Dr Mike Metlay

FWIW the head tech on Grimes' crew posted a long letter to X in which he explained the precise list of mistakes that led to her set blowing up, including errors that should have been caught had certain corners not been cut at critical moments during the runup to getting her on stage. He and his crew have asked people currently castigating Grimes to hate on him instead, as the blame fell squarely on him and his people, not her. mike

Also: before you go buying a plane ticket to Switzerland, be aware that SMEM is closed to the public except for an audition room where a small number of keyboards are rotated in and out for people to play with. Those nifty YouTube videos are showing you something you are likely to never get to see in person. Also also: SMEM's remit is to save synthesizers from loss and destruction, period. They don't care what condition the stuff is in, and a considerable proportion of the keyboards on those shelves are broken, up to and including precious single examples of very rare synths that are saved even though they're smashed to bits. By contrast, Synthorama in Switzerland, the Eboardmuseum in Austria, and EMEAPP in the USA have nearly all working machines, many of them in pristine condition... and while getting into EMEAPP is damn near impossible these days, anyone can go to the other two and actually play these instruments. Hell, if you ever wanted to play the very first Minimoog Model D, Serial # 1001, complete with handwritten notes by Jim Scott stuck to the inside, you could go to the Eboardmuseum and ask the owner if he could turn it on for you. Kim Bjørn got to do that while prepping the new Minimoog Book. mike

Very few people here have mentioned that a huge part of a hardware synth's appeal – really the biggest part for me – is the user interface. It's simply fun to design sounds on a well-made synth, and to play them in expressive ways. I have gradually been shrinking my keyboard collection over the years; if my latest buy/sell works out decently well, I will be down to only four of them, one of which is on permanent loan to a friend and two of which are in a closet. Nevertheless, I would be bereft if, despite all the great plug-ins and iOS apps I have and all the fun controllers I play them with, I didn't have that one keyboard to just sit and play and create with. YMMV. mike

I still sell CDs sometimes. However, my volume is so low that I burn on demand using Kunaki. I hate streaming services, not only for their ability to make music vanish but also for the shitty way they treat the music makers. So it's downloads and physical CDs for me. mike

Well, when Jacob Collier mentions something, the world takes notice, I guess. I have been playing and recording with my beloved Schecter A-5X "Betty" in an A E B E A tuning for over 20 years. The tuning has worked so well for me, and intrigued so many other players, that I ended up having to make up a name for Betty, since she wasn't a guitar, a bass, a fretted cello, a mandocello, or anything like that. I ended up settling on the name "aebea" to reflect the tuning that made her special. How do you pronounce it? Simple: it rhymes with "idea". mike

We're funded in under 3 hours, but we are really hoping to get the word out farther. Please tell your friends, colleagues... hell, tell your enemies, if you think they'd buy the book just to piss you off! thanxmuchly mike

Hello oh my brothers, As some of you might know and perhaps even care about, after well over a year of work, Bjooks has finally announced our latest title: The Minimoog Book The Synthesizer That Changed Music Forever: Sounds, Stories, and Technology This book is a big damn deal for us at Bjooks. Nearly 400 pages as of now, and here are some highlights: The author, JoE Silva (no, he doesn't pronounce it "Joey" – long story), has been gathering interviews and material for it for well over a decade, and has unpublished interviews with folks we've lost in the meantime. We have over 70 pieces on artists ranging from Mother Mallard on the Model A to some of the really new artists out there right now. We also interview surviving (and in one case recently deceased) Moog technicians and engineers, setting the record straight on a lot of the crap circulating around the Internet that is supposedly "well researched" (usually meaning "I saw this in someone else's YouTube"). We took a lot of photos and sourced many more from the past 50 years: pictures of Minis, artists playing them, detailed internal electronics, and more. We have SYNTH GEMS-quality photos (I can say that – it's the same photographer!) of the very first Model D ever shipped, Serial #1001, which is on display at a keyboard museum in Austria (I believe Kim Bjørn, our Publisher, actually got to play it). We have detailed pictures of Moogs at EMEAPP, including the Models A, B, and C, several beautiful Model Ds (and some that are beat up by some pretty famous people), and a Model E. (Model E, you say? Yeah... read the book) If you love the Mini, you'll want this book for sure. For the first time since 2019, we are doing a Kickstarter to fund it, and in preparation for when the campaign opens later in April, we are doing a big livestream interview on YouTube tomorrow. I hope that some of you will find the time to join us, even though it's in the middle of the day here in the US (PSN is UK-based and it's a "Friday night after work" thing). The livestream lasts 2 hours and we will be on for a good chunk of that – the rest of the time will be devoted to PSN's usual commentary on synth news of the past week, including the AstroLab (which one of the hosts has had for several weeks already). It starts at 7 PM UK time, which I believe is 8 PM in Europe, 2 PM on the East Coast, and 11 AM on the West Coast. Here's the link to the YouTube Livestream on Pro Synth Network. If you aren't familiar with PSN, you need to be! To learn more about The Minimoog Book and to sign up for email notification of the Kickstarter launch, please visit the Bjooks website. Thanks so much for your attention and support – this book nearly killed us (as usual), and boy was it worth it (as usual). mike

SHHHHHHHHHH!

