Second Hand: Roland MC-303

I forgot to say that I actually owned an MC303 groovebox for a short time: it's a pretty darn big module, whose buttons and presentation ape older Roland drum machines, and I thought that it might be worth a try when one came up for £100 in east London.

I noticed quite a few people still like to use this for lots of different sounds to augment their hardware setup, so it couldn't be all bad...could it?

No More Heroes Any More - Requiem pt 2

Part two of all the deaths in 2016, the worse year for musicians in a long while - not to mention all the actors and comedians as well.

No More Heroes Any More - Requiem pt 1

2016 has been a tough year in many respects; Brexit, Trump, Syria, terrorist bombings, Snooper's Charter. The same has been true for celebrities, with a large number of musicians in particular having been sent to the great gig in the sky this year. This post is not meant to state the obvious but to highlight some of the artists who perhaps didn't get as much screen time  as others and to remind us all of the losses of these cultural icons.

A guide to Second Hand Synths in UK - part 2

The internet is a great thing; connecting people with similar interests together in a meaningful way that allows for more collaboration and idea sharing as well as the buying and selling of goods. In some cases, second hand websites are the only way you can get hold of older equipment that isn't available through retail channels and there's a great number of them to check out that I have covered before.

The problem I have is over the bad rap that certain sites get when targeted by the criminal element in society who use these sites to lure victims into situations where they get robbed...or worse. In fact the impetus for these articles was a story about a court case where a 28 year old university graduate was stabbed trying to sell his Apple laptop via Gumtree (luckily he made a recovery, but I digress!)

So, I want to share some best practice tips for meeting up to do a swap or purchase. It makes a lot of sense for sellers to do face to face 

Saturday Soundtracks: Grand Theft Auto Vice City Theme

Kicking off with a cheeky Commodore 64 reference to the burgeoning home computing revolution at the time of the game, Vice City is a stylish follow up to the first Grand Theft Auto to grace the Playstation 2 console and rather than continue with a present-day story looks to the past for inspiration and motifs - the 1980s.

7 things I learned about Korg from their AMA

Following a recent Reddit AMA on the r/synthesizers subreddit shortly after the announcement of the newly minted Monologue, Nick Kwas from Korg was on hand and able to answer questions from the synthesiser community and it was gratifying to see how many questions Nick was able to go through.

Having read the rather large post, I have collected some of the insights I found of interest from the AMA based on Nick’s responses in a short form version here.

Saturday Soundtracks: GTA San Andreas Theme Song

GTA 3 was big, a full playground in three dimensions that full realised what the meagre Playstation was trying to achieve with the first two releases. Vice City expanded on the former, with a full story with all the 80s music and tropes you could ever wish to have in all of the main and side missions, plus helicopters, boats and loads more besides. 

But at some five times the size of Vice City, itself a large world to play in, GTA San Andreas is an absolute monster of a game and at times it's amazing to think of how Rockstar managed to pack so much into just a Playstation 2 disc.

MyVolts Splitter Version 2 - review

Thanks to MyVolts for supplying the review cable for this post. If you want to get your own with a discount, CAROLVOLCA2 on their website will get you £3 off before 14 October 2016.

As alluded to earlier in the week, the folks at MyVolts have just released version two of their power splitter cable for up to five Korg Volcas, and now that mine has arrived I thought I would take it for a quick spin.

Saturday Soundtracks: Star Goose for Atari ST

Back to the old school Atari ST with this vertical scrolling shooter, featuring a tank that fired bullets or collected missiles and disappeared down 3D tunnels picking up tokens to recharge fuel and shields. The premise is simple: shoot down everything in your path, collect the gems and don't run out of shields or fuel.

A game that featured exactly zero sound effects during the game but made up for it with a wonderfully pumping soundtrack. Now that I think about it, I struggled to get the link with geese and I assumed that it was something to do with the shape of the ship, but nevertheless a solid scrolling shooter.

MyVolts Power Splitter Version 2: Power Harder

Fresh from coverage and feedback from all the major synth sites including Synthtopia and SonicState, those geniuses at MyVolts have been busy updating their five-way Korg Volca power splitter for powering multiple Volcas through either one wall wart or a single USB charger. I have been a fan of this device ever since it was announced, so more updates are very much welcome.

From the looks of things, the cable seems to be the same length from the split point and the connectors are now right angled rather than upright/straight ones. I recall this was one of the main suggestions that Nick Batt had when they covered this via YouTube and when you're using Volcas in an upright rack or next to each other the upright connectors can obscure the controls of another Volca. With right angles I'm hopeful that the connector will be much more inconspicuous.

