Tag Archives: product review

Review – Behringer VC340

25 Replies

B VC340

Last week I received a Behringer VC340 that I ordered a few months back.  This is a recreation of a classic synthesizer, the Roland VP-330 Vocoder Plus, which was made in 1979 and 1980.  Although the production of this synthesizer was short, it, along with the rackmount version, the SVC-350, is found all over music of the early 80s, including artists as far apart as Vangelis and Laurie Anderson.

The VC330, like the original VP-330, instead of being a general synthesizer is divided into three main parts: a string synthesizer, a “human voice” synthesizer and a vocoder.

The string synthesizer is just what it sounds like, a synthesized string ensemble sound that uses simple analog technology of the day.  String synths were very popular in the late 70s and the Roland version can be heard on a lot of music by a wide variety of artists.  It offers a simple tone (brightness) control, attack (how quickly the sound starts) and release (how quickly the sound fades after you take your hands from the keys). Continue reading →

Review – Korg ARP Odyssey

10 Replies

Korg ARP Odyssey

I just picked up the Korg recreation of the classic analog synthesizer, the ARP Odyssey.  I first started playing with the instrument on Friday and it is Monday morning, so this is more of a “first impression” than an actual review.  Before that first impression, I should talk about the instrument a little.

A Brief History of the Odyssey

Back in the early 1970s ARP released the Odyssey as a direct competitor for the Mini Moog.  The Mini had the famous big, phat sound, but the Odyssey, besides being less expensive, had a lot going for it.  It was duophonic (you could play two notes as opposed to the Mini’s one), it had a ring modulator (creates complex harmonics), you could synch the oscillators (forces them in tune with each other, even when you try to force them out of tune), you can put an envelope on pitch, there was sample and hold (S&H), there was a simple high pass filter, and you could do some more complex modulation routings. Continue reading →

CD Review – Canzoni D’Amore, by Charlotte Hoather

4 Replies

Canzoni-D-Amore

A little over a month ago I decided to start doing reviews of books written by fellow WP bloggers. Although I didn’t announce it, I also decided to also look into reviews of CDs by fellow bloggers. Here is my first music review, at least the first one for a fellow blogger.

Canzoni D’Amore, an album by soprano Charlotte Hoather, is a mix of art songs/lieder and opera aria. Most of the music is relatively “safe”. You won’t find any of Webern’s lieder or an aria from Berg’s Lulu here. The music being very accessible is understandable for this type of an album. I recognized most of the music, but I wished there was composer info in the files. Continue reading →

Arturia Microbrute – Review

7 Replies

microbrute-image(Here is a little demo you can play as you read – more about it towards the bottom)

Back in the day the term “synthesizer” usually referred to a monophonic analog synthesizer. In the 1980s digital synths became the norm. There was no more worrying about oscillator tuning drifting, you could store hundreds, later thousands, of sounds without having to figure it all out every time you touched a dial, and they could play many notes at once. In the 1990s people began to long for that quirky, vintage, retro sound of analog instruments. Some true analog synths were created at huge price. And then there was the digital synths that modeled analog. In the 2000s and 2010s analog for the masses, or at least the keyboard playing masses, started to appear. Arturia, known more for their modeling software reproductions of vintage gear, came out with the ground breaking Minibrute. Later they lowered the price bar even more with the Microbrute. I picked one up at Christmas, though I started playing with it in mid-December. So after a month and a half I’ll let you know what I think.

Continue reading →