VOLCA KEYS BERLIN SCHOOL PORTABLE AMPS ELIANE RADIGUE ARTIPHON ORBA JAMHUB TRACKER 1010MUSIC NANOBOX
PLUS READER’S RIGS FIELD GUIDE:
HOW TO BUILD THE PERFECT LIVE RIG
REVIEWS:
BEHRINGER U-CONTROL UCA202 AND MICROMIX MX400 HEADSET BUDDY AUDIO ADAPTER HOTONE SKYLINE PEDALS EUCLIDEAN AND NURACK BY 4POCKETS
PATCHWORKS:
THE KORG MODULAR
DIY:Gakken SX-150 Mark II LISTENING BOOTH
AMBIENT SENTINAL outdoor modular improvisations by: Gary P. Hayes GEMSTONES a new compilation album by: Cyclical Dreams
TAKING MOBILE MUSIC MAKING TO THE EXTREME
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Jeremy Spurgeon Editor
jeremy@mobilemusicianmagazine.com
elcome to the February issue of Mobile Musician Magazine! We are so excited about the positive response we received after we launched our premier issue in January. Everyone has been so supportive in the mobile music community and we want to say a big thankyou to all of you! I have met some amazing people in the last month that share our passion for music and technology. I have enjoyed speaking to all of you and I canʼt wait to share your stories with our readers.
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television producer, music professor, and software developer. He is now a professional photographer and mobile musician to the extreme in the Blue Mountains of Australia. He spends his time exploring the landscape, composing music in the wilderness, and guiding photography enthusiasts on weekend excursions to the best locations. We sat down and discussed his favorite pieces of gear, his approach to improvising music, and how nature influences his music.
I have also learned just how vast our community really is. Over the last few weeks we have received new subscribers from around the world, confirming that music is universal and touches so many lives. At Mobile Musician we want to contribute to your enjoyment of music by bringing you stories of exceptional artists from all over the world.
We also feature some great apps for IOS, NuRack and Euclidean sequencer by 4Pockets, along with the Korg Volca Keys, 1010Music Nanobox, and the Artiphon Orba. We take a look at a unique digital recorder, the JamHub Tracker MT16, which could be the perfect companion for the mobile musician and much more.
This month we feature one such artist, Gary P. Hayes, who has had an extensive career in music and technology. He has been at the leading edge of computer graphics and sound sampling development, and has contributed countless musical compositions to radio, film, and television. He has been a
Thank you for reading Mobile Musician, I hope you enjoy this issue. Please drop us a line and let us know how we are doing. Jeremy Spurgeon All contents copyright 2022 Jeremy Spurgeon or published under license. All rights reserved.
EDITORIAL 3 NEWS 6 GARY P. HAYES 8 KORG VOLCA KEYS 16 BERLIN SCHOOL 20 PORTABLE AMPS 24 ARTIPHON ORBA 28 JAMHUB TRACKER MT16 32 ELIANE RADIGUE 34 NANOBOX 38 MOBILE MUSICIAN
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Photo: Gary P. Hayes
REVIEWS 42 EUCLIDEAN 44 NURACK 46 ALBUM REVIEWS 48 READER’S RIGS 50 DIY 52 FIELD GUIDE 54 PATCHWORKS 58 LISTENING BOOTH 60
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With guitar, synthesizers, bass, and drums, the band creates dense and moody tunes with Maiahʼs fragile vocals floating high above it all. Alex has been working on some of these tunes for a few years now, including Western Sunset, a tribute to his late friend and band-mate Neil Peart. The album is available for pre-order. Check it out at: https://envyofnone.com
CONGRATULATIONS!
Photo: Bandcamp
We are happy to announce that Aaron McPherson is the winner of our 50th Anniversary Stylophone S1 give-away for our premier issue. Be sure to check out our new give-away for February.
Envy of None New band, Envy of None, featuring Alex Lifeson of Rush, Andy Curran of Coney Hatch, Alfio Annibalini, and Maiah Wynne are releasing their shelf-titled debut album on April 8, 2022. MOBILE MUSICIAN
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Roland Celebrates 50 Years Roland kicks off a year of celebration commemorating itʼs 50th anniversary in 2022. They have created a special website, featuring a timeline of the products that has made Roland a household name. They have special editions and events planned throughout the year. For more information visit:https:// www.roland.com/global/roland-50thanniversary/
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Electro: From Kraftwerk to Techno Need some inspiration? A new exhibition has opened at the Kunstpalast museum in Dusseldorf, Germany exploring the history of electronic music. The exhibition includes more than 500 exhibits featuring the iconic sounds of Kraftwerk, Detroit techno, Chicago house, hip hop, and ʻ90s rave culture. On display are instruments, custom-made sound generators, photography, films, graphic designs, and audio clips. For more information visit: https://www.kunstpalast.de
Ph oto :G ary P. H
ay e
s
Featured artist
GARY P. HAYES Based in the Blue Mountains of Australia, this mobile musician takes portability to the extreme, often hiking for hours into the local wilderness to compose and record electronic music in the solitude of nature.
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hen you are a conduit of the energy found in nature your mission is to deliver a message. Gary's music does this by carrying the listener on an epic journey of sound and vision--at times a catalyst for philosophical meanderings of the mind. He gathers inspiration by first experiencing the environment around him, paying attention to what is being said, and then translating that for us in sound. His breathtaking aerial footage provides the perfect visuals to his long-form improvisations that are cinematic in scope.
important when reciting musical compositions, but what is missed is the space between the notes where creativity lives. Consider his Modular Symphony on a Pagoda 'Before Humans' in 5 Acts. Here he pulls on the strings of the universe to create an ambient sound that boasts majestic swells and carries you with him to the top of the Pagoda rock outcropping. Gong-like
“I usually sit for a while and take it all in and Then Iʼll improvise some music that responds to the environment.”
While the foundational basis of Gary's pieces is improvisation there is still quite a bit of planning and mindful coordination involved. Having the ability to live in the paradoxical realm of planning and spontaneity, yet outside rigid constructs of something like classical compositions, lends to creative freedom. Furthermore, it is this duality that holds the genesis of masterpieces. He spoke of this comparison during our conversation: Understanding the complexity of timing, layering, and the precision of the notes is extremely
reverberations off the stone give a certain mystical element, and at times even a guttural groaning of the earth itself: What would it be like to see nature before mankind touched it? Gary gave insight to the struggle of creating long-form improvisations with a synchronous flow that is not interrupted by
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the physicality of managing the instrument itself. For example, his video Winds of Kanimbla Dreamtime begins with a humming discovery, but soon picks up the rhythm of the dancing trees around it. Both listening to, and watching the piece makes sense, and it flows unencumbered. However, creating the end product required constant manipulation of five instruments, something Gary does with seasoned precision.
