Visitor Interview

VISITOR is a new duo out of the UK bringing back the pop flavor in the synth pop scene.  Their beautiful pop vocals and dance beats are some taking the dance scene by storm.  With their debut album just around the corner, I was very excited to have a chance to talk to Lucas and Kyle about their synth choices, working with Diamond Cut (a guest a few weeks ago) and what's to come from their debut album.

Los Feeling by VISITOR

Starsmith - Lesson One

Just a quick post for you guys-- found out this video came out today for Starsmith's new track, 'Lesson One'.  SoundCloud version below.

On the subject of Starsmith, I think he's a really great producer, and he is pretty much Ellie Goulding's sound.  It's a shame his album was sidelined, because it had promise to be one of the best dance records of this year-- it was supposed to feature the likes of Stine Bramsen from Alphabeat, among other guests.  It is nice though that this track and its b-sides will give us an insight of what could have been.  Hopefully that record isn't lost forever-- hey Vulture, what about a 2012 release?

Starsmith - Lesson One by Vulture Music

Monday Mix

Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know - The Sanfernando Sound REMIX by The Sanfernando Sound

Metric - Help I'm Alive (Mindscramble Remix) by Mindscramble

Anoraak Crazy Eyes Jules Schimmer Remix by Jules Schimmer

Heat of the Night by Kid Machine

Pippi (Diamond Cut Remix) by Diamond Cut Music

Monday Mix!  What is Monday Mix?  Why is this happening today and not any other Monday?  Well if you guys love it, I'll do it every Monday, or try, but I thought I'd try something new since I'm going to be on a plane all day going out to California.

I've snatched up 5 tracks from 5 talented producers this Monday.  It's a mix of old and new, but I still listen to Daft Punk's discovery and that's 10 years old.  Groove on, peeps.

She's the Queen - The Way

The Way by Shes the Queen

Very excited to show of this new gem by She's the Queen, just released today on SoundCloud.  I watched much of this track progress and got to enjoy the heavenly vocals Emily laid down live.  This track also features some great shimmering guitar-- a less common feature in synthpop, but it fits beautifully in this track to accompany the catchy synth hooks and punchy beats.  She's the Queen is part of The Night Moves collective, which was featured today on Fear of Tiger's new podcast which I referred to in the last post but didn't post yet-- check that new podcast here.

Enjoy your weekend!

Friday Round Up

Alesis Andromeda A6

Ah, the Alesis Andromeda A6.  One of the true modern analog beasts.  Boasting 16 voices of analog grit, this synth is raw power.  While it's not the prettiest looking board (maybe one of the ugliest even), it's really just telling us not to judge a book by its cover.  The Andromeda boasts sine, triangle, square, saw up and saw down waves (one of the very few analogs to have sine waves), as well as 32 total filters.  No wonder this thing cost more than 3 grand USD.  That may seem like alot of dough for a keyboard, but keep in mind that Moog likes to charge 3.5 grand for a Voyager, and 5 grand for a Voyager XL (that has the same amount of keys as the Andromeda).  The engineers behind this beast were brilliant.  You can turn off the automatic tuning of the keyboard to give it more vintage warmth, or snap them in to place for a nice tuning.  The synth also has some nice digital effects-- don't see those everyday on an analog either.  I highly recommend you click this picture to get a better look at all the great features it has.  Alesis does wonders in getting so much in for the cost.

Sadly, it's already out of production (I'm assuming the reason is because of the hefty price tag).  Hey Alesis, do you want a million dollar idea?  Take what you've made here, scale it down to 5 or 6 voices, give it a more vintage style of control, and do whatever else you need to to make it cheap as possible.  Hell, you can even break it down further than that for a 1 voice, 3 oscillator analog keyboard as well.  I KNOW that Alesis is capable of that-- their engineers are brilliant at packing value into tight spaces.  Making something smaller and more entry level would appeal to analog fanatics and newbies alike, and in turn might even give DSI and Moog a run for their money!  Let's not forget that Korg is slowly amassing research to enter the analog market again as well... perhaps in another 5 year we'll not only have DSI and Moog, but Korg and Alesis with great analogs of their own!  Now, if only someone could whip Roland into making new Jupiters and Junos, we'd all be happy about our keys like we were in the 70s and 80s. 

But in the mean time, Alesis, about that smaller analog synth?  Pretty please?

Prophet 5: Analog vs Digital

I was checking out these videos yesterday, and found them pretty interesting.  This Youtube user is comparing the patches found in the original Prophet 5 to the Arturia Prophet 5.  Some of the patches are almost identical.  While it's unfair to truly judge due to the sound quality Youtube offers (I'd love to see someone do this and upload it to SoundCloud), it does show that you could probably get away with certain plugs in mixes, especially for background sounds.  It would also be interesting to compare these to the modern Prophet 08.  While Arturia's plugins are of the most demanding CPU wise, they are among the best.  Check out the videos and try to hear some differences yourself.  Of course, don't get me wrong, I'd take real analog any day...