It appears on a bunch of their Hollywood soundtracks from the early 1980s, especially Legend.

Yes it is. Interesting use of the technology. I have no idea if it is licensed from them.

Also, I own a WSA1. Not currently using it, but love the dual sphere controllers. All the advantages of a joystick, few of the downsides, and no protruding fragile rods to snap off. You can even tell which one you're using by tactile feel without having to look down. Genius. mike

I learned to solo on Oberheim paddles, and whenever I ask the guys at ASM to make them reversible on the Hydrasynth, the veins in their foreheads start to throb, so I've stopped asking. mike

Another recovering Mellotron addict here. I have nearly every software Tron ever, and even owned a Nord Wave for a little while just to have Tron sounds on board in a hardware synth.... but a real one? I'd quit music first, I think. Pea Hicks is an expert at repairing them, and suggests that the first tool you invest in is an engine block crane to make the guts easier to get at. Hard pass. mike

There are also stereo inline attenuators out there. You could repurpose any passive monitor speaker switcher to do this as well. It's a fair bit of money for a single function, but one small box with a single control (a big-ass volume knob) might be exactly what you need. A few examples: I have an A Designs ATTY and an SM Pro Audio iNano in my toolbox. There are other options, like the Mackie Big Knob Passive , the ESI MoCo , and the Radial SAT-2. And, of course, if you don't care about using miniplug cables or great audio quality, you can type "stereo inline attenuator" into Amazon and be rewarded with links to dozens of cheap ones meant for stereo systems, all by no-name overseas manufacturers with prices well under $20.... YMMV but I wouldn't.... mike

Mark Shreeve z''l did this for years. His five CDs for Bruton Music are all tracks from his albums with different mixes and SFX like screaming babies, maniacal laughter, and exploding jet fighters removed. I went through them all out of curiosity and matched them to his album output; he did do some originals for the library CDs, but not many. mike

If you're patient and hunt around, you can find the triple damper pedal by CME, which sends the right MIDI data to any keyboard and has a continuous damper pedal... https://bluesangelmusic.com/product/cme-gpp-3-piano-style-midi-pedal I've often contemplated getting one for Pianoteq, reassigning the Una Corda to the fourth pedal in the plug-in... mike

Has anyone considered the fact that this woman sees this piano as a constant reminder of her dead daughter and maybe just wants it gone?

Always fascinated to watch Linux take steps forward in this regard. Thanks for the info, Theo! As a guy with very little time for this sort of thing and no more headspace at my age, I use the trillion dollar corporation's trickle down boxes running BSD Unix with nail polish and lipstick, and count myself lucky that I don't have to get under the hood and wrench stuff. Nevertheless, I watch Linux audio development with interest as it develops – usually in the form of watching my friends say, in a good Bullwinkle the Moose imitation, "This time FOR SURE!", try to set up a build that will work, and eventually quit in disgust... mike

That sample, among others, was created by E-mu sample ace Richard Burmer z''l. We lost him far too early; he was not only an inspired digital boffin, but a lyrical and sensitive composer. His four albums are a treasure, although I never really got into the fourth and last one (which was released on American Gramophone) as much as the others. When programming a sample player to use this sample, remember that the overblow is not on every note. I can't remember how it was done on the EII (mod wheel?), but there was a control that added the overblow when desired; the rest of the time it played a loop much earlier in the sample until released. The very first Creative Options column in KEYBOARD was called "Let Us Now Praise Famous Samples", in which Freff lambasted artists like Tangerine Dream for overusing samples like this one. I believe this article came out just before So..... I should ask him about his reaction to hearing that sample all over the radio, inescapably, for months... mike

It was always an object of curiosity for me, but far too big for my tiny studio. My friend Robert Rich has (had?) one that has seen a lot of heavy use. I would argue that one could define a "true" hardware synth as one that uses no software at all, which greatly limits the field... but also avoids problems like this. Then all you have to worry about is the gradual discontinuation of through-hole components. Yaaaay! mike

I too am a vinyl collector who currently has no turntable (that will change eventually). The experience of having all that space for artwork and notes is pretty special; I have occasionally wondered if there was a smaller and more compact/affordable way to package a single CD in a 12" sleeve. Perhaps a very thin sheet of foam that can slide into the jacket, with a cut out for the disc? I don't know. But there is definitely something to the vinyl experience... just not the sound quality. And people buy plug-ins to put that noise back into records now! RUMPH. mike

Sorry I beat you to it, David. ❤️

This is a big selling point on the latest versions of Arturia's virtual analog machines, and it sounds really good... the problem is setting the values too high, which can cause your synth to sound just plain wonky. Interestingly, this idea goes all the way back to the Wave 2.V software, which had an AKKU (battery) button to simulate wobbly voltages that produced some of the PPG's quirks.

Roger Linn has one. He is really enjoying it. On a recent zoom call, he appeared in two windows, one with him sitting and wearing the mask and the other of his face avatar. You can see screenshots of the two side by side if you go to his website and check the Monthly Meeting page, where he has photos. mike

Actually, I jumped the gun badly on that one. There has been no official word from Arturia, yet, and because my involvement was only peripheral and early on, I haven’t been kept in the loop. I’m going to be quietly slinking under a rock for a while.