Cubase in both studios and education. Having developed music courses in modern music production, he later taught at the Central Manchester College, Guildhall School, and the BRIT (British Record Industry Trust) school in London, as Head of the music production, music technology, and recording studio programs. While at the BRIT school, he also organized contemporary classical festivals with fellow faculty. “My degree is in music and physics so Iʼve always been interested in ʻproperʼ music”, he says with a laugh. Gary was also working with non-linear video editing technology in the early ʻ90s, long before it was commonplace. This lead to a 10 year position with the BBC, producing new media and interactive television. It was at the BBC where Gary helped to develop one of the first generative music software programs called Koan, along side Brian Eno and the SSEYO company. Brian Eno would later release the album Generative Music 1, a collection of pieces created with Koan. Gary continued working in new media for the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, CA, continuing to compose music and contributing tracks to the radio, television, and film industry.
Hiking to remote destinations in the Blue Mountains of Australia, the mind is sure to absorb the offerings from the macrocosm: streams, wildlife, the crunch of the earth underfoot, and the long, low breezes like nature's whispers. With the effort and diligence it takes to produce these compositions, he emphasizes the necessity of allowing music to take its' own shape. While the artist may have an idea of what he or she wants, flexibility is essential for creativity, and it simply cannot be forced.
Looking back Gary has an extensive career and familiarity in music production and technology, having pioneered much of it: “I was lucky enough to be a teenager in Manchester in the ʻ80s and a part of the music scene,” Gary explains. “Bands like New Order, OMD, and 808 State were just down the street from me.” In fact, Gary set up a production company featuring a small 8-track tape studio with midi and worked with many of the local bands producing demo albums. He was right on the forefront of the recording industry, working with the Atari ST computer and Steinberg
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Down Under It was new media that lead him to Sydney, Australia and finally to the Blue Mountains, where he currently resides. Here, Gary has rekindled his love of photography and film. Along with his
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Photo: Gary P. Hayes
Photo: Gary P. Hayes
music composition, Gary is a full-time landscape photographer and an aerial filmmaker, with hundreds of gorgeous photos on his photography website. “My aerial photography has really increased in demand lately. I take my small drone with me everywhere I go now”, he explains. “I license footage to the BBC and others.”
video more interesting”. Gary has posted over 600 performances to his Youtube channel documenting his journey in mobile music--many times posting two videos a week. Gary has recently incorporated a Eurorack system into his music with great success. “Its a great workstation. You can have 4 or 5 voices going at one time but, no matter what instrument I am working with I try to focus on the flow of the composition”, he says. “I am constantly switching out modules in the Eurorack to help make it more playable”, he explains. In particular, Gary is interested in the “patch from scratch” approach to composition on the modular. “I want to develop a way to start from scratch and improvise a complete performance, building up parts as I go, like I would on tabletop synths.” After the live performance is completed he will film himself and the surroundings with his drone for a spectacular aerial video that he edits into the final performance video. “I do all of the filming myself so I have to film the aerial footage after the fact”, he explains. “The drones have gotten so good with automatic flight modes that I can pretend I am playing music while it flies overhead”. Gary creates something that few others are creating. His videos and his music are quite impressive and the fact that he can do all of this in the remote wilderness with battery power is a testament to the times that we live in and to the ingenuity that Gary posses.
However, it is the mountains that have been the wellspring from which Gary has grown and developed into a mobile music extremist. “Having hiked these mountains now for 9 or 10 years, I have discovered all the best photography spots”, he says. “I was spending a lot of time standing around waiting for the right lighting for my photos, so I started bringing a Volca along to occupy my time. The mountains are so inspiring.” Before long Gary was building portable cases so he could bring along more gear and filming his performances for his Youtube channel. “Now I combine all of it into my excursions. Iʼll take my recorder along and make field recordings as I hike out to a nice peaceful spot”, he adds. “I usually sit for a while and take it all in and then Iʼll improvise something that responds to the environment.” What he usually comes up with is a mixture of Ambient and Berlin School music, full of dense pads and blippy sequencer lines. He is a master of weaving a common thread throughout his improvised and lengthy compositions. Built upon his vast musical history, he creates music that reflects the sensibility of a well-honed professional. He records the performance on his field recorder, camera, and drone, capturing the experience to share with others. “I try to film what I am doing on the instrument so my viewers can clearly see”, he adds. “I think it makes the
Future Endeavors When asked about his future plans, Gary says, “Well I feel very fortunate to be able to make a living with my photography, especially landscape photography. After 25 years of high
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stress jobs in television, I have to pinch myself sometimes”. He says he would like to do some performances in more extreme locations in the wilderness. “I do a lot of workshops with my photography where I take students out to these extreme locations. So, Iʼd like to incorporate more of those locations into my musical videos as well”. Gary would also like to do more collaborations with other artists. “I have done those in the past where I played over someoneʼs video and they have played over mine. I am also interested in performing with a vocalist and see what kind of improvisation they could come up with over my music”, he says. “I want to continue to develop my modular performances and work towards playing more live shows around town as well”.
where we can control our own music careers. With sites like Youtube and Bandcamp, we get to decide what direction to take”. Based on Garyʼs impressive career and amazing art, I think no matter what direction he takes it will be successful. Surrounded by breathtaking scenery, he is developing something quite unique by combining aerial footage, music composition, and landscape photography. He has curated a dedicated following on Youtube with his videos and has 25 albums and counting in his Bandcamp discography. For more information, visit these sites: https://www.youtube.com/c/GaryHayes https://garyphayes.photography/ https://garyphayes.bandcamp.com/
Gary says he isnʼt interested in making a lot of money or becoming famous. “We are all very fortunate to live in a time
Korg VolcaKeys
In 2013, Korg changed the way we make music once again with the introduction of the Volca series. With 3-note polyphony, classic filter circuitry, and a built-in step sequencer the Volca Keys is more than meets the eye.
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org is no stranger to tiny synths, having developed the Monotron series, the Monotribe, and the MS-20 mini, just to name a few. It is no surprise then that they would build on their success and introduce a series of portable, battery powered, analog synths with a wide range of features in such a small package. Originally released with the Volca Bass and Volca Beats, the Volca Keys completed the lineup with the ability to produce chords and leads over the drum and bass lines of the Volca Beats and Bass. All three Volcas featured sync in and out connections, as well as MIDI and could be easily synced together to form a larger system.
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Analog playground At 7.5” x 4.5” this tiny synth packs a multitude of features. Itʼs 3 voltage controlled oscillators (VCO) can be used in a number of different ways depending on the voicing function, including poly, unison, octave, fifth, unison ring, and poly ring. Each selection divides or adds the VCOs in different combinations to create various sounds. The voicing function also automatically switches the waveform from a sawtooth wave to a square wave, where the unison and poly ring modes use the square waveform and the rest use the sawtooth waveform. The poly and poly ring functions allow you to play each VCO
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Volca Keys Photos: Korg
waveform is selectable by holding down the function button and choosing either the saw, tri, or square keys on the keyboard in the LFO section. The envelope generator (EG) allows you to shape how your sound changes over time with itʼs attack, decay/release, and sustain controls. By adjusting these settings you can adjust if the sound fades in and out or starts and stops abruptly. The EG also affects the way the VCF acts when you adjust the eg int in the VCF section. The Volca Keys also includes a delay effect to process your sound even further. This effect can add thickness to your sound or repeat the notes being played. The time knob adjusts the length of time between the played note and the repeated note. The feedback knob controls how many times the note is repeated. The delay effect can be synced to the tempo, as well, by holding down the function button and pressing the tempo delay key on the keyboard. This allows you to dial in the right groove.
