The Voice of Saturn

Voice of Saturn pcbs back in stock + euro panel coming soon!

2012-01-25T18:26:00.000-08:00

We've got the original Voice of Saturn synth pcbs back in stock over at Curious Inventor. I've also designed a Euro-rack panel which we will have in stock within the next 6-8 weeks. This summer I hope to have some new Voice of Saturn designs going into production as well!

Balboa - Live at Zebulon 11 16 2011

2011-11-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

Balboa - Live at Zebulon 11 16 2011

Here's our live set from the other night in Brooklyn. We used an Arp 2600, Moog Little Phatty, Realistic (Moog) MG-1, Roland TR-606, my diy modular, and some computeres to send out the midi sequences (all audio signals are analog).

Its been a minute!

2011-11-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

So I've been on the road since the beginning of September and have been neglecting the blog. I'm in Kiel, Germany at the moment and am looking forward to some electronics projects waiting for me when I return. For now here are a few webcasts from myself, Nathanial Murphy and Mikael Jorgensen. The first is from a hotel room in St. Louis on Oct 3rd, 2011. The second is part of a larger live jam on Nov 6th at Plattfon Records, Basel, Switzerland. The linked video is mainly us, but then the third is any number of people who came along and brought some toys.

VoS VCF pcbs/panels/cem3372 chips for sale

2011-08-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

We've got a few CEM3372 chips, filter pcbs and panels that we'll be selling together on Ebay in the next week or so. This is the last remaining stock (apart from a few I'm keeping for myself).

Via this Ebay auction.

Curious Inventor's VMeter Test

2011-08-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the low volume on the voice-over. Here's a quick demo of CI's VMeter. Pretty useful little midi tool, and who doesn't love nice bright blue LEDs? More info here.

Casio CZ101 Backlit LCD Mod!

2011-07-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

A client gave me a CZ101 with a dead LCD to work on. I replaced the former with a new backlit LCD from Sparkfun. They're cheap and come in a few different colors and being able to see the screen in the dark is totally key. The mod is super easy, just one note - the pads for the backlight power just need to be connected to the LCD power, and the rest of the wires go in the same order as the old display but the pads themselves will be on the other side of the board - i wired mine upside down at first. Get in touch if you want help doing this mod, or would like me to do it for you!

Voice of Saturn Sequencer clock IO mod

2011-07-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

A while back I was syncing my VoS Sequencer to midi via the clock out of a Kenton Pro Solo and noticed that the clock was slightly off. I remedied this by using the gate out and shifting the notes of a midi sequence until it locked in but realized this was a problem. I discovered that the decade counter that is the heart of the sequencer is triggering on the trailing edge of the square wave of the clock instead of the leading edge. This means that if you try to either sync to an external clock or send clock out, the sequencer will be half a step out of sync. Granted, this can be kind of cool for off time stuff and you may want to do the following mod so it can be switched in and out. The idea is to put an inverter between the clock and the clock jack so the output clock signal is inverted. That needs to go through another inverter before it reaches the decade counter so the clock signal ends up as it was before. This 2nd inverter will also invert an incoming clock signal so things will sync up. I've done this mod on a few and it works fantastically. Attached is a schematic.

-T

Last Voice of Saturn Sequencer MK I

2011-06-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

First come first serve. I've got one more enclosure for the last built (and signed by me too) voice of saturn sequencer. $400.00 There's still some pcbs left for $35.00 each. Within the next year I hope to release a completely different sequencer but for now this will be the end of the run. Email me: recompas at gmail dot com if you are interested.

modularrific

2011-05-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a new piece I just recorded for a fashion installation.
Sndtrk by recompas

More info on the patch etc. on patchatoms

Urban Remix Times Square Performances

2011-05-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I did two performances in Times Square as part of the Urban Remix Times Square project. The first performance took place outdoors in the square, the second in the Times Square visitor's center in the evening. It was great to see the typical visitors to Times Square react to our performances. We got a lot of positive feedback. I was also very interested to see what I would come up with for this project, having performed a piece for the Atlanta Beltline Urban Remix last year, I really enjoyed the contrast in source material. All sounds on these recordings came from recordings made in Times Square, no additional synthesis or sampling is in there, just filtering, compression, delay, re-arrangement, etc. A little musique concrete.

Urban Remix Times Square 5.12.11 perf 1 by recompas

Urban Remix Times Square 5.12.11 performance 2 by recompas

Modular Recording

2011-05-05T08:41:00.000-07:00

Here's the recording we made on the gear pictured in the previous post.

Loft- Untitled 2 (collaboration with Recompas/Voice of Saturn) by alter/break

For more info check out at PatchAtoms.

Modular Madness at SAIC

2011-05-02T08:32:00.001-07:00

Modular Madness at SAIC, originally uploaded by recompas.

Recording coming soon! Got a chance to play on this with my co-conspiritor in loft

Voice of Saturn II

2011-04-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Voice of Saturn Synth II Prototype from Travis Thatcher on Vimeo.

Here's a quick demo of the mostly completed prototype of the Voice of Saturn Synth II. Its actually going to be a sort of modular oscillator system, with a circuit board for each vco, and a mixer board. This will allow you to have 1 - ? VCO's depending on what your space requirements are. My prototype will eventually have 5 VCO's, and 2 will have caps for super low speed LFO timing. Once I get the pcbs prototyped and working, I'll be doing a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the first board run this summer.

The Voice of Saturn - Cronus Free Digital Release

2011-04-14T08:03:00.000-07:00

Check out my new single Cronus. Its got a wicked remix from Judi Chicago's Kid Pyramid. Its out available for free download on Double Phantom Digital!

