Synth of the week : Gleeman Pentaphonic Clear
Gleeman pentaphonic clear








The Pentaphonic is a extremely rare five-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer released in 1982. Only about 20 were ever made ! It was designed by brothers Al and Bob Gleeman and featured three DCOs, a four-pole lowpass resonant filter with an ADSR envelope, a VCA with ADSR, an LFO, and built-in chorusing, a 300-note capacity real-time sequencer on-board. There's also a cool X/Y joystick for controlling pitch and mod effects. Some models also had a Presetter added which gave it 100 patch memories and eight digital waveforms.
The Clear model is unique because of its transparent plexiglass case. It was also designed to be strapped on like a guitar for live use.

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Celestia : A journey in outer space














Celestia is nothing musical but as lot of electronic tracks are space-inspired, give it a try for fun.
Be sure to install the 2001 add-on...

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Where to buy techno Mp3 ?















I found beatport a online mp3 store where you can find some good techno tracks.
Despite a very slow and ugly interface (blue and green NI style) there's a lot of interresting labels out there : Bpitch control, Basic channel, Disko B, Guidance, Logistics, Minus, Playhouse...
You can buy a whole release or one track, and all have preview.

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The Clocktave : Turtablist melodic tool














The Clocktave is a turntablist scratch tool, specifically designed for melodic scratching with the newest types of analog and digital turntables.It's a scratch tool based on a simple, but smart concept. In april 2004 Sjam told Kypski about his idea of pressing notes, ascending notescales to be exact, on a vinyl record. But not just that, the octaves of the scales had to be divided exactly between one rotation of a record. This way you'd remember the position of every note. You could play melodies while scratching, scratch while playing melodies... scratch melodies...well basically play melodies using your turntable. And all this while keeping the natural sound of the instruments in every single note, without having to move your scratching hand away from the platter to change pitch.Kypski liked this idea so much that he decided to introduce this concept briefly on Mazturbation Tool, and after that create a whole scratch record entirely around this concept. They named the concept 'Clocktave' (Clock - Octave) because the note markers can be read as a clock: every note has its fixed position, regardless of wether it's in a high or low octave. You could compare it to Q-Bert's 'Y Record', but with musical notes instead of stabs & beats and with way, way more positionings.And here it is. Superb musicians were hired to play scales and chords on acoustic and electric instruments like electric bass, upright bass, guitars, synth leads, rhodes, clavinet, horns

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LameToy Character Generator

















Nothing musical here, but really funny indeed.

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The digital resurection of the Mellotron










The Memotron is a digital remake of one of the most unusual and fascinating electronic music instruments : The Mellotron.

The Mellotron was the original multi-sampler, each key on the Mellotron had recordings of real instruments on a piece of magnetic tape under each note of the 3-octave keyboard and each key had its own pinch roller and playhead. Inside the Mellotron was a frame of tapes with a length of tape for each of the the 35 keys. Each tape could play for no more than eight seconds inspiring a unique 'crawling spider' playing technique as you played inversions to keep sustained chords going.
Each strip of tape had three sounds on it (one of the most popular combinations being strings, choir and flute) selectable from a rotary switch on the panel to the left of the small three octave keyboard but other frames could be purchased and swapped over if you wanted. This was a 'simple' matter of lifting the lid off the unit, removing the keyboard assembly, undoing a few screws, lifting out the tape frame and replacing it with the other frame, tightening the screws and replacing the keyboard assembly and top lid!!!
The instrument was also very temperamental and required regular servicing.

On the digital Memotron no more boring servicing!!! But the classical design and the configuration of the display and knobs are based on the original instrument.
A comprehensive sound library with high qualitative samples of original instruments of the Sixties and Seventies gives you the chance to experience the legendary sound of Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Procul Harum, Genesis, Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream.
Sounds can be load up from a CD, individually combined and stored up on compact flash cards.

The Memotron will be available in the end of 2005."

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Tranzport : Wireless Daw controller













"Frontier Design Group's new TranzPort represents a revolutionary way to interact with your Windows or Mac digital audio workstation (DAW). Instead of being stuck in front of your computer to compose, record, and produce music/audio, TranzPort gives you the freedom to control DAW functions from anywhere in your studio.
TranzPort is easy to set up and use. Right out of the box, it's compatible with popular DAW software such as Pro Tools, Sonar, Logic, Cubase, Digital Performer and others. You can arm tracks, use transport controls, set markers, control pans, punch in/out, start loops, and more from TranzPort's simple and intuitive interface. TranzPort is a bi-directional controller, so it also provides feedback to you on signal levels, timecode position, track names and more, via a backlit LCD display and LED indicators. "

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The CD Sequencer














The CD Sequencer is an innovative new concept for interactive CD packaging. You can use printed postcards to remix music and store your mixes or share them with friends.
Connect...draw...remix uses conductive ink to let you control music using a simple pencil. The object includes cardboard packaging, an enhanced audio CD and a set of printed postcards.
Draw on the cards to remix the tunes. If you are happy with a mix, you can remove the card and save it for later. The remix is "stored" on the card until the next time you insert it, when it immediately plays back.

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