could try it out a bit longer than in Frankfurt but sad that I'll have to return it in a couple of days. Mine is already ordered now and I'll wait impatiently until it is here :)

Remy and Synth.nl in the Apollo Studio

2011-08-08T11:15:00.000+02:00

Here is a picture of Remy Stroomer and me playing music together in my studio. Remy is a very gifted musician who releases music on his own record label 'Desert Island Music' simply under his first name 'Remy' and like me is inspired by Jarre, but his music also tends towards Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. We have met on several music festivals and he also arranged the meeting I had with Jean Michel Jarre a while ago. We have talked about doing some music together a long while ago and the first result was the contribution that I did on his last solo release called 'I-Dentity'. But I have good news: There is more to come. I'm currently working on two other projects together with Remy, but I can't give you the details just yet. But keep an eye out for news :) I'll let you know as soon as things are more clear. But for starters we have had already two very nice and inspiring sessions in my studio and soon I'll be visiting his studio for more.

Apollo Already Up for Pre-Order!

2011-08-06T20:35:00.002+02:00

Groove Unlimited already added my upcoming Apollo album to their website so you can already pre-order the album. In this way you will be sure to be one of the first to have the album as soon as it is out. I heard that already some of you ordered it. Thank you very much for the confidence and I hope of course that you will like it. You can only pre-order Apollo directly from Groove Unlimited at this time. When the album is released it will be for sale on more places. You can get find it at this URL: http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artiest=synth.nl Of course you can also pick it up at the Electronic Circus or E-live festival if you rather get it from me directly.

Apollo Studio Changes

2011-08-03T13:26:00.000+02:00

Last week I got back from holiday and I wanted to get back to my music, but I'm having serious jet lag troubles. I'm very tired and I can really focus unfortunately. I'm sure it will pass in a few days, so I started doing some little studio changes. I recently sold quite some stuff to be able to get some new synths soon. One of the things I did was sell most of the stuff from my mobile modular rack. I only kept the Semtex XL that I put in the modular desk now as you can see. And on the spot where the mobile 19" rack used to be I could now finally put my ARP 2600. So now it has a decent spot where I can play on it and it is also next to my modular desk so that I can patch it to the other synthesizers. I had this in mind for a long time already, but just didn't find the time. Well now it is there I'm quite happy with it.

I also found a new spot for the Blofeld module. I removed the front cover from the Arturia Origin and that just gave me enough room to put it on front of it. So now it is finally on my desk within reach. I'm sure this won't be the final way I set my desk up, but for now it will do. The next major update will be the addition of some new synthesizers. From the stuff I sold I'll buy a new Korg Kronos and a new Roland Jupiter 80. I have ordered them a long time ago, but I'm still waiting for them. I hope to get them soon and then I'll let you know right away of course :)

Alesis iO Dock in the Studio

2011-08-03T12:30:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I picked up an Alesis iO Dock from I4 Muzique in Eindhoven (NL). I think this is one of the best Ipad gadgets out there. I was struggling a bit with the RTP midi over Wifi and really wanted some decent midi adapter. Well here it is :) It has midi in and out and also audio in and out on decent jack connectors. It even has a video out. Another thing is that this thing also acts as a charger at the same time. You can easily slide your Ipad in and out and it is very stable. I can highly recommend it for serious Ipad users who want to use it in the studio. I think you can also hook up and USB midi keyboard if you want to play on some synthesizer that is running on your Ipad but I haven't tested that yet. The midi works great so now I can really start using my favorite App called Midi Touch.

Special CD Delivery to US Fan Mike

2011-08-02T11:45:00.000+02:00

I am in contact with quite some fans over the Internet and I really like the feedback I get on my music in this way. One of those EM fans is Mike Valant. He bought all my CD's and just before we went on holiday he asked me if I could send a Dutch Masters CD to him. I knew that he lives in Florida and we were going that there, so I suggested that I could take it with me to the US to save him some shipping costs. On our trip from Kissimmee to Key West we passed his house and we decided to not post it on the mail, but to deliver it in person. Mike prepared a very nice lunch for us and we had a really nice talk about music. I asked Mike if he would like a preview of my upcoming Apollo album and he was delighted. I'm still not finished with the music and I apologized a couple of times for things that I still needed to finalize, but he liked it a lot already as it was :) We stayed at his house for about 3 hours and then we had to drive on to the Keys otherwise it would get to late before we got there. We had a great time over there and just before we left we made this picture. When we got back home I got an E-mail from Mike that he couldn't wait to get a copy of Apollo in his hands :)

Refuge en Verre Review by Artemi Pugachov

2011-07-31T19:15:00.001+02:00

I received this review of the Refuge en Verre album I did with Ron Boots in my mail. It was done by Artemi Pugachov. I thought it would be nice to share it with you. Enjoy:

