Kit list:
EML 500
Korg Polysix
Sequential Circuits Pro-One
Sequential Circuits Drumtraks
Phillips D1875 12 band FM . MW . LW . SW receiver*
Roland SDE 3000 digital delay with ‘hold’ footswitch

“The core of the performance is making the music machines work together as a system where all parts contribute to the same groove. This requires that all the machines are synchronised to the same beat – easy with contemporary MIDI technology, but harder to do in the days before MIDI.”

I think the day was a huge success and I’ve decided that we’ll be making this an annual event. This first event was really a chance to see if we could actually put something like this together and achieve some of goals we set for the day. For me Music Machines was about:

• bringing together NZ’s largest collection of classic music machines
• celebrating electronic music in NZ
• building connections between music makers in NZ

I’ve already started working on improving the event for next year and will be working with Kerry Adams from The Proof to put together a short doco on the event which we can use to approach potential sponsors. If you have any suggestions on how we could improve on the event and build for next year then please let me know by leaving a comment.

Alan Brown from the Grand Central Band is going to be bringing along some of his kit to demo on the day including:

• Korg Trident
• Hohner Clavinet D6
• Wurlitzer 200A Electric Piano
• Rhodes MkII Stage Piano

Now I’m sure that some of you might say that some of these machines aren’t synths, well that’s true but they are machines and I’m a huge fan of the Rhodes, Clav and Wurli sounds.

Hugo from Goldbaby is also bringing along a few of his toys including a Oberheim DMX with a prommer which he’ll be demoing on the day, plus an MFB-522 analog drum machine, Casio SK-1 and a Moog-MG-1. Make sure you head over to the Goldbaby website to check out the amazing sample packs of classic drum machines recorded on to 2 inch tape and vinyl!

Both the Rockshop and Music Planet are bringing along a few new synths too including:

• Moog Little Phatty
• Roland SH201
• Akai MPC5000
• Korg Microsampler
• Korg MicroKorg
• Korg Radius
• Nord Wave

And finally we’ve also added to the list, thanks to David Chechelashvili and Andy Morton, some great Waldorf kit and a few sneaky classics including:

• Waldorf Micro Q
• Waldorf MicroWave I (Mean Green Machine one of 99 ever made)
• Waldorf Pulse Plus
• Waldorf Rack Attack drum synthesizer
• Waldorf Blofeld
• Akai MPC3000
• Moog Source
• Akai MPC60

Kit list:
EML 500
Korg Polysix
Sequential Circuits Pro-One
Sequential Circuits Drumtraks
Phillips D1875 12 band FM . MW . LW . SW receiver*
Roland SDE 3000 digital delay with ‘hold’ footswitch

The core of the performance is making the music machines work together as a system where all parts contribute to the same groove. This requires that all the machines are synchronised to the same beat – easy with contemporary MIDI technology, but harder to do in the days before MIDI.

Tom uses two ‘old-school’ techniques to achieve this:

• Analog synchronization – using individual drum machine audio outputs to trigger the arpeggiator features built into the Polysix and the Pro-One synths, and
• Delay synchronisation – using a signal delay set to the same delay duration as one bar of music (in this case 130 BPM /beats per minute means one bar lasts for 1846 ms /milliseconds)

Stages in the performance:
1. EML played
2. EML + D1875 radio ‘sampling’ into SDE
3. Polysix played
4. SDE footswitch used to catch a ‘loop’ 1846 ms duration
5. Polysix with Chord Memory + Arpeggiator on ‘hold’
6. Drumtraks started (> chord starts changing on Polysix)
7. Some drum sounds (rim shot, hi-hats) mixed into the mix
8. Pro-One played
9. Pro-One arpeggiator activated > bass line
10. Polysix changed to 16ths pattern (new Drumtraks pattern)
11. SDE changed to 346 ms
12. Gradual build in intensity > 4-on-the-floor dance groove
13. Breakdown – drums out of the mix
14. 2nd buildup to dance groove
15. outro – gradual removal of instruments from the mix

Tom has worked with synthesizers since he bought his EML 500 in the late seventies. Since then he has contributed synthesizer parts to recordings by many New Zealand artists, such as Paul Ubana Jones, Rick Bryant’s Jive Bombers, Low Profile/Elephunk, Snap/Sidewalk City, Alloy, Big Sideways, Trip to the Moon, Nexus, Dub Asylum and the Inner City Jazz Workshop and others. Tom also regularly produces music for New Zealand television documentaries. He currently teaches Music Technology at MAINZ /the Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand.

“As you know, I specialise in Sequential Circuits gear. No synth event would be complete without the Prophet 5. In my opinion, the Prophet 5 is the second most significant synth in synthesizer history (the Minimoog is number 1 of course).

The four synths in my exhibit are from this classic Prophet 5 era. I figured it would make a more interesting exhibit if I used my two Sequential drum machines to play the sequencers in the Pro 1 and Prophet 10. This is something I’ve been experimenting with my own music. The two drum machines are a few years advanced from the Prophet 5 era and they have MIDI. They also have trigger and clock facilities to synchronise with older technology.

The sound conjures up that early eighties electro-pop. So I thought seeing as the event was open to the general public, perhaps they’d appreciate a nostalgia trip and get to see how these old songs were made and how hairy it was to play live. So I’ve prepared some tunes from that era. I’ll be playing the songs in patterns and switching on the fly – that makes it more fun. I’ve also selected a couple of other more recent songs that have used digital gear and tried to replicate that on my set-up. The results are interesting. And if anyone wants to try setting up a new drum pattern and sequence, that wouldn’t be a problem.

And there’s also the Remote Prophet, which is a pre-MIDI controller. A Stratocaster, it ain’t.”

David will be at the event all afternoon so come along and check out his kit is full sync’d action.

Here’s Tim’s kt list for the session:
MPC2500
Fender Rhodes
Korg MS2000
KP3 FX pad
Juno 106

One of the key reasons for putting Music Machines together is to give you a chance to see people get creative with these machines and Tim’s “on the fly” approach to creating music pushes the MPC to it’s limits and really shows just how important a machines interface is to it’s creative potential. You can check out a little video of a session Tim did out at Piha in Jan 09 and make sure you check along to check him out at Music Machines, only 2 weeks to go.