Jeffrey visits Apollo Studio Again

Yesterday I was visited by Jeffrey again (AKA Synthex). He bought a Doepfer Dark Energy that didn't track very well, so firstly we calibrated and tuned it. Then Jeffrey finally got to play on the Elke Synthex that worked prefectly yesterday. Unfortunately that is not always the case. After that he recorded some music for a new album on several synths like the Jupiter 8, Minimoog and EMS VCS3. We had a great time as usual and for me it was actually good to have a break from my work finally. When they left I did a little extra work on one track that is taking shape quite well already. Then I exported all the tracks to WAV to Jeffrey can work on it in his own studio. It was nice to be in the studio again and I really must make some music of my own again soon :) Jeffreys father also filmed a bit, so I'm sure there will be a video on youtube soon. I will post it on my blog as well if I see it.

Rob Papen visits Synth.nl Apollo Studio Video

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

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.

Making the last SFX on the SH5 for Apollo

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 :)

Testing the Roland Jupiter-80

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 :)

Roland Jupiter 80 Preview

The last two day I was at the Musik Messe in Frankfurt Germany. I was there together with my friends Hans and Eugene and we had a great time. There were two new synths on the Messe that I was very interested in. The Korg Kronos and the Roland Jupiter 80. Unfortunately we didn't get to play on the Kronos, but Roland CE was so nice to give us a private demo of the Jupiter 80 and we even got to play with it ourselves. I had read a lot of things about it before we left. Most people start with comparing it with the Jupiter 8. Well I can tell you it has nothing to do with that classic. So forget that association right away! If you are looking for a Jupiter 8 buy a Jupiter 8 ;) Some people also call it a rompler. Well it is FAR from that either. Roland pushed the marketing especially though with their Super Natural technology. And I can tell you it does sound great. You get very realistic piano's, guitars etc. It also holds something that resembles the AP technology from the V-Synth GT. It plays a natural legato like effect in between notes when that make it sound very real. It is emulating the playing style on these acoustic instruments. I love that in the V-Synth GT, but there you can also combine it with the synth engine.

OK Cool thing with the acoustic instruments, but to be honest I was not interested in that so much. When you know my music you know I don't use much acoustic sounds. So I was especially interested in the VA synth engine. And I was very pleasantly surprised by that. The VA engine is much like the one in the Roland GAIA. And I already liked that sound a lot and also the layout of it. In the GAIA you have 3 one oscillator synths that you can stack all with their own LFO, Filter, VCA, two envelopes and an effects sections. Well you can stack 8 of those in the Jupiter 80 without any polyphonic restrictions. So that gives you 27 one oscillator synthesizers in a stack :P I can tell you the sound power coming from that is amazing. You can also create sounds that are so incredibly alive. I just loved it. The GAIA has some restrictions when you use oscillator sync for example the synth goes monophonic. Well you don't have these restrictions in the Jupiter 80 we were told.

You can also chose to combine the VA sounds with wave sounds or the super natural technology. The synth has four sections. Drums, Solo, Upper and Lower. In both upper and lower you can stack 4 tones. And a tone is like a GAIA or super natural sound. In solo you can use one. You can stack them or make keyboard splits to play those sections on different parts of your keyboard. A very cool feature is that you can use the highest not you play always on the solo section. You don't need to set a split point for the lead sound then. It is not a workstation by the way like the Fantom and we heard this synthesizer doesn't share any technology with the Fantom either. Everything is newly developed. I must say it sounds great and I was really impressed. I will buy one for sure. I just think it was badly marketed so far by Roland. The Jupiter name gets a lot of discussion going and I'm sure Roland did that on purpose. Even negative attention is good marketing because everybody talks about you. Analog synth purists won't like this machine for sure, but I don't care. I liked it a lot :) Thanks again Roland for the demo!