This is the first collaborative project of two Dutch electronic artists Ron Boots and Michel van Osenbruggen aka Synth.nl. Both musicians have unique rhythmic / melodic styles, so their influences meld together well to create a work of classic melodic Dutch EM (the "Eindhoven School"). These tracks were performed while both musicians stayed in Belgian Ardennes with their families, so the music has a bit of a pastoral quality to it, without resorting to complete new age relaxation vibe. The title track slowly builds with bass pulsations, floating pads and a wonderful melodic synth solo. It's relaxed, warm and comforting. I like the synth work on this track - everything is in place - the tasty pulsations, the high-flying solos and the warm pads. Some restrained piano notes lend their airy charm to the soundscape. "La Roche-en-Ardenne" kicks in with melancholic pads and a relaxed rocking rhythm. Then a wonderful synth melody appears - rich, symphonic and emotional. Nice stuff that will leave all fans of melodic EM speechless. "Orage d'ete" has an ambient intro loaded with the sounds of nature (do I hear a distant thunder?) and moody pads. Some synth melodies appear as well as some nice flute and sax. This is quite pastoral and reflective. Later in the track a few tribal-like percussion instruments appear but the track remains essentially an ambient effort. "Coucher du Soleil" opens with moody male choirs and some tasty synth effects. A sequence appears and then a rhythm and a rippling synth solo. This track is a bit sad and melancholic. "Contemple du Ciel" begins with mysterious pads and radio voice samples.
A wonderful bass sequence then appears and an electronic tr-808-like rhythm drives this relaxed track forward. I like the way melodies are combined with rhythms on this track. "Rosee du Matin" is very Vangelis-like, with its fat CS-80 style leads and an overall symphonic approach. Really nice and maybe the best track on the entire album. "Combat des Coqs" begins with sounds of roosters but soon a rippling sequence appears. It is supported by a stomping rhythm and a guitar lead. Rocking drums appear and drive the track along. I am not sure if the guitar is real. It sounds like those trademark licks played by Frank Dorittke (at least it is in a similar style) but no guitar player is credited in the liner notes. Anyway, this piece is the most rocking and wild of the lot. "Soleil Levant" arrives with tasty pads and a well-programmed sequence. A slow rhythm then starts, the whole reminding me a bit on Gert Emmens circa "Obscure Movements in Twilight Shades". However, once the solos arrive, you know you're listening to Ron Boots. The sound is very characteristic. Michel adds fine melodic touches as well. A great finish to this pleasant melodic EM album. Recommended.

You can find more information about the album on this URL http://www.synth.nl/Refuge

Synth.nl Mobile Studio in Action

2011-07-21T15:51:00.000+02:00

If you think I'm not doing any music while I'm away you are wrong :) I can't go without my music. Here is the mobile studio I carry around when I'm out on a trip. I run Cakewalk Sonar on my notebook with some soft synths mostly Rob Papen's stuff, I use an Edirol UA-25 sound card with my AKG K-271 headphones and an Akai MPK mini keyboard. Everything is USB powered and runs right on 110 and 230 Volts. On this set I can make music anywhere in the World. I start the projects with soft synths and can use the midi data later to play on my hardware synthesizers when necessary and add some external effects etc. At the moment I am working on a track about the Gemini space missions inspired by our visit to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base last week. I already did a track about the Mercury Project in the past. You can listen to it here if you like: http://www.synth.nl/music/samplers/schallplattexii. Enjoy!

Synth.nl visits Cape Canaveral Air Force Base

2011-07-20T23:29:00.000+02:00

As I wrote before in the previous post on our visit to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida we went on a special tour that also included the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base. On this base are several historic sites such as the launch facilities where the first American Satellite was launched the first American manned space flight and so on. In the picture on the left you can see a Mercury-Redstone rocket on its original launch pad where Alan Shepard launched as the first American in space. The mercury project later on led to the Gemini project and that eventually went into the Apollo program. On this spot you could still see everything as it was back in 1961 when this all happened.

It is nice to see everything on the outside but we also went into the launch building and all the equipment in still in there. It is amazing to see all the old equipment and hear our guide tell how it all was back then. They really had no idea what was going to happen when they launched the first man into space and they just improvised as they went along. Back then they already decided to launch over the Ocean so that if anything went wrong they could let the rocket explode over the Ocean in stead of over the land causing possible civilian casualties. It was also interesting to see how all this knowledge was brought in by a German engineer called Dr. Werner von Braun who just before developed the V2 rockets for the Germans in WWII. There even still was a V2 rocket engine in one of the buildings there.

Here is a view from the window of the launch complex. As you can see they were actually quite close. There was only 300 meters between the rocket and the building. Now-a-days during Space Shuttle launches the minimum safe distance is around 5000 meters, but of course the rockets are bigger as well. The windows you see are actually made out of 3 layers of bullet proof glass to prevent anything from coming trough and the whole building was build like a bunker with blast doors and all. In the picture above you can also see the clocks hanging over head showing local time, count-down, hold-time and Zulu time.

And here is a picture of the Launch Computer. It have been very sophisticated back then, but the logic in there probably would fit 100 times in your mobile phone now. Next to the Mercury launch pad was also the pad where the first American Satellite launched. After this we also visited the Gemini facilities and also the spot where the Apollo 1 crew died in a tragic accident during a plugs out test. And even now there are some active launch pads on the Air Force base where they still launch all kinds of satellites, but we were not allowed to make pictures of those of course ;) All in all I really enjoyed this tour and it really has a magical feel to this early space exploration stuff. I can really recommend taking this tour when you are at the Kennedy Space Center. You will just have to book it up front since there is only one tour a day and they fill up very quickly. I hope you enjoyed this and I'll happily tell you more about it if you are interested. Just let me know. I'm glad I have seen this as it is all part of the whole Apollo and Space Race history.