Pocket Studio separately producing 3 individual notes. These can be played as a chord or sequenced as 3 separate synth lines. Detune, portamento, and eg int can be applied to the VCOs universally, regardless of the voicing settings. There is also an octave selection knob allowing you to play six octaves on the 27-note ribbon keyboard. The voltage controlled filter (VCF) is based on the same circuitry as the Minikorg 700s from 1976 and features a 12db per octave lowpass filter with peak and eg int settings. The filter can be modulated by the envelope generator and the low frequency oscillator (LFO), allowing you to add some creative movement to the sound. The LFO can also be used to modulate the pitch of the sound by adjusting the pitch int knob. The LFO
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The Volca Keys isnʼt just an amazing portable analog synth, it is a studio in your pocket! On the surface, the 16-step sequencer might seem a bit limited but, Korg has included some useful features such as, motion sequencing, flux recording, tempo division, active step, and 8 memory locations that turn the Volca Keys into a performance powerhouse. For example, active step allows you to turn on and off any of the steps in your sequence. This allows you to instantly change your pattern by removing and adding notes on the fly. This feature could also be used in a number of creative ways to create chord changes and variations within one 16-step sequence. You could record one chord per step and
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then use active step to only play the chord you wanted, for instance, by turning off all of the other steps. You could then turn off the current step and change the chord by turning on a different step. Another interesting feature is flux recording. With flux recording, instead of recording one note per step, it disables the quantization and records whatever you play over the span of 16 steps. If you get creative and turn the tempo down you can record up to 8 notes per step, for a total of 128. Another great performance feature is the ability to adjust the playback speed without changing the tempo setting. By pressing a key on the keyboard you can change the playback speed of your sequence by ½ or ¼. This is a great way to add variety to you song, especially when using the Volca Keys with other devices like the Volca Bass or Beats. Arguably, the most creative feature is the motion sequencer. This feature will capture tweaks and changes to any parameter on the Volca keys and save them to your pattern. Simply turn on the motion sequencer and hit record. With the motion sequencer you are not limited to the modulation ability of the EG or LFO, you can manually modulate anything.
Get going The Volca Keys and the rest of the Volca series are made to travel. With their small size, battery power, and built-in speaker you have the freedom to make music just about anywhere. Their top-facing connections means they easily fit into a synth case and their low price makes them a great starting point in electronic
music composition. The Volca Keys sounds fantastic and can be used for many genres. With a little practice the Volca Keys can really shine as part of a larger system or on itʼs own. Korg has really outdone themselves with the Volca Keys, providing the perfect balance of price and features. It is small enough to take anywhere, yet it sounds good enough to sit along side (or on top of) more expensive “professional” synthesizers. With its 6 voicing modes you can get very experimental and in poly mode you can play a lead lines over a sequence. The Volca Keys may look simple on the surface but if you dig in and use your imagination you may surprise yourself with what you can coax out of this little synth.
BERLIN Fueled by the desire to reshape popular culture of the late ʻ60s, Berlin musicians utilized the tools at their disposal in new and creative ways. Many new musical genres emerged from this time or experimentation, one such genre would become known as Berlin School.
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n the late ʻ60s Germany was experiencing political and social upheaval as the youth sought to remove themselves from the Nazi legacy of World War II and change popular culture. The revolutionary 1968 German Student Movement rebelled against the traditional German culture in favor of something new. This movement lead many artists to begin experimenting with their art.
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The music that developed from this movement laid the foundation for many of the musical genres we enjoy today. As musicians experimented with combining different musical styles, early synthesizers, and new recording techniques, new genres began to form and solidify. Bands, such as, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Neu, Ash Ra Tempel, and Kraftwerk emerged from these experiments.
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Tangerine Dream is credited with pioneering Berlin School, a genre characterized by repeating sequencer patterns and ambient synth layers. Their early catalog from 1973 to 1981 is considered an essential catalog of the genre. Technological developments of the time are also credited with the development of the style, such as the Moog modular synth and step sequencer. In fact, Christopher Franke, a long time member of Tangerine Dream, first began experimenting with a Moog modular synthesizer in the studio where he worked. He later was able to purchase it from the studio owner and it was used on many of the bands most famous records.
is polyrhythms. This is where two individual sequencer parts play at odd lengths, usually one or two step apart. This causes variations in the overall sequence as the parts loop back around, each time playing different combinations of notes until they line up again. This can be used to great effect. The Moog Subharmonicon synthesizer is totally built around on-board step sequencers that are specifically designed to generate polyrhythms. Other recent synthesizers like the Moog Mother 32 and Behringer Crave include a ratcheting feature in their step sequencers, another common technique heard in Berlin School music, used to rapidly repeat notes on single steps.
What goes around comes around
Join the club
After years of digital synthesizers, virtual instruments, and computer workstations, electronic musicians are now enjoying the return of analog synthesizers and hardware sequencers. The market has been flooded with modern recreations of classic analog synthesizers, many of which were originally used to create Berlin School music in the ʻ70s. The fact that many of these instruments include on-board step sequencers that can be programmed with the twist of a knob has, in my opinion, ushered in a new wave of Berlin School music. Itʼs influence can be heard in many of the tracks being produced with the aid of these instruments. The step sequencer is the foundation of Berlin School, allowing musicians to quickly dial in repeating bass patterns and contrasting synth lines. These machines are so accessible that the classic rhythms of Berlin School nearly write themselves. The Korg SQ-1 sequencer for instance even includes an automatic scale function prohibiting you from choosing any wrong notes. Dial in an 8-step sequence, trigger your favorite bass synth, throw on some strings, add some delay effect, and you have yourself the start of a Berlin School hit. Another technique common to Berlin School
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Berlin School is so enjoyable to listen to and compose, especially if you are a fan of synthesizers and music technology. It conjures up images of distant planets, alien races, or magical realms. It is symphonic at times and can be downright rockinʼ other times. It is far from predictable and every new track is an adventure. If you want to give Berlin School a listen, there are many options to choose from. The early albums of Tangerine Dream should be considered. My favorites are Phaedra and Force Majeure. Moondawn by Klaus Shultze is another favorite. This monthʼs featured artist, Gary P. Hayes, has composed many Berlin School tracks, as well. Another good place to start is Cyclical Dreams Records. We review one of their compilation albums in this issue called Gemstones II that features current Berlin School artists from around the world. Once you start enjoying the music of Berlin School and learn more about the artists who make it, you will discover a world of music influenced by this style.
