Just got my MeeBlip last week and I'm in loooooove.
Peter Kirn (from Create Digital Music) and James Grahame (of Retro Thing fame) have a winner on their hands with this affordable, hackable digital synth. It's a duuuurty little guy and you can expect to see some loops from this in the coming weeks.
It's got a very cool, unique, edgy sound... And at a price of less than $200, I'm certain that the MeeBlip is gonna be a massive hit.
When it comes to synth exotica, this year's Musikmesse was one of the best I've seen in years. No, no, no... I was too busy with Academik to make the trek, but considering I've already had my grubby mitts on a couple of these delights, I can safely say that the world of synthesis has been going through a bit of a renaissance lately.
Here's a rundown of my favorite products of this show. It is by no means comprehensive, it's just the stuff that I plan to either buy, review, or recommend.
[Update: Some browsers are having problems displaying this piece's layout, notably Safari. Not sure what's going on, since I've posted numerous YouTube videos in the past without incident. Looks great in Firefox, for what that's worth... Apologies...]
ROLAND JUPITER-80
With three months of teasing and rumors, Roland's Jupiter-80 made one of the biggest splashes in tradeshow history - and I'm not just saying that because I designed a fuckton of its presets.
This performance-centric synth sports a three-oscillator analog-modeled synth, Roland's new SuperNATURAL modeling/sampling technology, massive array of world-class effects, and a whopping 256 voices, making it worthy of its $3999 price tag.
How does it sound? Well, having had one in my studio for nearly four months, I can tell you first-hand that it's a true beast of a synth with a VERY Roland vibe. Kind of like a menage a trois between a Jupiter-8, D-50, and Fantom X8 - but targeted directly at live performance.
Howard Jones also designed a bunch of the Jupiter sounds and gives his take on the beastie in the YouTube video above.
Every time I play a gig, someone inevitably asks for advice on getting started with a home studio or DJ rig. Since talking tech is my favorite pastime (next to actually making tracks) I usually end up staying up way past my bedtime answering these questions – with a grin on my face.
In the interest of getting more sleep on the road, I've assembled a list of the five major considerations in putting together a rig of your own. This info is current as of February 2011 and I'll be updating it periodically as new products supercede older ones.
Maybe I was sleeping - or binging touring - or designing sounds - or too busy working on this blog, but I somehow totally missed the amazing site update for Vintage Synth Explorer.
VSE is absolutely the go-to site for in-depth information on legendary synths, so this site refresh adds even more value to one of my all time favorite resources for gear.
By far, the coolest thing about the new site is the Vintage Synth Timeline, which puts every synth on the site into a scrolling timeline that's a blast to poke around.