Synth.nl visits Kennedy Space Center

2011-07-20T15:44:00.001+02:00

As you know I'm in last stage of finishing my upcoming Apollo album. I have been throwing a lot of 3D stuff at you the last period, but here is some real stuff coming. We decided to take a trip to Florida USA where I am at the moment and yesterday we visited the Kennedy Space Center for some final inspiration for the album. I really like to get in the mood for a project like this and I thought there would be no better way than this. Here is a picture of me under the big NASA logo after the entrance.

We booked a special tour called 'now and then' that also visited the air-force base where the Mercury and Gemini projects took place. I will post a separate blog item about that, because it was very special. But on the tour we also saw a lot of the launch pads that are still currently in use and we saw the Vehicle Assembly Building that I just made in 3D. So it was nice to see it for real and get a sense of the size of it. Imagine the size of this thing with a complete Apollo rocket standing in it. In the left corner of the picture you can also see one of the crawlers that were used to transport the Saturn V rocket to the launch pad and just recently was still used to transport the last Space Shuttle to its final destination. We just missed this last launch by the way by a couple of hours :(

Even though the visit to the Air-force base was spectacular, the highlight of the tour was a visit to the Apollo/Saturn V Center. They have the original launch control center of the Apollo 8 flight in there and they made a real launch scenario with it. Everything is automated and while experiencing the launch on a big screen you can feel the vibration and see the whole control center light up and acting long. An awesome experience for sure. I filmed the largest part of it so maybe I can even use this footage somewhere in my promo film later on, since it is quite authentic. After this presentation you are guiding into a big hall where the inspiration got even better.

In that hall is a real Saturn V rocket up for display. It is hanging over your head and the size of it is enormous. It is even way too big to get into a picture. You can see all the stages of the rocket separately and also there is a separate model of the LEM and Command Module. Awesome too see. At the main Kennedy Space facility there is also the rocket garden with a Saturn 1b model, that is a little smaller. All in all I can't wait to continue work on the project now and that was exactly the purpose of this visit :) After the Apollo stuff we also watched some more recent Space Shuttle related things and the last thing we did was a ride on the Space Shuttle Launch Simulator. Awesome :) It really gives you a feel what a real launch is like. If you are ever in the Florida area I can really recommend a visit to the Kennedy Space Center.

Apollo 3D Project (Part 12)

2011-07-17T05:59:00.000+02:00

I created a new scene again for the Apollo 3D project. This time it is the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building where they assembled the complete upright Saturn V rocket on top of the mobile launch pad including the launch tower. NASA still uses this building until today. When the rocket assembly was done the doors would open and they could roll it out on top of a special transporter called the 'crawler'. Most work for these scene went into the parking lot by the way. I hand places all the little cars one by one in their parking space. I just thought it made the scene way more alive than with an empty parking lot.

Here is a close-up of the crawler I just talked about. NASA actually has two of them that were custom build for the job. They are enormous and travel and a maximum speeds of 2 miles an hour. When the crawler drives up the five degrees ramp on the launch pad it uses a special laser guided system to keep the whole platform leveled horizontal to prevent the rocket from tipping over. Also this system is still used until today to transport the Space Shuttles from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. It takes 30 people to operate this vehicle by the way.

And here is another close-up I made of the launch tower itself. You can clearly see the arms that both hold fuel and electrical lines and the top one was used to get the astronauts in just before the launch. At launch time first of all the arms would sweep away from the rocket. The only thing I'm still figuring out is how NASA removes the crawler from user the launch pad eventually. I have seen pictures where the mobile platform stands on some kind of stands, but the whole procedure is not really clear to me yet. So if you know, please enlighten me ;)

And here is one final shot where I combined the moon surface scene I made with the LEM model that I made before. I think this one looks quite convincing now. This one looks ready to animate now, but maybe I should also throw in an astronaut and a flag and maybe some tool. Ah well... we'll see about that. Enough for now I guess. I hope you have enjoyed these series so far and don't forget that you can click the pictures to view a larger version of them. More coming soon!

DonQuixote on RoboCast Podcast #49

2011-07-13T16:36:00.000+02:00

The DonQuixote track that I recently released was played on RoboCast Radio Podcast #49. You can listen to or download the show on this URL: http://robocastradio.podomatic.com/entry/2011-07-13T06_08_24-07_00.

I'd also like to point out again that you can buy the song in my ReverbNation store if you like on this URL: http://www.reverbnation.com/store/index/artist_281496

Enjoy and thanks for your support!

Apollo 3D Project (Part 11)

2011-07-11T20:47:00.000+02:00

I'm still working on the Apollo 3D project. I needed some nice moon surface surroundings for the landing and EarthRise scenes that I'm planning. So I looked really hard for original material. It turned out that a real 3D scan of the Apollo 15 landing site existed, so I focused on that one. You can actually download it as a free 3DS model, but I started out with a picture that was taken by the same Japanese SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer) Lunar Mission that scanned the Apollo 15 landing site. They brought back a huge pile of 3D data from this mission that was used to create the most details maps of the Moon up to date.