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Christopher Franke, Rainbow Theater Photo: In Search of Hades booklet
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Portable Amps for Portable Players By: Lon Spurgeon
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ʼm a big fan of taking music out into nature; Iʼm not bragging, but Iʼve played fiddle on top of Mount Leconte, the Chimney tops, and other high perches throughout the Smoky Mountains and Iʼve taken my penny flute deep into the forests of many a mountain side. I certainly canʼt resist an outdoor bluegrass jam or playing folk songs around the camp fire either. But what about electronic music? For an electric guitarist or keyboard player its harder to get into those wide-open spaces to sequence and synthesize those high-tech spacey sounds.
ubiquitous battery powered pig nose amp was one of the few small battery-operated amps on the market; but now with the popularity of street busking and advances in battery technology there are more and more light weight portable amps to choose from. Let me illustrate with a few devices I like to use when I am away from any ac outlets and still just have to hear that electric guitar sound. My oldest tool for portable electric guitar is the Line 6 Pocket Pod. A small light weight palm sized effects processor that runs on batteries or ac cable with a handy belt hook. It houses tons of preset guitar sounds and has the ability to make and store some of your own. The sounds are very realistic and warm! There are
As a guitarist I can take along an acoustic guitar and play and compose some cool sounding stuff but alas, when I want the versatility of my electric axes, I donʼt have a leg to stand on or an amp to plug into. Recent innovations have solved this problem to a certain degree by offering portable devices to plug the electric guitar into. At one time the
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cool effects, imitations of your favorite amps, and classic sounds that outputs to both headphones and guitar cables. I can really get crazy by running it into an effects box and then into my band-mateʼs mixer to blend with his orchestra of synths and sequencers. We usually run a stereo mix out to record our mind-altering jams for future reference. This was the set up for the jam in the park I wrote about in the last issue. Another more recent device I have enjoyed is the Blackstar AP2-FLY-G. It plugs right into your guitarʼs cable jack, looking sort of like a hearing aid, and then you just plug your headphones into the little device and start playing. It has three levels of gain (clean, crunch, and heavy), a volume, gain, and tone knob and limited effect choices centered
around chorus, reverb, and delay. This little baby sounds great in your headphones and has hardly any wires to hassle you and you can walk across America playing electric guitar if you want. It is powered by two AAA batteries and has an aux jack to boot. I also have a small Blackstar amp that is not battery operated but is super lightweight, has killer sounds and effects. It has enough volume to light up most small rooms. It doesnʼt sound tinny or small but gives a nice warm mid-sized amp sound to your guitar. It has six voices or levels of distortion; gain, volume, eq, and a really creative effects department. Itʼs stereo output with some of the delay and modulation effects, sounds like left and right speakers are ten feet apart. I kid you not!
Photo: Blackstar
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Photo: Blackstar
These are just a small sampling of what is out there and what is readily available for most guitarist who may want to get mobile; or at least be able to hit the street and do some busking with an electronic edge. Add to these, several models of portable and battery powered p.a.ʼs, and you can start thinking techno rage party in the woods or maybe in a boat in the swamp if you like alligators and such! I guess my point is, if I have one, donʼt let lack of ac outlets ruin your outdoor, techno, spacey, ambient trance filled fun. Jump online and check out the latest in portable electronic guitar wizardry. Keep on plugginʼ in and spacinʼ out!
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Photos: Artiphon MOBILE MUSICIAN
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ARTIPHONORBA Nashville-based company, Artiphon, takes a new approach to music making with this revolutionary device that is part synth, part looper, and part controller.
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rba is an exciting device by Artiphone. It combines a multitimbral instrument with an on-board looper to create an instrument that is both powerful and instantly fun to play. On the surface it may look simple but, take a closer look and youʼll see it is loaded with advanced features that makes the Orba the perfect companion for the mobile musician.
the sound completely or adjust parameters like pitch, or cutoff. And the fun is just beginning. With the built-in looper, you can capture all of this expressiveness in a song, layering up different parts. You can adjust the tempo, the octave, and the length of your loop as well. Artiphon has created a companion app for the Orba which allows you load new sounds, keys, and tempos, ensuring that you will always have a fresh sonic palette to work with.
Pocket studio
You are in control
The Orba truly is a music studio in your pocket. At roughly the size of a baseball, this tiny device can go anywhere. With features like a built-in speaker, headphone jack, and rechargeable battery, it is ready for any situation. The on-board synth has 4 instruments for, drum, bass, chords, and lead. Any of these instruments can be played live with the 8 pads on top of the instrument. It also combines a unique touch sensitive surface with motion controlled sound synthesis, introducing a new level of expressiveness and allowing the performer to modify the sounds in a number of ways. You can shake it, tap it, and tilt it, slide your fingers across the pads, rotate it, and do many other gestures. All of these change
Orba is a lot of fun on itʼs own but, things get interesting when you connect it to other devices or synths. Utilizing USB or built-in Bluetooth midi, the Orba becomes a controller like no other, allowing you to use all of the expressiveness of the gestures to control the parameters of your favorite hardware and software instruments. You can use Orba to play notes into your favorite DAW (digital audio workstation) or midi sequencer, or play any midi device that may not have a built-in keyboard. Combining the power and functionality of your favorite iPad apps with the play-ability and expressiveness of the Orba means the possibilities are virtually endless.
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Part of the team For the mobile musician, the Orba offers a lot of flexibility in an extremely small package. On itʼs own, it is a very expressive instrument and with itʼs built-in looper, you can use it in combination with your other gear to create a complete performance. Add to that itʼs ability to connect and control apps and other instruments with itʼs touch sensitive pads and gestures, the Orba becomes an exciting replacement for a standard keyboard controller. With the Orba in your rig you can add a bit of theatrics with a motion controlled performance and with itʼs Bluetooth connectivity and built-in rechargeable battery it provides many functions that mobile musicians are looking for. For more information visit: https://artiphon.com
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Photo: Jamhub
JamHub Tracker MT16 Created by Steve Skillings of Bandlab, the now defunct Jamhub Tracker MT16 may find new life with mobile musicians.
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he Jamhub company began life as a way to help musicians jam together using headphones instead of amplifiers. Ushering in the silent practice market, Jamhub created a unique mixing board that allowed multiple musicians to connect their instruments, microphones, and headphones and jam together without bothering the neighbors. Each channel of the Jamhub Studio featured mix controls allowing individual performers to adjust the volume levels of the other performers in their headphones or mute them all together. Jamhub developed a complete system of products including mixers with various numbers of inputs, built-in audio recorders, break-out cables, remote controls, and a palm-sized 16 channel audio recorder. It is the latter that I recently discovered. Designed to connect directly to the Jamhub Studio and record individual channels of audio to either an SD card or USB drive, the Jamhub Tracker MT16 can also be used as a stand-alone recorder. It includes six ¼” mono inputs and two ¼” stereo inputs, allowing you to record up to ten audio tracks at once. What makes the MT16 unique is that it is designed to utilize the insert jacks on your mixer to send and receive audio from the individual channels. Because of this, it doesnʼt have itʼs own mixer or volume controls. It is simply designed to capture audio. The individual tracks captured to the SD card are packaged into a BND file, which combines all the individual tracks into one file, similar to a .zip file, allowing you to easily move it from the SD card to your computer. A BND file can then be opened in a program like Audacity and separated into the individual tracks for editing and mixing in your favorite digital
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audio workstation (DAW). I searched for quite a while to find a portable multitrack audio recorder with multiple inputs. I used a stereo field recorder for a long time but, if I wasnʼt satisfied with the mix after a performance there wasnʼt much I could do to fix it. Back then, I was hard pressed to find any recorders that had more than four inputs in a size that would fit into my case, or was within my budget. Today, there are a few recorders that offer six or more inputs and would be small enough, like the Zoom H8. However, at $400 it is still a bit pricey. With a quick internet search you can find brand-new MT16 recorders for under $50 and at that price you get 10 mono inputs. The MT16 isnʼt for everyone. It was designed to be added to the Jamhub Studio and because of that it doesnʼt include many of the standard features you will find on other stand-alone recorders. There arenʼt many options or controls. You canʼt adjust the input or playback volume. It doesnʼt have phantom power or XLR inputs. Depending on your mixer, you may have to have additional cables and splitters to connect it to your other equipment. And once your are finished recording, you have to use a computer to split the file into individual tracks and edit them with a DAW. Despite the negatives, I think this recorder is pretty amazing. It is not much larger than your smartphone, it records to inexpensive SD cards, and it cost less than a tank of gasoline. With it wired into your live rig, youʼll never miss another awesome performance and once you are finished recording, youʼll have the freedom to edit to your heartʼs content.