Apollo progress slow because of Sonar X1 Crashes

I have been a very happy Sonar Cakewalk user for the last few years. I started recording  my own music in 2005 and I have selected Sonar back then since I liked the work flow and intuitive layout. Since then I have upgraded on all versions coming after that. I never had any real problems so far. When Sonar X1 came out I was already working on my Apollo album and thought it would be wise to wait with the upgrade until the album was finished. But I could not resist downloading the demo and was very pleasantly surprised by the new layout. So I decided to upgrade anyway. At first everything looked OK, but now I'm working with heavier projects and I get a lot of unexpected and unexplainable crashes. I looks like a memory leak problem to me. My Roland contact told me an update was coming soon, but so far it still isn't there. I can still continue working, but I have to work around the bugs and the crashes slow me down a lot. If I don't make the deadline for the April 16th release it will be mainly due to these technical issues :( And I'm afraid to tell you that things are not looking good at the moment :( The chances I made release on E-day are not more than 50/50 at the moment. Just wanted to let you know. And I hope the Roland guys read this post too and hurry up a bit with that update ;)

VS-700 Upgrade

Recently I upgraded to Sonar X1 and that also included new software for the VS-700 console. But I got all kinds of messages that my firmware was outdated. So I looked for new firmware on the Cakewalk website and also found. But I also found out that it is not so easy to upgrade because you have to flip some dipswitches back and forth and for that I had to take the VS-700 module out of the rack and I postponed it everytime, but today I finally decided to finally do this.

The first thing to do is open up the ARX slot compartment and flip a dipswitch there to put it in upgrade mode. Then you can load new firmware over USB in it, after that you have to do the same for the rack processor itself. I think it would have been nice if Roland had put these dipswitches on the back of the unit so you don't have to take it out of the rack. Well after this the VS-700C itself (the controller) has to be upgraded as well. But for this you have to install it stand-alone (without the processor) with special drivers. Again some dipswitches on that back and new firmware. Well it took some time but luckily it all worked out.

But after this I decided to move the VS-700 Processor to another place in my main desk. Now I can open it up while it stays in this position in case I have to upgrade it again in the future. Only today I found out by the way that I could choose to hookup the console without the processor. I don't actually use the audio interface that is in there and to be honest I never used the build-in Phantom VS synthesizer either. So now I decided that I'm going to at least use the Phantom VS. I already hooked it up to the MX-1000 mixer that in the mean  time replaced the Friend-Chip DMX-12 digital patch bay. I'll try them both out tomorrow. For today I'm done :)

Analog SFX Processor Racks

Since I don't have any big music projects at the moment (just some small stuff) I decided it was time to do some changes to the studio that I had planned for a long time. The first thing I did was making a lot of balanced jack-jack cables because I wanted to hook up the analog SFX processors to the new Anatek SMP-16 I got a while ago from Ron. This is a digitally controlled analog audio and midi patch-bay. I like it a lot, but unfortunately they are not made any more, so they are hard to come by.

I removed the Moog Voyager RME from this rack because it wasn't in a convenient spot any way in that rack. That gave me the opportunity to put the Yamaha SD-5000 delay in there and the Sony's that I got and repaired earlier. The three Rolands are paired together and the Sony's two by two. The patch-bay has another 4 connections on the front (1 stereo input and output) that enables me to hook up another SFX processor when I want. A pedal for example or whatever. From the patch bay two stereo inputs and outputs go to an AD/DA converter in the rack next to it. So I can use two separate SFX chains in this rack. I can chain them together as well though. For example use all 4 Sony's in one chain by connecting the outputs of the first chain to the input of the second chain on the patch-bay.

In this picture you can see the rack next to it as well. This one also has an Anatek SMP-16 with the same construction. Also two stereo inputs and outputs go to the AD/DA converter. I'm not entirely done with this project yet since I ran out of stereo jacks. I ordered some more but they won't arrived until Thursday the earliest. So I decided to build everything in for now since I'm having a visitor over tomorrow. After that I'll have to remove everything again from the racks and do the rest of the wiring. It will be nice to be able to use these SFX processors next to the digital ones that I use primarily. At the moment I'm using a Behringer AD80000 as the AD/DA converter. I plan to replace it in the future by an RME ADI-8 or an Apogee converter, but for now the Behringer will do fine. They are quite OK in my opinion actually. I did play around a bit yesterday after I was done with the Sony DPS-D7 and Yamaha D-5000 delays. And I can tell you they are both very good :) I'm looking forward to using them in my productions. I have used a lot of external reverbs already, but never external delays actually. The only thing I need to get working now is getting them synchronized with the Midi Clock of my Sonar sequencer software.