And here is a render of the 3DS model that I converted to Cinema 4D. I had a lot of trouble getting that done since it is very big and I needed a PC with a lot of memory and a 64 bits version of both applications, but I got it now. Even though it is a very detailed model it is still taken from very far away. So to make it usable for close-up's I incorporated another 3D model of some lunar craters into it. If you click the picture and look closely you can see a square on left that has a slightly different color on the left. I did that intentionally so that you could see it.

And here is a close-up of that same scene from a different angle. You can see the craters I added in the front. This will make an excellent spot I guess to land a LEM. The mountains in the back also make it perfect to picture a nice illuminated Earth in the distance for a nice Earth Rise scene. Maybe I'll also add some rocks to the scene later to make it even more realistic, but for now I'm very happy with this model that has taken me a very long time to create.

And here is a final close-up of the craters themselves. I think they look just great :) It is great to use real moon scans in stead of some imaginary scenes that I used before. OK enough for now, but I thought it would be nice to share these with you. And don't worry I'm also still working on the music in the mean time. I'm really finalizing the tracks together with my friend Hans. But since the release date for Apollo is set for the 1st of October we don't have to rush that much which is a nice thing of course. We can take our time to make it all as good as we possibly can for you. OK more soon!

Apollo Release Date Set!

2011-07-06T10:05:00.001+02:00

I know I have kept you waiting for a long time, but I'm almost done with the Apollo album now. In the mean time I discussed the release with my record label Groove Unlimited and we decided that we are going to release the album on CD at the Electronic Circus Festival in Germany. It will be held in Güthersloh on the 1st of October 2011. I will have a stall there were you can buy the album from me first hand. You can find more information on the festival on this URL: http://www.electronic-circus.net/

I will also be present with a stall at the E-live festival on the 15th of October in Oirschot, The Netherlands where you can also get the album directly from me. More information on that festival on this URL: http://www.e-live.nl

I hope to see you on one of these occasions :) I'm looking forward to the release and until then I'll be working on it for sure. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Synth.nl Interview with Sonic Immersion

2011-06-29T11:06:00.000+02:00

Recently I did an interview with Bert Strolenberg from Sonic Immersion, a very good website about electronic music with lots of reviews and interviews. Bert asked me some very different questions and it was a lot of fun to answer them, so I hope you will like reading it. You can find the interview on his website on this URL: http://www.sonicimmersion.org/interview.php?letter=S&interview=90508. Be sure when you are done reading to bookmark his website and read some more on it. It is a treasure of information and Bert is a very good reviewer in my opinion. Enjoy!

Single Releases on Synth.nl ReverbNation Store!

2011-06-27T18:54:00.002+02:00

Again I have some very good news for you. For the very first time you can buy all the single tracks I released so far on several compilation CD's. They are available as MP3 download from my ReverbNation store, so you can also buy them directly from me. I might release them on CD as well in the future, but that can take quite some time. So go for it now :) Also my other albums are in the store available as complete album download or indiviual track. I have provided them in the highest possible MP3 quality for your optimal listening pleasure. The single tracks to look for are: SynthWelle, Synthology, NachtWacht, DonQuixote and Mercury.

Here is the link to the Synth.nl ReverbNation store:

http://www.reverbnation.com/store/index/artist_281496

Please note that the prices are in US dollars. I hope you enjoy and thanks for the support!

Download the Free Synth.nl Iphone App

2011-06-21T14:39:00.000+02:00

I had some complaints from Apple users that the Flash player on my website is not working on their Iphones and Ipads. Well I have something nice for you now. Here is a brand new and totally free Iphone app that you can download from the Itunes store. You can listen to music, watch videos, view pictures and most important of all read all the latest Synth.nl news. I will keep updating and filling this App so check it regularly. If you allow push notifications you will never miss anything any more :) You can download the app by going to this URL: http://itunes.apple.com/app/id442952466 or by searching for 'Synth.nl' in the AppStore on your Iphone or Ipad. Enjoy!

Synth.nl Visits Le Mans 2011

2011-06-16T20:11:00.001+02:00

In Juni 2011 I visited the 24 hours of Le Mans race together with my friend Hans Landman. We had a great time. This movie is a compilation of some of the footage I shot during that weekend. I made the intro 3D animations in Cinema 4D. The music is taken from my debut CD 'AeroDynamics'. The track is called 'Turbulence'. I hope you like it. You can find more information about the album on http://www.synth.nl/AeroDynamics

Apollo 3D Project (Part 10)

2011-06-09T09:30:00.001+02:00

I thought it was time to update you again on Apollo. On the music side I'm really making progress now. I'm still working on the details of some the tracks, but some are already completely finished and ready for mastering. Only in two tracks I still have some work to do. I'm also still working hard on the 3D project. I did another scene the last week that was quite complex. The whole docking scene. Here you see a picture of the third stage of the rocket.

The first thing I had to do is get everything into scale. The third stage model, orbiter and lander were all in a different scale. Then I had to re-texture them like I had to do on all models. And then finally the animating part. First the doors had to open on the third stage, then the orbiter flies away and unfolds its antenna dish. From a safe distance then it turns around towards the opened up third stage and docks with the LEM (Lunar Lander) that is inside the third stage. You can see that in the picture on the right.

