Enore Zaffiri "Musica Per Un Anno"

Here is an interesting old record (1968) from Italian composer Enore Zaffiri, "Musica Per Un Anno". In SIM Proceedings there is an interesting article where Andrea Valle analyses "Musica Per Un Anno" and reconstructs it in SuperCollider environment (www.aimi-musica.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/attiZaffiri.pdf).

Valle has also interviewed Zaffiri and got some interesting information about Zaffiris original analog implementation of MPUAN. Zaffiri had only 4 sine wave oscillators, two tape recorders, frequency meter, custom build impulse generator and a tape echo. He first hand calculated the algorithmic input data for each sine wave (at most there are 12 overlapping layers of sine waves), recorded it in pieces and constructed the composition with cut-and-splice operations ! In MPUAN there are 720 sequences grouped in 360 couples, each one being assigned to one day in the year of 360 days. The year is subdivided to 12 months of 30 days and a day programs granularity is based on 1 hour timespan.
That has been an enormous work to implement in analog way !

Qubit Nebulae Firmware update

I decided to update my Qubit Nebulaes firmware to version 1.1. Nebulae is an audio file player/granular oscillator in the Eurorack modular synthesizer format. It uses sound files as the source material for creating loops, melodies, granular clouds, drones, pads and otherworldy textures. Nebulae is constructed using Arduino Unos ATMega328 processor and Raspberry Pi. Raspberry runs either Csound or Pure Data code (in the back picture ATMega328 is in left and RaspPi on the right). I suppose the construction is quite similar as in this interesting CSound Journal article (www.csounds.com/journal/issue18/eurorack.html). In this article they build an FM oscillator in the Eurorack format using Csound, RaspPi and Arduino Uno. Arduino handles the interface (potentiometers, buttons) and converts this information to MIDI (CV to MIDI). This MIDI information is sent to RaspPi where the CSound code is executed. RaspPi converts this information to analog audio.

Qubit has made an excellent video how you can DIY update the firmware to version 1.1.

For this you need Arduino Uno and SD-card reader/writer. Update was easy to do with this instruction video. I am planning to create analog sounds and transfer these to Nebulae for further processing.

Nebulae front

Nebulae back

Arduino UNO

Charles Cohen in Belgium

Charles Cohen (CC) and Rabih Beaini (aka Morphosis) gig at Vooruit in Ghent/Belgium was great ! They both performed first as solo and then together. Music was all improvised. CC has a Zen master ability to create music that is creating space rather than occupying space. His performance had a flow that went on as naturally as a river flows. He told me after the gig that he likes the European music scene and audience a lot so I suppose and hope that we will hear more his playing here in Europe !

Accessit Stereo Spring Reverb

I attach here more information about my Accessit Spring Reverb. I bought this new in 80's, together with Accessit mixer, Teac 3340 4-track tape recorder and DBX noise reduction. I checked this and changed all the capacitors on the control unit. It works nice as you can here on my ARP-recording. It's a mono-in stereo-out reverb with three springs on both the left and right channels (six springs together). Mystically I have the original Accessit brochure left from where are the two last pictures here.

First sounds from ARP 2600

Here is the first recording of my TTSH ARP 2600 clone in action. Speakers are missing and the case. I try to fit my Access stereo spring reverb to ARP. The Reverb has a huge sound and the parametric EQ on reverb is very handy.

Charles Cohen in Europe

Charles Cohen has a gig at Vooruit in city Gent of Belgium 19.3.2015. I think this is almost the last change to hear him live in Europe. Cohen is the man when we are speaking about Buchla Music Easel and live performance. I have the tickets already in my pocket! Here is a nice interview about him: www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?2020

Moog Prodigy Clone

I started a new Prodigy-project where I try to make a Moog Prodigy clone. This started when I noticed that my Sprint Layout PCB program has a scanned-copy function where you can load an existing PCB-layout picture and use this bitmap as an original to trace the layout. This is a good project to test this functionality of Sprint Layout. Moog Prodigy is also a good candidate for cloning because it is a simple design and has no extremely hard-to-find components. It has also a great sound !! Below is a picture where the grey part is the bitmap and green is the new traces I have drawn. This takes some time because it is a one big PCB. After this I must also cross check the traces to schematics and make the final BOM.