Apollo Studio Changes

I moved some stuff around again. To start with I sold my ARP Avatar. Since I bought the ARP 2600, I didn't see the added value of the Avatar anymore and I could make someone very happy with it. So it is gone. Then I moved the Moog Source into the newly installed smaller synth mount. There are three small synthesizers the now on top of each other. The Moog Source is actually a great machines. Sounds just a good as a Minimoog in my opinions it just has the advantage that you can store presets. It is not as hands on of course as a Minimoog with al its knobs, but they are getting more expensive by the minute. So get one if you can :) You won't regret it.

And then I also did some minor moving around in my digital corner. I removed the Yamaha VL-70m and Yamaha FB-01 from the rack below and put them on top of the desk. The rackspace that came free was filled by the Yamaha FSR-1. On top now is the Roland SH-32. These are all synthesizers I don't use a lot, but maybe that I have them more at hand I will give them a spin soon. I am still very happy with the spot I put the GAIA SH-01 in. It is a nice hands on machine that I'm using a lot at the moment. I still thing a lot of people underestimate it and don't see it's potential. I did however send my sound bank to some people and they don't seem able to load it. I don't really understand why. I guess Roland should make an editor for it to make it a bit easier to manage. I also couldn't find any way to export the patches as sysex. I think that is a shame too. And you can only store one set or backup on a USB stick. How did they think of that??

Quick Demo of GAIA Sound Bank

This evening I moved the Roland GAIA SH01 downstairs to the studio. I made some extra room on the wall mounted rack in my digital corner. First there was one synth less on that same mount, but by tilting the synthesizers a bit less and moving them a bit closer together I could make room for the GAIA. I think it is just right there :) I didn't have any USB port left for it so I put it on a USB hub together with the Korg M3 and so far it seems to work just fine. I connected the audio quickly to the audio in of the Yamaha XS-6. That was the quickest way to get sound from it. I have to patch it in a AD converter though for optimal recording quality. But so far its fine. Since I was playing a bit on it anyway I recorded a little demo of the sound bank I'm making. I just played a bit with the first 8 sounds from bank 1, but it will give you an idea what it can so. As said before recording quality is not optimal. You can download an MP3 here:

http://www.synth.nl/demos/GAIA_Demo-1%20t_m%208.mp3

Roland GAIA SH01 GM Myth Busting

I have read several rumors on several internet forums about whether the Roland GAIA SH-01 has a multi-timbral General Midi synth or not. Well it is true. It is really in there. So you can play some General Midi file on it and solo along with it. Well tried it and it works. So Myth busted! My wife just made a picture of me when I was finishing my sound bank. Sorry for I was just out of bed ;) But the sound bank is finished. I just put it on a USB stick and put it on my notebook. And after that I have send an E-mail to Roland to ask if they are interested to put it on their website. I will let you know. If they don't I will put it online on my own website. But first I'll wait for answer. I'll keep you posted.

Roland GAIA SH01 Review

At the moment I'm testing the new Roland GAIA SH01. And I must say I was instantly hooked to this little one. I unpacked it in the living room and started playing on it and it hasn't left the living room yet :) The sound reminded me a bit of the Roland JP8000 them to be. The are 3 oscillators that you can layer and they each have their own LFO, filter, AMP. It is nice that you can select just one part and edit it, but you can also select all three parts at the same time and do editing on all of them. Sound design is a real breeze on this machine. In fact I started to build my own sound bank already. Maybe I'll even submit it to Roland or put it on my own website later on.

Here you can see the layout of the synth. You can click the picture for a larger version of course. I also like the effects section on the right. It has delay, and reverb, but also distortion, frequency shifting, phasing and flanging effects. They are actually vwith a tad of V-Synth GT as far as the VA part. The layout is great. The envelopes have sliders and are right where you wanted ery useful. You get 64 factory presets with it and you can also store 64 presets of your own. As I said I'm building a nice bank with 64 sounds of my own now. All more ambient pads, leads and sound effects. I'm really amazed how versatile this machine is.

On the back is a USB connection to hook it up to your PC and of course the midi and audio connections. There is also a spot for USB memory. I guess you can store more sounds on there, but I must admit that I haven't read the manual yet ;) So I'm sure there is more to discover. I just plugged in my headphones and started playing around. I have been at it for two days now and I'm still not bored by far. I'm very surprised about the filters, they are quite nice actually and also do a nice job in auto oscillating.