And then the Orbiter pulls the LEM from the third stage and the fly away again to a safe distance. In the mean time the third stage floats away into space. To make things more exciting I shot the whole thing from 4 different camera views and did some camera movements as well. Slowly but surely I'm getting the hang of that. In the mean time I'm constructing a teaser movie that holds some short sound clips of ALL the track of the album and show some quick shots of the 3D animations. The whole movie will be about 5 minutes long. I'm not happy with it yet. I need to make a few more scenes. And then I will put it on YouTube for you to get a grasp of what both the music and video will be like. When the album is out I will make a longer version of this video. But it all takes A LOT of time to make. So please be patience with me more just a little longer.

NachtWacht and DonQuixote on Klangarten #20

2011-06-06T10:00:00.001+02:00

On the latest KlangArten podcast #20 Brammi played two of my tracks. He played the new 'DonQuixote' track I made for the SchallPlatte 13 sampler and also he played 'NachtWacht' from the Dutch Masters sampler CD.

Since the show is a podcast you can still download it and listen to it when you have time. You can find it on this URL:

http://www.klangarten.de

Groove lowers prices on Synth.nl CD's !

2011-06-06T09:35:00.001+02:00

I have some great news. As of today Groove Unlimited (my record label) has lowered the prices on all its own label CD's. So that includes all my albums. Here is the original text from the news letter:

Dear Groove costumers. As of today almost all Groove Unlimited's own releases have a new sales price. As of today they are only € 13.75. So we have reduced the price with over 2 UKP or Euro's and over 3 USD per CD!! We have also reduced a lot of other prices in the catalog. And many of Grooves older releases are only € 9.99. This way Groove Unlimited is not only the best in service but also the cheapest store to get many of the Electronic music that is available. If you have bought a Groove CD in the last month (May 2011) you get an extra 5% reduction on your orders in June and July!! We have adjust all prices for people who have CDs in stock. We still want to give the best service tat is available for you, our customers!!

You can find my CD's incl. the collaboration album I did with Ron Boots on this URL:

http://www.groove.nl/jump2.php?artiest=synth.nl

Thanks for the support!

SchallPlatte XIII Released Today

2011-06-04T22:23:00.000+02:00

Today the new SchallPlatte XIII sampler CD was released by the German Electronic Music Club Schallwende. It was released at the yearly Grill Fest they organize in the Gruga Park in Essen Germany. They made a CD this year where all member musicians could send in a track. A jury then selected 12 tracks from a lot of entries. So I am very happy that my track was selected. The theme for this album was literature. The Theme for this CD was literature this time and I chose the book fully titled: 'The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha' but I think everybody knows the main person as Don Quixote, the guy that fought wind mills on his donkey, because he thought they were giants. The book was written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes and was published in two volumes a decade apart (in 1605 and 1615). This CD is not for sale by the way. It is only distributed among the members. If you want this CD you will have to become a member I guess. You can listen to my track on this url: http://www.synth.nl/SchallPlatteXIII

Apollo 3D Project (Part 9)

2011-06-02T13:02:00.001+02:00

The last week I worked some more on the 3D work for the Apollo teaser video. One scene I had to make was the Orbiter and LEM docked together. I used the occasion to work some more on the materials as well of the orbiter that I took from the LaunchPad scene I did before. I think it looks much better now actually. The downside is though that I'll have to re-render all the scenes I did before. But ah well I don't doubt that I was going to do that anyway since I leaned a lot already in the mean time again.

Here is another nice shot of them docked together. As you can notice I left the background black. I did that intentionally. On all photo's from outer space that NASA provides you don't see stars. So I guess it is more realistic this way even though you miss some reference to your position when you animate these scenes. Camera movements for example are less easy to experience. But it does make it look more mysterious as well and that is good :)

Then I realized something else when I was animating the docking scenes. When the orbiter docks for the first time with the LEM. The LEM is still inside the third stage of the Saturn V rocket and has to be extracted. So I have to do that scene as well. And I reversed the scene I had made to make it an Undocking scene in stead of the Docking scene. That was easy enough to fix. The animation turned out quite OK I think even though I haven't done any retro rocket action yet
.

I also have to do another docking scene that happens when the crew returns from the surface of the Moon back to the Orbiter. But then the LEM will have lost its descend stage. So that is just a matter of deleting that. Should be a piece of cake now. OK enough again for now. And yes I'm STILL working on the music too :) Don't worry. I know it is taking up a lot of time, but I think the result is getting nice already :) Just a bit more tweaking around. I'll keep you posted as always!