JANUARY 2022
Eliane Radigue Photo: Argia
Eliane Radigue Celebrating her 90th birthday in January, Eliane Radigue has had a long and influential career, pioneering tape techniques and the sound of Drone music along the way.
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he year was 1955 and Eliane began her study of musique concrète with French music composers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry at the Studio dʼEssai in Paris. Having studied piano prior to hearing Schaefferʼs recordings, she had begun to compose music of her own. However, while at Studio dʼEssai, she was introduced to the idea that sounds could be considered music and she began training in tape music techniques. During this time she assisted Pierre Henry, creating some of the sounds that would appear on his works. Eliane left Studio dʼ Essai and pursued classical composition but, in 1967, she reconnected with Pierre Henry and started working as his assistant at Studio Apsome. There she began developing techniques for using microphone feedback and tape loops. These techniques allowed her to create music with slight changes over the length of the composition. This laid the foundation for what would become her signature sound. A sound that she continues to create to this day.
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Electronic years After years of learning and developing tapebased musical experiments, Eliane began experimenting with synthesizers. She created her first synthesizer music on the Buchla system at NYU, in a studio she shared with Laurie Spiegel. She also experimented with the Moog modular before discovering the ARP 2500, the instrument she would use for the next 25 years. Unique to the instrument are the sliding matrix switches at the top of each module. Instead of patch cables, these switches allow the moduleʼs output to be routed to virtually any input of the other modules. Eliane commented that the filters of the ARP 2500 were the best in there business. She recorded everything to reel-to-reel tape, saying that it was essential because it would be impossible to recreate everything that she did exactly the same way a second time. However, she would also diagram every setting of the 2500 out on paper. After releasing numerous works with the 2500, she made her last electronic work in the year
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2000, Lʼlle Re-sonante, for which she received the Golden Nica Award in 2006.
Traditional instrumentation In 2001, Eliane began composing for other musicians on traditional instruments, beginning with Kasper T. Toepliz for the electric bass. By 2004, she dedicated herself to composing solely for acoustic instruments with a three-part work entitled Naldjorlak, featuring Charles Curtis on cello, and Carol Robinson and Bruno Martinez on basset horn. In 2011 her composition for solo harp premiered in London. Occam 1 was written for harpiest Rhodri Davies. There have been numerous pieces in the Occam series in which Eliane is still composing.
Influence and dedication Eliane had a vision. Even before she knew how to make the music she imagined, she knew what she wanted to create. That dedication to an idea is so fascinating to me. She faced hardships along the way and could have easily given in to the struggles. Her dedication to create music, that many consider noise and to explore the possibilities of sound and composition is something that so many of us lack today. Her influence is evident in much of the music of other artist I enjoy. She is a contemporary of other great electronic composers from the last century. Elianeʼs sound is truly unique in that even now that she is composing for acoustic instruments,
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her signature sound is preserved. Having never heard drone music played on acoustic instruments before, I was amazed at how much it sounds like a synthesizer. Talk about role-reversal! Yet it goes to show that sometimes it isnʼt the instrumentation that defines the sound, it is the composer. And with dedication and determination the idea will be realized no matter what instrument it is played on. The life and career of Eliane Radigue is a story that should be shared. She is a pioneer in so many ways. The fact that she chose a path that was uniquely her own and followed it, utilizing an instrument that only a choice few appreciated, and has influenced so many others along the way is something that current musicians should to take to heart. Today, music is so accessible. The instruments are inexpensive and easy to use. The fact that the technology is so advanced that we can make real music on our phones is amazing but, what are we doing to be pioneers today? What will they say about our life and career when we reach 90? It is a way of life that sets us apart from the masses. Eliane lived it and she is loved by so many because of it. Happy Birthday to a true visionary and we wish you many more. Visit https://www.discogs.com/artist/96101Eliane-Radigue for more information.
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Photos: 1010Music
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nanobox
FireballandLemondrop 1010 Music launches two brand-new desktop synthesizers that promise to provide some fresh flavor to your music but, which one do you choose?
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010 Music, makers of the Bluebox digital mixer and recorder and the Blackbox sampling studio, has just released two exciting new additions to their lineup, the Nanobox Fireball and Lemondrop. These new synthesizers are even smaller than their previous offerings. At 3.75” wide x 3” high and 1.5” tall, these Nanoboxes are just the right size for your mobile rig. They both offer many other features that are convient to mobile music making as well.
interfacing with other mobile devices, like the sync in and out jacks of the Korg Volcas, and the 3.5mm midi jacks of Arturia Beatstep and Keystep, among others. With the switching feature of the midi in and out, you can connect it directly to gear that uses either the A or B type of midi connection, with an audio cable, without the need of a converter. This function would be welcomed on all new gear that utilizes the 3.5mm midi input and output.
Red hot
Get connected
The Nanobox Fireball is a polyphonic wavetable synthesizer. It features 8-voice polyphony, two wavetables, an oscillator, and an intuative touchscreen for quick navigation. Sculpt the included 123 presents with 2 filters, 2 envelopes, 2 LFOs, and 1 motion sequencer. Add to that 6 onboard
First of all, both models are USB powered with a standard USB-C connection at 5v, 500mA. They both feature 3.5mm audio in and out jacks, 3.5mm switchable midi in and out jacks, and a 3.5mm clock input jack. These connections are optimal for
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effects, in two slots, for up to 12 possible combinations, including flanger, distortion, chorus, phaser, delay, and reverb. Morph and shape your sounds in real-time with the X/Y controller of the touchscreen. The Fireball also features an SD card from which you can load your own wavetables. The audio input allows you to route external sound through the onboard effects processors and the clock input allows all sound parameters and effects parameters to sync to the incoming tempo. The Fireball includes a huge array of sounds, from aggressive leads to atmosphereic pads. And with itʼs 8-voice polyphony, it provides something that is missing from many mobile rigs, namely chords.
Lemon zest The Nanobox Lemondrop take a fresh approach to granular synthesis with itʼs 4voice polyphony, two granulators, and an oscillator. Similar to the Fireball, you can further shape your sounds with the 2 filters, 2 envelopes, 2 LFOs, and a motion sequencer. The effects are also the same as the Fireball with 2 effect slots and up to 12 possible combinations of flanger, distortion, chorus, phaser, delay, and reverb. The 153 presents and 311 wave files included on the SD card can quickly be morphed and shaped with the X/Y pad of the touchscreen. 16 grains per oscillator can be assigned for a total of 128. Up to 30 seconds of sample memory per oscillator is available. You can load your own wave files from the SD card as well.