And then the part I love the most. You can put batteries in it :) That was mainly the reason I bought it. I have to go on some trips soon where I want to take a little synth with me to play a bit. It is quite small and light so you can easily take it with you. I think this little one is very suitable for leads, pads and basses and I will certainly use it on some upcoming productions. I have heard people complain that it is not multitimbral, since it has more than enough power. Ah well I don't mind. I think it is more than worth its money. Be sure to check it out! Hopefully I can tell you more about my sound bank soon. I'm almost done with it, but it would be nice if Roland would put it online somewhere. I'll keep you posted.

Synth.nl Interview on Roland Central Europe Website

A while ago I did an interview with Roland about my studio, synthesizers, music and especially the Roland V-Studio 700 I use. I'm very happy with this so I didn't mind helping them to promote it a bit more. It is the ideal companion for Cakewalk Sonar. I did the interview in English, but they also put Dutch and French subtitles under it. I was very nervous as you can see. Sorry for not sitting still on my chair :) Well it was fun doing it and it is nice that it is finally online. You can find it here: http://www.rolandce.com/nl/nl/producten/computer-music/audio-recording/vs-700-cs/. You have to click the video tab on this page to view it. I will also put a copy of the video on my YouTube channel later. I guess Roland won't mind because it is free publicity for them as well. The music playing in the background is the title track of my latest 'OceanoGraphy' CD by the way.

Roland SH-09 Fixup Project

Sometimes you order something from E-bay and when it arrives and you open the box full of enthusiasm you get pretty dissapointed by what you see. I had that feeling when I received this Roland SH-09 analog synthesizer. It looked like it really took a serious hit. Like it fell down flat on its top. The pitch bender was broken, most knobs were missing, not original or as bend as could be. And two of the keys of the keyboard had cracks in it. In the add the last thing was stated but it was much worse than I expected. I decided that no way it was going to be in my collection in this state. Not every synthesizer I have is in mint condition, but I haven't got anything looking as bad as this.

So I started looking on E-bay for some spare parts to fix it a bit. I found a pitch bender and a set of new knobs for it. So tonight I started opening up the synth and try to replace the pitch bender. Opening it up is not very hard. You can take of the top by just removing a few screws. The pitchbend is in a seperate panel that can be removed after that with just 4 screws. Replacing the pitchbend was quite easy. It is just a piece of plastic that works like a knob on a potmeter. On each side is a spring to get it back in its normalized position. But just push it in between and you are done. So if you ever break a pitch bender on a SH-09 don't throw it away for that.

After that I removed a lot of dust from the inside and put the new knobs on. After that I tested the synthesizer and it looks like it works fine. A few of the potmeters crackle a bit, but besides that it's fine. Here is a pictures of it after I was done. You can still see the cracks in the keyboard and you can see it is old, but I think it is in a reasonable enough state now. I'm going to sell it and find a new one for myself. I want a nicer one for my collection, but for someone that is interested in the sound it is great and I'll sell it for a lower price than usual. I will record some sound effects on it before I sell it. It has a nice self resonating filter and some nice modulation functions.

Roland SH-2000

I found this very nice and old Roland synthesizer on E-bay. It is a SH-2000 and it is actually the second synthesizer Roland produced right after the SH-1000. Both where released in 1973. So it is pretty old. It only has a few presets that are on the switches on the front, but you can tweak them as you please. But the greatest thing about it is the after touch. It has a really nice feel to it. I was playing on it for quite some time when I tried it out. It lacks midi unfortunately. That did not even exist in that time, but maybe there is a retro fit possibility. The sound coming from it is very warm. I loved it. If you come across one I can recommend it and they are not expensive at all. I uploaded a little sample to hear how it sounds like here:

http://www.synth.nl/samples/sh-2000.mp3

It was just a quick recording playing it through a Roland RE-201 Space Echo and a Quantec Yardstick reverb unit. The low note is a Yamaha SY-99 and the lead sound is the SH-2000.