Punch, Rob Papen and Synth.nl

2011-06-01T00:08:00.000+02:00

This evening I visited I4 Muzique in Eindhoven where Rob Papen introduced his new Punch plugin. Rob gave a nice demonstration of the product for quite some people that showed up there. It is a drum / percussion oriented plugin that uses samples, but also synthesized drum and percussion sounds. I liked it very much. It was nice that by accident by the way that I read about his demonstration on Facebook today and I happened to have nothing else planned this evening. Of course I took a copy of his product home to support Rob, since I like both the person as his work. All his plugins are top notch. It was nice to talk to Rob again and Marc from I4 took this picture. I tried to smile I guess ;) Well it was very late already and I was quite tired. As you can see I even pulled my Rob Papen T-shirt from the shelve for the occasion ;) If you don't know Rob's plugins yet I would say go check them out on his website http://www.robpapen.com

Apollo 3D Project (Part 8)

2011-05-30T23:15:00.000+02:00

I promised some moving 3d animations after all the stills I have posted here. Well here is the first of a lot to come. This is the intro movie for the Apollo Teaser film that is coming soon.

Apollo Status Update

2011-05-23T21:06:00.000+02:00

I promised to write an update on the Apollo Project. Well here it is. Yesterday I visited my friend Hans in his studio for another listening session and we determined that all arrangements for all the songs are done now. The last weeks I added a break to one song and an intro to another one and did some moving around in some other songs, because I wasn't satisfied yet with them. If you click on the picture on the left you can see the track list with the actual length of the songs that they are now. The CD will be a total of 70 minutes. So you'll get your money's worth of audio at least ;) But am I done now? NO not yet. Only one track is completely done now and I sent that one to Hans for mastering. I'm still working on the details in the other songs, adding sound effects, making drum variations, adding some little filler melodies and so on. In the mean time I'm also trying to get the mix for all the songs more in balance and when that is all done Hans still has to do the mastering. So progress is still slow, but steady. I still don't dare to name a release date though.

Rhodes Chroma Polaris in the Studio

2011-05-22T20:42:00.002+02:00

I'm currently selling a lot of synthesizers to make room for some new stuff and I didn't really plan to buy other stuff, but then told me he was going to sell his Rhodes (Fender) Chroma Polaris and I couldn't resist to try it out. It is a very nice analog synthesizer that was developed by the ARP engineers just after they were bought by Fender/Rhodes. It has 6 voices with two VCO's each. And it was one of the first synthesizers to have a decent and full midi implementation.

And here you can see the whole synthesizer in the picture below my V-Synth GT. It looks very nice only the membrane keys are notorious for breaking down, but this one was just serviced and all the keys work like a charm. I played a bit with it today and I must say it sounds really nice, warm and analog. I'm very happy to add this to my collection since they are quite rare and especially in this state. It is quite mint actually. I'm sure I'll use it on some future production.

Great E-live 2011 Main Act and new Website

2011-05-22T09:22:00.001+02:00

Recently Kees Aerts announced that he was going to leave my record label Groove Unlimited. That leaves only Ron Boots as the owner now. Kees always took care of the technical side of Groove and now Ron has to do that too. As you all know Ron has become a good friend of mine and he asked me to help him out there. And of course I'll do that gladly. The last weeks Kees moved the Groove websites to my little VMWare platform at BIT-2A and I build a new website together with Ron for the announcement of E-live 2011. Ron has arranged a very special main act there and you'd better reserve your tickets quick because I hear they are going out very rapidly. The other acts will be announced soon and I can tell you they will be worth it too. And of course I'll be there again with a stall and I'm sure by then my Apollo album will be done and I'll have some more 3D animations with me as well. So go on and order your tickets now! You can find the new website on this URL http://www.e-live.nl/. More info is coming soon so keep track of this website.

Synth.nl interview with Gearjunkies

2011-05-14T19:04:00.000+02:00

I recently did a nice interview with Gearjunkies. It is mostly about my Apollo Studio and in this interview I also answer some questions that I get a lot over the E-mail. Gearjunkies is a really great site by the way if you like synthesizer and studio equipment so bookmark it. They often have nice scoops and are always actual with news. There is also a nice section called user studios where you can enter your own studio. You can find a copy of the interview on the URL at the bottom. It was fun to do, I hope you enjoy it!

http://www.gearjunkies.com/news_info.php?news_id=6405.

Apollo 3D Project (Part 7)

2011-05-10T09:03:00.001+02:00

Slowly I'm starting to understand just how much it is to make a complete 3D movie. I have more and more respect for those Pixar guys every day ;) I'm still working on some new scenes for the Apollo project. Here is a re-entry scene I'm making with a cool cloudy Earth in the background. The Earth rotates to add to the dramatic speed effect. I only have trouble getting it to rotate in the exact right direction. And every try takes a long while to render before I see result again. But I will get it right some day ;) I'm thinking hard at the moment about all the scenes I still need to make and that is a lot :) But I just go on one at the time.....

In the mean time I also started to learn about Adobe After Effects and I loved the integration with Cinema 4D. I have seen that I can do stuff easier afterwards by rendering out separate layers in Cinema 4D importing them and fixing stuff in After Effects. That saves a lot of render time in the end. I downloaded a demo of the CS5.5 Production Suite from Adobe and I love it. I was very fond of Sony Vegas, but the integration Adobe provides with Premiere, Photoshop and After Effects is really so cool, that I decided to go on and use Premiere. You can make your scenes in After Effects and import those in Premiere and you don't have to render it to video from After Effects first. You can just change stuff in an open After Effects project and it changes instantly in Premiere. Very cool.