The perfect recipe
that the mobile scene is thriving and more manufactures are catering to mobile musicians. The Fireball and Lemondrop are spectacular devices that will provide the missing ingredients mobile musicians have needed for quite a while. Add to that the fantastic devices 1010 Music already make and you have the perfect recipe for creativity. The Nanobox Fireball and Lemondrop will be available February 4th at a price of $399. For more information visit: https://1010music.com
As the options of mobile music devices continue to grow, we can choose which ones work best for our situation. The fact that 1010 Music have created two tiny synthesizers with such big sound tells me
BEHRINGER
U-CONTROL UCA202 BEHRINGER.COM $10 The UCA202 is a low latency USB audio interface that features a stereo input and output, headphone output with volume control, and a digital optical output. It has 48 kHz converters for high quality recording and playback. It is USB bus powered and works with your iPhone and iPad. It is extremely inexpensive and take up very little space. I use mine to send two mono effects sends from my portable mixer to the iPad for on-board signal
processing. I route the signal back to the mixer via the stereo output. The only drawback I have experienced is that to use this interface and a midi interface you need an USB hub or splitter of some kind. Otherwise the UCA202 is a fine addition to your portable kit.
HEADSET BUDDY
MIC-LINE-PLUS ADAPTER HEADSETBUBBY.COM $25 The mic-line-plus adapter is an inexpensive audio interface for your iPad. It utilizes the TRRS headphone jack on your device to send a mono audio signal into the iPad and a stereo audio signal out of the iPad. This is similar to your ear buds with a built-in microphone. This MOBILE MUSICIAN
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adapter allows you to connect any line level signal with an 1/8” jack to your device. I have used this adapter with my iPad and it has performed well. It takes up very little space in my case and can be routed with my other cables. It allows me to send audio from my mixing board into the iPad to process it through effects apps or to record loops in my looper apps, which frees up my lightning port to connect a midi controller or midi adapter.
BEHRINGER
MIRCO MIX MX400 BEHRINGER.COM $25 The Behringer Micromix MX400 is a 4 channel mixer featuring 4 x ¼” mono inputs and 1 x ¼” mono output, with separate volume controls per channel. It is quite small at 2.25” wide x 4.06” long x 1.83” high and works very nicely in a portable set up. It is powered by a 12v power supply and cannot be powered by batteries. It has a low-noise operation. It is built very well in a metal enclosure.
of headphones. You will need an adapter to hear the mono signal in both sides if you are monitoring the output with headphones.
I have used this mixer in various situations and it has always performed well. I have been able to power it by USB with a 12v Ripcord adapter as well. The only drawback to this mixer that I have experienced is that the output is mono and only plays on one side
HOTONE SKYLINE PEDLS HOTONEAUDIO.COM Hotone Skyline pedals are tiny guitar pedals with big sound. These analog pedals are available in a wide range of effect processors and are a great choice for adding old-school out-board effects to your rig. The Skyline series is now discontinued and are therefore an exceptional value on the second-hand market. I have used the EKO and VERB pedals in my setup for years. They are powered by 9v adapter and can be converted to USB power with a Ripcord or a 9v battery attachment.
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FEBRUARY 2022
EUCLIDEAN
for IOS
By: 4Pockets
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ased on Euclidean rhythms, developed by computer scientist Godfried Toussaint, Euclidean Sequencer is an alternative to the step sequencer and has become very popular with modular synth enthusiast. Euclidean Sequencer for IOS, recreates the modular hardware and allows IOS users to get in on the action. It can run in stand-alone mode or as an AUV3 plug-in, allowing you the freedom to control other apps and external instruments. Featuring 4 sequencer bands and up to 16 patterns per patch, Euclidean Sequencer can create some very unique sequences. Each band can be assigned to a
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different midi channel and can drive up to four separate synths. You can seamlessly switch between patterns, allowing you to program different sections of a song or sequences for 16 songs at one time. Euclidean can also be controlled by midi, allowing for some exciting performance possibilities. Each band can have up to 64 events. You can easily tweak the settings of each band with the on-screen controls, all in real-time. Setting, such as, the number of steps, number of events, mute, rotation, and playback speed can all be changed on the fly. The playback direction can also be changed from forward to reverse and ping pong. Notes
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can be randomized or they can be set to conform to a specific key and scale, or follow chords being played on the keyboard. The tempo can be set to follow itʼs own clock or follow the host tempo. This allows Euclidean to be synced with your other apps. Each band can either play a single note rhythm or you can program each note of the sequence in using the piano roll below the control panel. This gives you the best of both worlds. The real-time modification of a euclidean sequencer with the programability of a standard step sequencer. This is a very useful feature.
Features 4 Band Sequencer 16 Patterns per patch. Up to 64 events per band. Seamless pattern transitions. Output Port and Channel control. Per Band and Global speeds. Randomize function with varying complexity.
Euclidean looks to be tailor made for the mobile musician. With your iPad at the center of your rig, you have real-time control over soft-synths and hardware synths, using your midi controller to orchestrate your performance. All of the main controls are on the screen and easy to reach and many can be assigned to hardware controllers for even more convenience. Iʼm very excited to hear the music that can be made with this new sequencer!
Supports note Probability. Reverse and PingPong modes. MIDI Chord recognition. Latch mode. 4 Band Velocity Mixer Controller support.
Visit www.4Pockets.com for more information.
Gate Mode. AUv3 Compatible.
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NuRack
for IOS
By: 4Pockets
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uRack is an AUV3 multi-channel audio and midi effects rack plugin with a twist. Created by 4Pockets, who have created a host of AUV3 apps including audio and midi effects, audio recorders, midi sequencers, and various other tools that are creative and provide unique functions. NuRack is no exception. It allows you to custom build effects racks from over 80 building blocks, including reverbs, choruses, delays, filters, equalizers, and midi effects such as, harmony, recorder, randomizer,
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modulation and more. You can control audio routing with splitter and mixer modules, sending two mono channels to different processors. You can customize the user interface as well with your own layouts and background images. You can change the colors of modules and add your own names. You can resize components, dragging and repositioning modules however you like. It supports multi-channel inputs with up to 3 inputs and outputs. You can build up to 3 effects racks and use them individually with 3 channels of audio or switch between them
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with one audio channel. You can save your custom effects racks and load them from the presents folder. It works with all AUV3 hosts and can be used with iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.
Manual audio path routing. Open in presentation mode (auto hides controls). Interface Builder to customize your rack.
What I like most about NuRack is how flexible it is. The possibilities are endless and there are even a few surprises in there like the midi instrument section, which provides some basic instruments like electric piano, analog synth model, flute, and others. There is also an audio clip launcher that you can load your own loops into and a soundfont player that allows you load your own soundfonts and play them. The fact that you can custom design the interface and add controllers like X/Y pads and more make this app a sonic playground. I instantly thought of using it with the Loopy Pro app because they both have the option for custom interfaces and, since Loopy Pro is an AUV3 host, you can have multiple effects racks open at one time. 4Pockets are creating the tools that mobile musicians want and need and they are doing it in new and exciting ways that take advantage of IOS software and hardware. With 42 apps for iPad in the appstore, they are well worth a closer look.