Roland Jupiter 4

Since I heared that all the Jupiter models from Roland sound so much different from each other I just needed to hear the Jupiter 4 as well. I started bidding on one on E-bay a while ago and I actually won it. It just arrived last week. It looks very different from the Jupiter 6 and 8 as you can see. Especially the knobs on the front are quite unusual. It was designed to put on top of an organ and I happen to have one of those :) So that is exactly where I put it. It is not in perfect condition unfortunately. Some of the preset knobs are stuck. The rest of the electronics seem to work, but it will need some service since I heard at least one voice to be out of tune a bit.

Here is another view of it. As you can see it just barely fitted under the synth mount above it. Well actually at first it didn't but I removed the rubber feet that were on the bottom. As you can see the Jupiter 4 also has wooden sides where the other jupiters have metal sides. OK now to the sound, because that is what a synthesizer is all about right :) And indeed it sounds way different. It is quite aggressive and thick where the Jupiter 8 is more creamy and soft and the Jupiter 6 is cleaner and clearer. Especially in ensemble mode with chorus on it sounds fantastic. I'm also checking now how to get midi on it. All in all a very nice addition to my collection.

The Juno Brothers

I keep getting more and more request when I will post new overview pictures of my studio on my website. Well not yet. I'm still not completely done and I want to let my friend Chris take the overview photographs since he is a much better photographer than I am. But I'll try to sneak in some nice shots in from time to time until then. So how about this nice shot of these three Juno brothers :) On top is the Juno 106, then the Juno 6 and below the Juno 60. So do they sound the same? No not really. The Juno 6 and 60 are quite similar, very warm and deep where the 106 has a much cleaner sound. It sound a bit more digital. On the Juno 60 you can save patches though while you can not on a Juno 6. But the 106 has standard Midi and the other two don't. On the Juno 60 I use a Kenton Midi to DCB converter and the Juno 6 has a retro fit midi kit build in. Which one is my favorite? Definitely the Juno 60. I love bass lines with the arpeggiator on that one with the internal chorus on :)

Synth.nl mentioned on the Cakewalk Blog

It looks like Cakewalk/Roland noticed the blog posting I put up on the V-studio 700 console I put up on here. I found this post through the Cakewalk newsletter they send out to their customers. It is nice to get some exposure in this way. Too bad though that they didn't read that well in the biography on my website and got the date wrong that I started producing music on the bottom of the article. That happened in 2005 and not 1990. That was the time I started collecting synthesizers actually. Ah well I shouldn't complain about some free publicity right? ;) Here you can find the Blog posting they did:

http://blog.cakewalk.com/synthesizer-expert-adds-sonar-vstudio-700-t-studio/

Roland Jupiter 6

A couple of years ago I bought a Roland Jupiter 6 when I was actually looking for a the Jupiter 8 sound. When I finally got the synthesizer I liked the sound a lot but was even well disappointed, because it sounded nothing like the Jupiter 8. I thought a Jupiter 6 was just an 6 voice version, but it is a completely different synthesizer. So after a while I sold it and started looking further for a Jupiter 8 that I eventually found as well. But it took a while before I found one. After a while I already regretted selling the Jupiter 6 since it does have a very nice sound of its own. It is less powerful and warm than his bigger brother, but it is very good in more subtle and clearer sounds.

So I started looking for a Jupiter 6 again but wanted a nicer one that I had (because that one wasn't looking so great) and it needed to have the Europa midi upgrade installed. I had that in my previous one as well and that just adds some neat extra functionality. Then I came across a Jupiter 6 on E-bay that looked so mint that I couldn't believe my eyes. Judging from the pictures it looked as new! Not even a scratch on it. So I decided to go for this one. Well yesterday it arrived and it looked even better in real life than in the pictures. It is just amazing how a synthesizer from 1983 can look that good. And luckily when I checked it out today it sounds like new as well :)

Of course I didn't have to think long where to put it in the studio. I placed it on the same stand as the Jupiter 8. Doesn't this look like a great pair? :) And I can tell you they sound like a great pair as well. I had trouble to stop playing on this nice combination but I had to get back to work :) It is very nice to have the Jupiter 6 back in my collection and now I'm sure I'll never sell it again. Now I just have to find a new spot for the Juno 106 that was in this spot before. Well I'm sure that I'll find a nice place for it :)