Wednesday 25 February 2015

Polycaro


Here is a video of the Korg Poly 61. I programmed some new sounds into the memory bank and set up a loop on the tape recorder. You can edit the 2 digital VCOs, the filter and VCA which share an envelope, and send an LFO to the filter, pitch and VCA. Thats pretty much it, but the results of combining these few parameters are really satisfying, especially when dealing with first-generation analog/digital hybrid electronic circuits

The second bit of the video was shot at Tate Modern, where they have a really good 60s/70s minimalist show on at the moment. There was an arresting yellow Anthony Caro that caught my eye

Holy Poly


Holy Moly I just found another classic bit of equipment, this time in a junk shop. It's a Korg Poly 61 and it was looking right at me as I walked in the door! £90. It completely matches the Martin Hannett Seck mixer - same era, same colour scheme, same technology in a way. Holy Moly

Thanks Mr Hopkins


Oh cool - Jon Hopkins gave me a shout in his feature this month in Mojo Magazine:


And thanks Sponge for pointing it out

Really Think So


We are heading off to Japan next week WOOOO!

Monday 23 February 2015

Warp Speed


Got our first release on a Warp Records 12 inch - SUPERCOOL!!!

Sunday 22 February 2015

Broken Gear Mags


Check this amazing archive of studio equipment magazines going back to the very beginning of time. Its awesome for people who have a studio full of ancient gear who want to read a review of an obscure electronic device that was released 30 years ago and then disappeared after a few months because it broke. These mags are filled to the brim with all my favourite stuff!

Saturday 14 February 2015

Stylo-beat




Pete bought me a really cool little Stylophone beat-box for xmas (thanks Pete!), and here it is plugged into the very old Buchla 100. You can't really hear much of the Stylophone, its being mangled so much buy the Frequency Shifter and Band Pass Filter. Actually it was a test sound for the Seck mixer which distorts it all nicely I think

Wednesday 11 February 2015

God's Seck


O-M-Effing-G! I just bought Martin Hannett's actual Seck 18 channel mixer on ebay! This tiny little early 80s console was actually owned by Martin Hannett! He had it in his home studio! WHAT??? OMG!!!

The ebayer was Chris Hewitt who has just made a 4 hour documentary about Hannett. Chris worked with him over the years, and during the process of making the doc discovered a lock-up containing loads of Hannett's personal equipment. Hannett was completely obsessed with high-end playback and recording gear, and this was actually the reason he got into music production in the first place

I think he is my all-time favourite producer because he gets such a cool, edgy and unique sound, especially his early stuff between 1978 - 1985. AND NOW IVE GOT HIS EFFING MIXER! It was only £350 - it was sold as not working as it was missing its power supply, but I managed to find one and plugged it in and - BINGO! it works perfectly (its a bit scratchy and wonky but that makes it even better - IT USED TO BELONG TO MARTIN EFFING HANNETT what do you expect!!!)

Friday 6 February 2015

Beach Craft


Whoever designed the stuff on this beach had a really retrofuturistic sense of style

Thursday 5 February 2015

Word of the Week #66


GT Live!


Had a great time with Wrangler in Denmark last weekend. Met up with Gazelle Twin who was also on the bill for the Winter Beats festival in Aalborg. Hi GT and Jez!

GT lives
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