New MultiTracks App

Mate, Roger O'Donnell (The Cure, Thompson Twins, Psychedelic Furs, 99x/10) is featured in a new app, MultiTracks. If you listen closely you can hear a bit of my synth and drum programming in there as well!

Roger O'Donnell's MultiTracks releases from "The Truth In Me" and "Songs From The Silver Box", each song delivered as eight synchronized stereo tracks in a mixer format. You can solo, mute, and adjust the volume on every instrument and vocal track! Only with the MultiTracks App for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

MultiTracks App for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch for FREE here: http://bit.ly/1kbjGYW

MultiTracks App: http://multitracksapp.com/

Artist Portal: http://multitracksmusic.com/

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The Synthi Group Volumes I, II, III

In 2009-10, I was fortunate to have been involved with the Synthi Group, a collection of vintage EMS analog synthesizer owners that came together for a series of collaborative releases via Clinical Archives label. Now permanently archived at the Internet Archive site, these releases will hopefully last as long as the instruments that made the tracks...

Formed in 1969, Electronic Music Studios (EMS) quickly became innovators for the recording, production and advancement of electronic music. The ideas and designs that bubbled forth out of the ingenuitive minds of Peter Zinovieff, Tristram Cary, David Cockerell and others, led to the creation of some of the most wildly original musical/sound design equipment ever conceived. The VCS3, Synthi A + AKS, Synthi 100, Synthi E, Synthi Logik and the Soundbeam are among these, almost unworldly, devices.

It is often said EMS gear has attained cult status, reaching a fervor of near worship among its users. The Synthi Group is an example and collection of such users. United through the Synthi blog and forum (www.thesynthi.de) and located throughout the world, the group's members have come together for a planned series of compilation volume releases where the individuality and approach of each member towards their EMS instrument is showcased and broadcasted for all to experience. The listener will hear wildly different examples of styles and sounds that this original, and oft times, vintage equipment can create.

EMS were true pioneers from the very beginning, always looking beyond the culture and times they were surrounded and seemingly trapped in. Still around today, thanks to Robin Wood and Ludwig Rehberg, they are one of the few companies involved with electronic instrument production that have had a continued run since their inception. The Synthi Group have honed the original pioneering spirit and DIY ethic of EMS with their Volume series, a collection of sounds encompassing beautiful dreamscapes, synaesthetic visions, dark ambience, aural abstractions, sonic absurdities, pulsating analog, glitch, ring modulators, and envelope shapers generating trapezoidal geometry. Beginning with Volume 1, the Synthi Group compilations aim to ensure the story of EMS continues well into the future of electronic music production. (alka 2009)

MONSTER MOVIE remix

Excited to have recently finished up a remix for "dream pop" specialists, Monster Movie which is of course comprised of Sean Hewson and Christian Savill (also of Slowdive). Their pastoral track Left has always been a favorite of mine and it was kind of them to allow me free reign with the original isolated tracks. I coincidentally had Halsey Shelton's (Young Werewolves/Full Blown Cherry) Moog MG-1 that I had just repaired sitting in my studio so I experimented dropping it into the mix... things went a little strange after that.

If all goes as planned the remix will be included in a deluxe remastered reissue edition of their 2004 mini-LP, Transistor out on Graveface Records early in 2016. Stay tuned...

Bil Herd and the Buchla

After my recent build of a Buchla 208 clone (one 1/2 of the Music Easel) revealed some problems and after gazing ineffectively for hours at the original 1973 hand drawn schematics like they were some kind of Magic Eye puzzle, it was time to call in the help of the pros.

Fortunately, I had just met legendary electronics guru Bil Herd (Commodore, Hack a Day, Herdware). After getting familiar with the ODD (Old Don Design) Buchla layout and functionality, he had the problem isolated in no time: a missing trace from the Enable A from the Envelope board to the Enable A to the Pulser board. A little Telfon wire later and I now have a working 208.

HELMHOLTZ SOUND SYNTHESIZER

HELMHOLTZ SOUND SYNTHESIZER.
HELMHOLTZ, HERMANN VON. 1821-1894.
Chemnitz: Max Kohl, c.1905.
HELMHOLTZ SOUND SYNTHESIZER.
HELMHOLTZ, HERMANN VON. 1821-1894. Chemnitz: Max Kohl, c.1905.

A wood and brass sound synthesizer built by Max Kohl after the design by Hemholtz. 39½ x 29 inch mahogany base with turned feet, fitted with 11 small wooden platforms, each marked with a number and the words “aus” [from] and “ein” [to], 10 of the platforms fitted with tuning forks and accompanying brass Helmholtz resonators, the tallest measuring 18½ high, each pair ranging in size according to their graduating frequencies, 11th platform fitted with 1 large horizontal master tuning fork. All 11 platforms connected together with wire filaments, which are in turn attached to a keyboard fitted with 10 African ivory keys, each numbered and marked with the tones ut [Do, or C] to 4 octaves, mi [E] to 3 octaves, and sol [G] to 3 octaves. Each key is paired with 2 brass knobs, one each on the wooden panel above the key, and one each on the panel below. Opposite end from keyboard fitted with 2 anodes and 2 cathodes, each with accompanying brass knob.

The Helmholtz sound synthesizer was the first electric keyboard. Specimens of these are extremely rare, with only one similar but smaller apparatus located in a US institution that we know of. We have not seen another as large or finely made as this one. The synthesizer was used to combine timbres of 10 harmonics to form various vowel sounds. The system is driven by an intermittent current provided by a large horizontal master tuning fork on numbered wood base, and was operated by pressing on the various keys which sent the current to the corresponding electrically driven tuning forks. These forks, fitted with Helmholtz resonators tuned to the same frequency, would then reproduce the desired tone.

Helmholtz invented his resonator to identify the various frequencies of the pure sine wave components of complex sounds containing multiple tones, showing that the different combinations made could reproduce vowel sounds. Max Kohl of Chemnitz is perhaps one of the most famous scientific instrument makers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work was distinguished by its exacting craftsmanship, and high quality materials.

Currently at auction: http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22247/lot/245/

Buchla Electric Music Box syncing Bleep Labs Bleep Drum

Open-air test of a little voltage converter/tempo sync I built for the Buchla Electric Music Box to Bleep Labs Bleep Drum. 

alka gltch card for the Buchla 208 module clone

Having installed a prestopatch on my EMS Synthi and creating DIY resistor cards for it, I decided to try my hand at making a card for Roman Filippov's Buchla 208 module clone. After discovering the pitch is not standard on the 208's edge connector, unlike the Synthi's I realized I would need to design and etch my own card rather than use stock copper stripboard. This is the result. 

This design is for producing glitch and circuit bent-style sound effects.

House Margaret

So... here is why I haven't released any proper music(k) in ages. May I present some random photos showing the resulting details from my restoration of an 1893 Victorian era brick home in Woodbury, New Jersey, home to alka's Angels Den recording studio (not pictured).

Having an extremely limited budget, I am unable at this point to accurately return the building to its original layout as it was seriously altered in the 1950s when it was turned into 3 separate apartments. Most details shown are more akin to an artistic process rather than a historically accurate restoration. Many items were found cheaply in antique shops, thrift stores, and other people's trash. However, I feel I have been respectful to period details as much as possible and it feels like home.

As with any Victorian house restoration, it is a work in progress and these photos are certainly not the end of the story...

Regarding the name House Margaret, one of the photos features a framed photo of my Great Grandmother, Margaret O'Brien Kuhn... who I remember being a very strong-willed woman. She was born in 1896, a few years after this house was built... she is my physical link to the Victorian era! So I named our home, a symbol of family, after her.