MyVolts have kindly provided me with one of the new splitter leads to try out, so as soon as I get it plugged in I'll let you know how it fares. In the meantime, if you have multiple Volcas and haven't sorted out a power solution, you can do a lot worse than picking up one of these, plus use code CAROVOLCA2 on the MyVolts website before 14 October 2016 and save yourself a few quid too.

Links:
http://myvolts.co.uk/product/18809/- New 5 way splitter

DSI Evolver and MoPho

Sometimes, good things come in pairs. I recently jumped on the chance to buy two second hand synthesisers from a chap in Kensal Green; a MoPho module and Evolver module from Dave Smith Instruments. Despite only wanting the Evolver initially, I found that to buy both was only £100 more so I jumped at the chance to grab another cheap analogue box.

I have always been attracted to the Evolver, initally because the keyboard versions looks and sounds like a blue UFO but now because a 4 oscillator monosynth with three delay lines and four sequencers sounds immense.

Both synths, now discontinued, have had a good run; the MoPho in particular providing cheap and reliable analogue bass and lead sounds to a generation of musicians with both enough hands on control with a deep and rich feature set for those looking to get under the hood.

A guide to Second Hand Synths in UK

So you want to buy a synthesiser, but don't necessarily have the budget to go all out on a new item: where do you go next? The UK second hand market is full of options and people selling their gear for a variety of reasons, whether it's to raise funds for newer hardware, whether children on the way, a change to all in the box or perhaps relocating to another country.

However, it can be daunting for newcomers to know where to get the best deals or just what to expect in terms of prices, availability, selection and so on. So here's a little run down of some of the places to go where you can check listings and maybe pick up something fun to play with at a decent price.

And as always with these things; Caveat Emptor!

KMR Audio Synth Expo - May 13th

In an effort to get some interest in their new range of synthesisers, the good folks at KMR Audio in North London organised a little get together of synth makers last month. I popped up to a far off place at the end of the Northern line called Totteridge and Whetstone to see what all the fuss was about, chat with makers and have a few free beers.

Ripcord - USB flavoured power for music gear

As I have already made clear on this blog, I am a fan of sensible, no nonsense solutions for synthesiser power. With quite a few different products to power, it's not always convenient to run around with power supplies and multi-way adaptors - not to mention the ugly, bulky bricks that some come with.

Thankfully, there's a new project from the guys behind MyVolts that they are calling Ripcord, which they are touting as a a plug and play anywhere USB power cable. Powered either from a laptop, computer, phone charge or even a portable battery recharger or micro USB enabled phone, it's clear that this opens up more opportunities for playing with your gear on the go as well as making it easier to power things in a desktop scenario. I'm not entirely sure with the battery power I get out of my LG G4 that I would find this viable but I do like having the option!

From what I can see, Ripcord is clearly positioned as the next stage in the evolution of the USB splitter cable that powers the Volcas (which I had lovely things to say about here) and is currently available via a Kickstarter, which at the time of writing has just over 20K EUR to go. The video there explains everything more succinctly, so take a look and see what you think!

Jump on the kickstarter page here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/48955335/ripcord-the-plug-n-play-anywhere-usb-power-cable

Hiatus ended (hopefully)

I've been pretty busy with work and other projects, while being distracted by Reddit's r/synthesisers group and Twitter updates, but I'm hoping to get back into blogging again soon. 

Priorities for me:

• More Saturday soundtracks
• Modular DIY building
• Experiences with Bitwig
• KMR Audio's Synth Expo tomorrow
• Novation's XioSynth - new second hand hardware!
• Novation BassStation II - borrowing for a while
• Volca FM impressions
• Finally finishing some stuff for Soundcloud

Saturday Soundtracks: Asterix & The Great Rescue

Saturday Soundtracks: Zero Wing

Saturday Soundtracks: Spring Yard Zone / Sonic the Hedgehog

Now we're talking! Everyone and their mum has played this game and some of the music and sound design was of a great standard for a launch title. Well, that comment about mums was definitely true for mine; she made it most of the way through Emerald Hill Zone before dying at Robotnik and giving up at the continue screen.

No matter - Spring Yard Zone is a great bit of hard edged FM Hip Hop goodness, even verging into Bobby Brown / Bel Biv Devoe new jack swing with those claps and offbeats. Still great today as it ever was, even if Spring Yard Zone was a fairly short experience compared with later levels like Labyrinth Zone and that this game was shortly surpassed in graphical fidelity and sound by its sequels.

MyVolts 5 way power splitter cable - Part 2

After the great reaction I got from my first article on MyVolts’ rather handy five way splitter cable I thought I would do some additional testing to see if it can play nicely with some other Korg gear that uses the same power connectors.

Saturday Soundtracks: Full Throttle

After a week off, it's time to get back to Saturday Soundtracks. This week, a bit of rock from LucasArt's Full Throttle.