. .. ... The Syntiac Pages ... .. .
[Home] [Synthesizers] [Software Proj] [Hardware Proj] [Pinball]
My Studio
Here a description of the equipment I have currently installed in my own
audio/sound studio.
Samson PL2404 mixer
24 channel mixer in 19 Inch rack. Just new so not much experience with it yet.
Akai AX73
This is one of the first midi synthesizers on the market. The sound generation is
completely analogue. It has 6 voices which can be used in single, dual or unison mode.
The local memory can store 100 parameter settings, which can't be dumped to midi so
I hope the backup battery is a good one (although you can save the internal memory
to an audiotape this is not a practical solution). It can autotune itself and has self
oscillating filters (sounds huge combined with PWM and some small LFO modulation).
The keyboard is touch sensitive which is a big plus for an old
machine like this. I mainly use it as master keyboard but sometimes I use it to
create that special sound only possible with real analogue equipment. (Because
it has keyboard-split, I also can do both at the same time, hehe)
Novation Super Nova II Keyboard
Well what can I say? The sound engine of this keyboard is GREAT! It sounds
very natural and clean. It has a lot of effects on board (56 total). I've installed
the 24 voice expansion board, so its now 48 voices polyphonic.
Yamaha AN1x
Although it's sounds are digitally generated, they model an analogue instrument
quite nicely.
All standard building blocks can be interconnected internally by specifing a
control matrix, which makes it very flexible.
It's 8 tweak pots makes it a nice live instrument. The only downside is it can only have
one sound active at a time, although it is 10 voice polyphonic.
Korg 05R/W
This is a standard GeneralMidi playback device. It has 32 note polyphony playback
on 16 midi-channels. Two buildin effect processors make the sound much less plastic
sounding. It has an RS232 interface to directly interface with my computer. This
frees-up my audiocard midi-interface for some other equipment. This host interface can
also directly send to the midi-out, this gives me an extra 16 channels of midi. It
is possible to store 100 edited sounds and 100 combinations of maximum 8 sounds. This
is realy a nice feature although editing on the module itself is near to impossible
because it only has 6 buttons for editing parameters and no value dial. I have
a good editor for Windows so I almost never use the front panel.
Yamaha RM1x
Bought it as a replacement unit for the buggy MC303. It is also a drum/dance box, with a 16 tracks sequencer.
But a big plus: It has a floppy drive, no longer dumping tracks through midi sysex.
Which is a big improvement over the MC303 (or MC505 for that matter). It has a large LCD display making editing easy.
Only one thing: Yamaha make this stupid 'jump' knob on the pattern screen a track selector
and I will be so much happier. (Because 2 keys must be pressed to select active track)
ELKA DMP18 PedalBoard
One and a half octave for control by the feet. It is touch sensitive
(although that doesn't work 100%). Also there is a volume control wheel which is
unfortunately broken (and sends random volume change messages). I will soon
fix it and then I can use it to control the basic functions of my MC303 with both
hands on another keyboard :-)
Roland MC303
This is the standard all-in-one-house-beat-generator. It has a 7 track build-in
sequencer and some 300 house and techno sounds. The machine has some very severe bugs in
the system software which makes it impossible to do real serious work with it.
(although other people might have a different opion). I mainly use it for playing one
or two tracks in the backgound when playing live with my other equipment.
First prototype of the Syntiac
Although some modules are broken or not functioning correcly I have used this first
prototype many times for generating some very hot sound scapes. It has a
8 steps sequencer, 4 VCO's, 1 VCF and a 3 channel mixer. This machine is completely
modulair so all kinds of cool fm and sync'ed sounds can be generated. Because of
its prototyping character, it is currently broken again :-(. But I'm building the
next generation of the Syntiac which description
you can find on these pages. This improved version will fix most of the
problems I had in the past.
The Syntiac Pages -- www.syntiac.com
For website questions mail to: webmaster@syntiac.com
"/mystudio" is last updated on Sat Sep 6 19:45:14 2003