SammichFM (Part 2)

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)

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

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

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

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

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.

Live Radio Interview with Terry Hawke

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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.