AUv3 plugin runs in MIDI and none MIDI mode. Add your own Text/Heading and Image/Logos and backgrounds to your design. Compatibility options for DAW's not supporting multi-channels. Dark/Light Modes
Soundfont player
Visit www.4Pockets.com for more information. NuRackʼs features include: Over 80 categorized modules. 3 Input / Output busses supported. Audio & MIDI effect. Lots of audio & MIDI automation options. Seemless transition between racks. Audio clip launcher
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A
mbient Sentinel, by Gary P. Hayes is a stunning example of what can be achieved with modular synthesizers when you look beyond the typical performance approach and fashion a system that is more playable and spontaneous. This has been a mission for Gary, to create a workstation that is full of features yet simple enough to allow creative improvisations. Ambient Sentinel is proof that he has been very successful in realizing his goal. Following in the tradition of his other “live” albums, Ambient Sentinel is a collection of improvised performances from Garyʼs wilderness excursions in the Blue Mountains of Australia. These tracks were recorded live in a single take, in various outdoor locations. The album features 6 tracks and over 100 minutes of mesmerizing musical compositions. Each track is a mini concert in and of itself. Inspired by the majestic surrounding, Gary has created an optimistic view towards new beginnings with spacious ambient melodies that ebb and flow taking you to lofty heights and the lowly valleys. Visit Garyʼs page on Bandcamp and check out all 25 albums in his discography.
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emstones II by Cyclical Dreams is a amazing compilation album featuring Berlin School and ambient artists from around the world. The 12 tracks from Robert Rich, Sam Prekop, Chuck van Zyl, and others offer a glimpse into a world of dreamers. Composed of wonderful tracks filled with imagination and mystery, this collection is awash with floating synthesizers sounds and rhythmic sequencer patterns that conjure daydreams of far-away galaxies. The genres are well represented with compositions that display the modern sound of these classic styles of electronic music. There are hints of the pioneers of Berlin School and Ambient in these tracks as well and it gives this collection a familiar feel. If you are a fan of Berlin School and Ambient music, I would recommend you give it a listen. Find out more about this album and many other Cyclical Dreams releases on Bandcamp. https://cyclicaldreams.bandcamp.com/album/ gemstones-ii-cyd-0035
https://garyphayes.bandcamp.com
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ADVERTISE WITH US! Introductory Pricing Full color ads Custom artwork included Full, half, quarter page ads available Reach a niche audience worldwide Digital issues with embedded links Ads will be shared on our website, podcasts, and social media pages
CONTACT: JEREMY@MOBILEMUSICIANMAGAZINE.COM
BOBBY DEMERS W
orking as a full time accompanist at two dance conservatoires in Central London, Bobby performs live music for technique classes, including contemporary, ballet, and creative classes during the week and open classes for kids and adults in the evenings and Saturdays. “I improvise all of the music for each class and I only have about 15 minutes to breakdown
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my kit and set it up again between classes”, Bobby explains. He has been an accompanist for 10 years and was a music technology teacher for 20 years before that. Bobby has put all of that experience to work in building his performance rig. “I started with a Korg WaveDrum 10 years ago but, I wanted to provide a variety of sounds and textures for the classes. I invested in a
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Roland Octapad, and built up a mini drumkit that provides a huge pallet of percussive sounds and allows me to send MIDI to my iPad for melodic and orchestral sounds. I have used Quantiloop as my live looping app since it was first released”, he continues. “The whole rig fits into 3 flight cases that I had custom made and I strap them to my motorcycle for driving between the two schools. I also use a lot of Bluetooth devices to reduce cables and save time when moving my equipment around the building”.
Bobby has created a successful career out of a niche and has used some amazing ingenuity to build a rig that is expressive and very portable indeed. For more information on Bobby, you can find him on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/c/AudiophiliacUK
Kit List: Roland Octapad SPD-20 Pro (with CME Bluetooth WIDIMaster MIDI I/O) Roland PDX-8 snare Roland FD-8 HH Roland KD-7 Kick controller+ Sonor Perfect Balance pedal Apple iPad M1 1gb CME xKey Air 25 keys Roli Seaboard keys IK Multimedia iRig Blueboard iRig Pro I/O audio interface JBL Eon Compact PA speaker
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Gakken SX-150 Mark II This odd little synth may be all but forgotten. However, with this DIY modification you could bring it back to life.
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he Gakken SX-150 was first introduced in 2008 as a kit in the Japanese magazine Science for Adults. Once assembled, the SX150 could be played with a stylus and parameters like cutoff, LFO, and pitch envelope could be adjusted. Later, the SX150 Mark II was released, pre-assembled. In this version new functions, like cutoff resonance was added. Out of the box, the SX150 Mark II sounds pretty good for such an inexpensive synth. It sounds much like a 555 timer chip synth. However, if you run it through some effects, it sounds very nice and is capable of some extremely low bass tones. Soon after I got mine, I came across a mod to add cv/gate connections to it. This was a very easy modification and it adds so much functionality because it allows it to be played
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with a sequencer or keyboard with cv/gate outputs, instead of the stylus.
What you will need for this mod is: 2-1/8” mono or stereo jacks that are panel mounted. Insulated wire. Soldering iron and solder. Electric drill and bit large enough for the jacks.
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First, you will need to take the back off of the Gakken. There are 4 screws, one on each corner. Once you have the back off, decide where you want your jacks to go. I chose the side simply because of the free space inside the case. Next, drill two holes far enough apart to fit both jacks side by side. You can go ahead and mount the jacks in the case at this point, which is what I did. But, I think now I would solder the wires on first and then mount the jacks. Either way works. Next, cut a few short sections of wire and solder them to the jacks. Solder one wire between the ground connectors and one between the tip or ring connectors. Then solder a longer wire to one of the ground connectors and another wire to one of the ring connectors. Next, connect the loose end of the ground wire to the ground terminal on the Gakkenʼs circuit board. There is a screw holding a wire and ring connector there. I just hooked my ground wire under the screw head and tightened it back up. Then take the loose end of the other wire and solder it to the battery terminal. Now, you can hook up your cv and gate patch cables and give it a try. It doesnʼt matter which one you use for cv and gate, they work either way. Once you have it connected to your sequencer or keyboard, you will probably have to tune it, using the tuning knob on the bottom of the Gakken. Another tip I found is that you can use the LFO depth to adjust the pitch, similar to an octave knob. The SX-150 Mark II is a fun little synth and if you add this mod and run it through some effects, it can be a valuable addition to your rig.
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HOW TO BUILD THE PERFECT LIVE RIG By: Jeremy Spurgeon Building the perfect live rig can be a daunting task. In this monthʼs field guide we show you how to get everything in sync.
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ast month in the Field Guide we discussed how to plan your rig, some things to consider when connecting your gear, and how you might use an iPad to control an external synth. This month letʼs discuss how to sync your gear so that it plays at the same tempo and starts and stops on the beat.