I also made this Synth.nl - Apollo in Cinema 4D intro movie that is totally animated. The Moon rotates and the screen starts empty, the letters and Moon flies in and the everything disappears again. I can't wait to show you. I'm working hard on a small teaser movie to show you, but I'm not satisfied yet with both the music and video. Progress on the Apollo album is very slow unfortunately, but I'm working hard here and can't do more than this. In the mean time I have a list with all the things I still have to fix in my music and I listen to the whole project regularly with my friend Hans. There is one more song where we want to change the arrangement, but for the rest it is starting to be detail work. But still I don't dare to say when the album will be ready. It is way more work than I anticipated.

VGA Monitor Repair

2011-05-04T16:32:00.000+02:00

This morning when I entered the studio one of my screens acted a bit strange. It switched on and of immediately again and then it tried again. I hesitated for about 15 second and then decided to go and try to repair it myself first. I saw this behavior before with the Behringer REV-2496 I repaired a while ago, so I suspected the power supply right away. But the biggest challenge turned out to open it up. The case is made of plastic and it all fits very tight. This took me about an hour :)

When it was open it was easy to spot the power supply and a closer investigation showed me two electrolytic capacitors right away that looked suspicious. On the top they are not flat anymore, but it looks like their are under pressure. Usually those are the bad guys. So I took the power supply PCB with me to the local electronics shop and took new capacitors with a bit higher voltage rating than the original with me.

And here is the lot that I took out. I actually replaced all of them just to be safe. It was about 5 euro's worth of material so I could take a chance with that. Luckily the power supply PCB is a single sided one, so de-soldering the capacitors was quite easy. When the new ones were in I switched it on and nothing happened. Oops.. Did I do something wrong? Instinctively I felt all the capacitors and one got very warm. So I switched the power off immediately. And then I saw I put it in the wrong orientation. Stupid me.

I de-soldered that one again and took a new one to replace it. Again just to be on the safe side. And then I could only hope that this stupid mistake didn't break anything else. But luckily that was not the case. I guess I was quick enough powering it down again. So after that I reassembled the whole thing again. That was a lot easier by the way than taking it apart since now I understood how the construction worked. And here is another picture with a fully operational VGA monitor again :) Now back to work!

Apollo 3D Project (Part 6)

2011-05-01T17:44:00.000+02:00

I just wanted to let you know that I'm still working hard on the Apollo project. The progress on the music is still slow, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually. I'm also still working on the 3D work for the album promo. I even took a training for Cinema 4D to learn some new things. It was very interesting to work with someone who knows the application very well and I got the opportunity to ask all the questions I had. I especially learned a lot about all the render options and how the lighting system works in the render engine.I also learned some new functions and tricks.

Armed with this new knowledge I started working on a new scene for the promo video. Here you see the Apollo capsule in the water. I told you before that I animated this to look like a real ocean, but of course the capsule has to float on top of it and move along with the waves. The teacher of the course explained to me how to do this, but it is a very tricky process I learned. It is based on the dynamics engine and that can be very random like sometimes. So I had the scene right a couple of times, but when I rendered it out it looked different. So I redid it a couple of times. I guess I have some usable takes now.

Next thing to work on was the helicopter that had to come into the scene. I got the rotors turning now, but it is hard to get it to look it moving realistically. I guess that will take some more tweaking around. The problem still is render time though. Every time I try something it takes a whole day to see the result. I guess it will be worth it in the end. As I wrote before I showed some animated shots on my stall at the E-day festival recently. The reactions were very enthusiastic so that motivates me to continue to struggle along :) More soon!

Lots of Airplay on Soma FM lately

2011-05-01T09:56:00.000+02:00

Lately Soma FM has been giving my music a lot of airplay. I'm very happy with that since Soma FM is the largest Internet streaming radio station in the World with a lot of listeners. It is a listening supported commercial free radio station. So I would say give them a listen and consider a donation if you like it. There are several channels on Soma FM with their own specialty. My music is mostly played on the channel Space Station Soma, but also sometimes on Black Rock FM. I think there is a channel there for everyone. You can find the stream on their website on this URL: http://www.soma.fm.

Don Quixote track selected by the Schallwende Jury!

2011-04-30T10:32:00.000+02:00

I have some good news. The track I made about Don Quixote a while ago was selected by the Jury. It will be released on the Schallplatte CD that is released by the German Electronic Music Club Schallwende every year. It is distributed to the members only and is not for sale. It is the 13th sampler CD released by them already and I'm very proud to be on there again. The theme of this sampler CD was literature this time. I don't know yet who else will be on it. The CD will be released on the 4th of June during the Grill Fest in Essen. If you'd like a copy of the CD I guess you will have to become a member. You can find more information on their website http://www.schallwen.de. I will be present during the Grill Fest to pick up my copy for sure :) When the CD is released I will put a copy of the track on my website so that you can listen to it. The mastering of this track was done by my good friend Hans Landman again. Last week we did the final version in his studio together. My other friend Ron Boots will be responsible for the mastering of the whole CD. So I'm sure it will sound just fine :)

Dutch Masters Review by Bert Strolenberg

2011-04-20T13:55:00.001+02:00

Bert Strolenberg from the website Sonic Immersion did a very nice review of the Dutch Masters album that was recently released.

You can read the whole review here: http://www.sonicimmersion.org/review.php?letter=V&review=72214

More info on the Dutch Masters CD here: http://www.synth.nl/DutchMasters

Modena on KlangArten Podcast #14

2011-04-20T13:04:00.002+02:00

I was quite happy when I saw that a track of my first album 'AeroDynamics' from 2007 got some airplay again. Even I didn't hear this one for a while. The host Brammi played the track 'Modena' on his latest podcast KlangArten.

You can find the podcast on this URL: http://www.klangarten.de

More info on AeroDynamics here: http://www.synth.nl/AeroDynamics

Korg Poly 800 Repair

2011-04-18T15:24:00.000+02:00

As you might have noticed I'm currently selling some of my synthesizers. I had some synths where I just couldn't find a nice spot for anymore and after the Musik Messe I really want to buy the Roland Jupiter 80 and Korg Kronos. So I need even more room now and money. One of the synths I wanted to sell was the Korg Poly 800 that I hardly ever use anymore. But when I tested it some of the knobs on the front panel didn't work that well. So this morning I decided to open it up and investigate what was wrong with it.

I actually expected that some of the switches would be the problem so I started by disconnecting all the wiring from the PCB that holds the knobs and took my multimeter to test all the individual switches. But after doing that they all seemed to work. Then I started to see how the knobs are interfaced and I saw quite quickly that they were arranged in a scan matrix with some diodes on the PCB. So after that I measured all the individual diodes and they turned out OK as well.

So then I started to look on the main PCB where the scan lines were going. And I decided to go and see what happened there with the oscilloscope. So I rewired everything back and starting pressing some knobs. And to my surprise all the knobs worked again. So probably there were just some loose connections on the inter PCB wiring. That was the easiest fix ever I think :) Well at least now you know what a Poly 800 looks like on the inside.

And here it is on the outside. As you can see it is a reversed keys version. At the time I thought it was cool, but now all I can think is that it doesn't fit my other synths :) And since I have enough analog poly synths now I have no need for it any longer. And in the mean time I also have a buyer for it already so it will leave my studio soon. In the mean time I also sold my Alesis Andromeda A6, Roland RS-09 and Roland SH-09. And more is going soon, as said before to make room for nicer new machines. If you like a list of what else I'm selling just let me know, but I have to warn you up front: I don't ship anything so local pickup in The Netherlands only.

E-day 2011 Dutch Masters Promo Video

2011-04-17T19:40:00.004+02:00

A new version of the Dutch Masters Promo Video. This one was made for the official presentation at the E-live Festival 2001 in Oirschot The Netherlands.

E-day 2011 Report

2011-04-17T19:11:00.001+02:00

Last Saturday I was present at the E-day festival in Oirschot (NL). I really had a great time talking to a lot of people and I even sold quite some CD's at my stall. I didn't really count on that so much because I didn't really have that much newly released material. I did bring the Apollo sneak preview too as I promised. It played it in a CD player with some headphones attached. About 10 visitors listened to it. Luckily they were all very positive even though it isn't really finished yet, so that gives me good motivation to finish it and release it as soon as possible :) Thanks to my friend Chris by the way for taking these nice pictures!

I also had the Apollo 3D work with me. I showed it on a separate screen on my stall. It did it's work alright it caught the attention of a lot of people and that gets you talking easy. It seems that they liked that too, some didn't even thought I made them myself. I told some people as well about my plans to do more with the combination of music, 3D animations and video and they liked that idea. I also brought another video that I made especially for the presentation of the Dutch Masters sampler CD that was going to be presented on the festival in the main hall. I was quite nervous for that actually. It took me quite some time to make.

Ron Boots though of something though that made me even more nervous he called all the musicians that contributed to the Dutch Masters album to the stage starting by me. I really don't like to be in the center of attention like that. We all had to tell why they chose our painting and how we transferred that in to music. I think it was a nice idea to get the attention, but I had been very busy synchronizing the audio to the video so I'd rather have not everyone talk through the video, but all right ;) It's Ron's party after all. During the talk even more of the artists walked in so eventually 8 of the 10 were on stage. Quite unique I think.

And here you can see a picture with the whole line up. I'll give you the names from left to right: Gert Emmens, Bas Broekhuis, Rene van der Wouden, Remy Stroomer, Michel van Osenbruggen, Eric van der Heijden, Rene Splinter and Ron Boots. Unfortunately Meesha and Void had to work that day so they couldn't come. I guess the whole presentation thing did it's work because quite some Dutch Masters CD's were sold. And as you can see it is a limited edition so if you are interested you should be quick. I have published the video we showed on my YouTube page by the way so you can listen to an excerpt of all the tracks too judge if you like it.

Another highlight for my that day was the release of the I-dentity album by Remy. He launched that by performing parts from it live on stage. In the title track there are four contributing artists, Gert Emmens, Erik Wollo, Francis Rimbert and Myself. Gert and Erik joined Remy on stage when he played the I-dentity title track. You can find more information about the album and this track on my website http://www.synth.nl/Remy and more information on the Dutch Masters sampler CD can be found here http://www.synth.nl/DutchMasters. I will post the YouTube video on my blog as well so you can easily find it. I hope you enjoy it :)