What time is it Once you decide which devices you want in your rig, you will need to determine how best to sync them to the same tempo. There are many ways to achieve this and each device may have multiple options. Letʼs discuss some typical ways to connect your devices together. I began my journey into electronic music back in the early ʻ80s. Back then there wasnʼt a standardized way to synchronize the tempo between two instruments. Modular synthesizers used control voltage (CV) and gate connections and other synthesizers used different means. It was Ikutaro Kakehashi of the Roland Corporation who first proposed a standard connection that would allow
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electronic instruments from different manufacturers to communicate with each other. That connection became known as MIDI (musical instrument digital interface). By 1985 it was standard on many synthesizers and other electronic instruments. Today, you will encounter devices with the typical MIDI connections, sync in and out connections, USB, and CV/ gate connections. Some instruments, like the Volcas, have MIDI and sync connections. While others like the Modal Skulpt have MIDI, sync in and out, and can send and receive MIDI over USB. For the mobile musician trying to fit as much gear as possible into a small case, these connectors are quite useful because they use a 1/8” stereo jack or mini USB connector instead of the larger 5-pin MIDI connector.
The missing LINK Mobile devices like the iPad and laptop computers can be synced with LINK, a technology developed by Ableton that allows LINK-enabled
apps to sync with each other on the same device or on different devices over WIFI. Obviously, if you are using an iPad in your setup, LINK is extremely useful for syncing your apps with each other. There are many apps that support LINK these days, allowing you to set the tempo in one app and all of the other apps will follow that tempo. There are other apps that allow you to sync MIDI and LINK together such as, MIDI Link Sync, Link to MIDI, and my favorite Korgʼs SyncKontrol. These apps will either convert an incoming MIDI signal to LINK or vice versa. This is invaluable if you have external synthesizers and LINK-enabled apps that you are trying to sync together. In that case, you could use one of these apps to convert LINK on the iPad to a MIDI signal that you could send to your synthesizers. Depending on the connections you have on your synths, you could sync the rest of them through MIDI, chaining them together or by using the sync in and out jacks to chain them together
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by connecting the sync out of one synth to the sync in on the next one.
Which side are you on I have even used the SyncKontrol app on my iPad to send a sound pulse out of the audio jack to a device that doesnʼt have MIDI, like a Pocket Operator or Volca Modular. Sometimes you may not want to use a WIFI connection to sync your devices wirelessly. You might be outside in a remote area and WIFI is just not the best solution or you want a connection that is more solid. In this situation, you can split your stereo output into two mono signals and use one side for the sync pulse and the other for the audio. See Figure 1 on page 52 to see how you would set this up. I use an audio cable that has a stereo jack on one end and two mono jacks on the other. I plug the stereo jack into
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Figure 1, audio sync with iPad the headphone jack of my iPad and one of the mono plugs into my mixer. The other mono jack I plug into the sync in jack of the synth I want to sync with the iPad. From there I can simply chain all of my synths that have sync in and out connectors. On the iPad I will use LINK-enabled apps using LINK to sync the tempo between them and the Korg SyncKontrol to send the sync pulse out of the iPad. There are settings in the app for which side of the stereo field you want the pulse to play on, so I set this to the same side that I have connected to my external synth. The only thing to be sure to do is use an app like AUM to pan all of the other apps to the opposite side, so that you will hear the audio in your mixer. This is the option that I use most often because it allows me to sync my iPad with any device that has a sync in jack, without using WIFI. This same method can also be used with vintage gear, like tape decks or synthesizers that donʼt have sync connections. For tape decks, you could record a sync pulse on the left side of the stereo field and record your musical part on the right side. Then split the output signal and run the left side into your sync in jack on the device you want to sync
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and the right side to the mixer. This will allow you to sync your synthesizer to the tapeʼs playback speed. This could come in real handy with cassette loops, for instance. Same thing for synthesizers that can play more that one sound at a time. You could program one sound to play a sync pulse, like a simple ¼ note pattern and pan it all the way to the left. Then program you musical part and pan it to the right. Split the signal going out and send one to sync and one to the mixer.
Team players Syncing all of your devices together can be a frustrating task. Each device has different types of connections and individual settings that have to be just right to make it all work but, the results are so rewarding. Today devices are much more flexible than the synths of the ʻ80s and can have multiple options, making syncing much easier and if you use your imagination and experiment, you can probably sync up more than you expected. Once you have everything synced up and playing together itʼs time to just jam and get lost in the music.
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Win a Tracker MT16 This palm-sized multi-track digital record is a great addition to your portable rig! Enter to win at: https://www.mobilemusicianmagazine.com/giveaway Winner will be announced in our March issue.
PATCHWORKS DUAL OSCILLATOR PATCH FOR THE VOLCA MODULAR
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he Korg Volca Modular is a semi-modular synth, released as part of the Volca series. It uses bread board connectors as patch cables, similar to the Bastl Kastle that we featured in last monthʼs issue. The Volca Modular is hardwired to produce sound out of the box but, things start getting very interesting when you start patching things together in creative ways. The Volca Modular is based on “west coast” synthesis, similar to how the Buchla synthesizers create sound, by folding the carrier oscillator and the modulator oscillator into each other. By default you can only hear the modulator oscillator on the Volca Modular but, we are going to create a patch where we can hear both oscillators and control them separately. First, to be able to shape the sound of the carrier oscillator, we will need to connect the audio output to the input of the second function. So, connect a patch cable (red) from the last socket of the source section to the first socket of the second function. Next, we will connect the output of the modulator oscillator to the input of the second low pass gate. So, connect a patch cable (blue) from the second-to-the-last socket of the source section to the first socket of the second low pass gate. In the first step we connected the carrier oscillator to the function but, to be able to hear it we need to connect the positive output of the second function to the input of the second low pass gate. So, connect a patch cable (yellow) from the plus socket of the second function to the second input socket of the second low pass gate. Now you should hear two distinct tones.
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You can adjust the volume of each tone by turning the two cutoff knobs. The ratio knob in the source section controls the pitch between the two oscillators. Next lets connect a patch cable (cyan) from the ¼ clock divider socket to the woggle input. Then, connect the stepped output of the woggle (brown) to the mod input of the source section. This will generate some automation and affect the mod amount. Now, punch in a few notes into the sequencer and start tweaking! The two functions will shape the two oscillators separately and the woggle output can be moved to different inputs to modulate different things. So, a little experimentation can go a long way here. Finally, I ran my Volca Modular into the Korg Monotron Delay to add a some grungy delay and low pass filter to my patch. A delay can really make your sequence groove and the filter adds a bit of “east coast” synthesis to the patch as well. I hope you have enjoyed building this simple dual oscillator patch. Take what you have learned and build something amazing!
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FEBRUARY 2022
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FEBRUARY 2022
Korg Volca Modular Patchbook By: Jeremy Bernard Spurgeon Korg Volca Modular Patchbook is a blank notebook designed to save all of your favorite patches from the Korg Volca Modular synthesizer. It includes a page for name, date, and notes about the patch and an illustration of the front panel on the synth so that you can draw in your cable routing. 9” x 6” hardcover 100 pages
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