=> the voice of saturn & chuck!

2011-04-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

Somebody did a killer implementation of the vos synth circuit in the Chuck programming language. Find it in the LICK library.

custom midi controller for animal collective

2011-03-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

diy midi modwheel controller

Custom modwheel midi controller with Arduino from Travis Thatcher on Vimeo.

Using the Doepfer's modwheel assembly and an Arduino I built this midi controller for a client that needed a standalone box with a center detented, spring loaded pitch bend control and a free moving volume control. There is a switched that puts the device into calibration mode to learn the min and max values of each wheel. The code is pretty simple (though messy and uncommented for the time being) and basically just reads in the analog values of the wheels, scales them to the appropriate midi controller values and has some smoothing applied to take care of jitter. You can download the Arduino source here. It requires the MIDILibrary.

live set

2011-03-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

Live performance from 3.26.11 @ Siren Records, Doylestown, PA by recompas

Playing a set @ Siren Records, Doylestown, PA tomorrow

2011-03-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

Back in NYC today. Doing a sort of new hybrid recompas/voice of saturn ambient disco set tomorrow night at Siren Records. Its part of a night called 'A Very Communal Commotion' and should be pretty fun. Set will be posted here later.

Patch Atoms

2011-03-09T21:24:00.000-08:00

So Nate and I started a new blog called PatchAtoms. Yup. Its basically for us to refer to - each post will have a sound, how it was made, and what it was made with. Because the ladies love it.

(Un) Pleasant Over Drones

2011-03-04T09:15:00.000-08:00

Check out the ambient compilation (un) Pleasant Over Drones put togother for Resound Falmouth 2011 here. I've got a piece on there.

Winter Music

2011-02-25T23:02:00.001-08:00

Winter Soundscape from Travis Thatcher on Vimeo.

recompas - visitor

2011-02-23T16:17:00.000-08:00

New recordings February 2011

recompas & visitor by recompas

Modular track

2011-01-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

Kosmiche Drei by recompas

More Telephone mics

2011-01-08T11:04:00.000-08:00

I got a few really ancient handsets off Ebay recently and have made some microphones out of them. They sound a bit more lofi and gritty than the Bell Model 500 handsets I've been using and I had to put the jack in kind of a unique place. I like it. These are for sale, $100 each.

Email me if you are interested.

Schau

2010-12-28T12:33:00.001-08:00

In November I got to spend some time at the Watermill Center working on sound material for a production being created by Alexandra Sachs. Selections from the performance were presented as a work in progress at the center on Nov. 20th and here is some video from the performance. I really enjoyed using live sound elements in the compositions - in particular the 'zoo' scene records audio from the audience, processes it and then plays it back into the environment as a sort of feedback loop.

SCHAU / work in progress / watermill center 2010 from Alexandra Sachs on Vimeo.

The Shrine of Native Rites for Electric Winter

2010-12-13T05:51:00.000-08:00

Saturday night myself and Mikael Jorgensen created some ambient music as part of an installation at Eyebeam for their winter mixer. We performed inside of a structure built by some colleagues of mine that was meant to create an atmosphere of meditation and calmness. Up to 6 audience members at a time could tune in on headphones, sip peppermint tea and realax while we played and videos were projected on the ceiling of the structure.

The Shrine of Native Rites for Electric Winter @ Eyebeam 12.11.10 by recompas

LoFi Telephone mics updated

2010-12-08T17:43:00.000-08:00

Been making a few of my LoFi Telephone mics for clients lately and have has some custom work as well. This one was an input for the earpiece and an output from the microphone (this time using the active mic element scheme). More info and pricing is on my site.

DIY Volta - Max/MSP + Audio interface CV output

2010-11-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

The main reason I put together the little portable modular rig in the post below was to have something that would be easier to travel with than my tb-3031 rack but still get the live tweak-ability and sound of the 303. One of the biggest sonic features of the 303 is the envelope control over the filter and the accent circuits which are responsible for the punchy, funky acid basslines. I was using Massive through Ableton Live for my basic oscillators and then running the sound out to the waveform processor and wasp filter, with the LFO doing some modulation. I got close, but not quite what I wanted. In order to get the filter accent and envelope working I created this max patch that takes midi in and splits the notes depending on their velocity, to trigger a line~ object connected to my soundcard's output. I'm not sure if this will work with all soundcards, but I'm actually using the built in output of my MacBook Pro and it generates a nice little ramp voltage that I can connect to CV1 or 2 of the filter. End result - not a perfect 303 by any means, but punchy, funky acid basslines for sure. The large rotary control changes the length of the envelopes and the slider at the bottom controls the total amount of output.

mini modular rig

2010-11-21T23:40:00.001-08:00

mini modular rig, originally uploaded by recompas.

getting ready for ATL/London/Utrecht/Amsterdam tour, bringing some Doepfer modules for live knob turning.

Steiner VCO + Buchla 292c LPG Clone

2010-11-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

Steiner VC Oscillator with square wave PWM from Doepfer Variable Waveform LFO and Saw waves going into a Buchla 292c Lopass Gate Clone. LPG modulated by Serge VCS. Drums from Jomox XBase 09.

All working and sounding totally awesome!

Steiner + 292c by recompas

Watermill Center

2010-11-18T11:24:00.000-08:00

Large Gallery, Watermill Center from Travis Thatcher on Vimeo.

Last week I spent some time working on music for a few performance pieces at the Watermill Center in the Hamptons. An amazing place, filled with an incredible art collection. Hopefully I'll have some videos of the performances soon.

Native Tekno dream machine guts

2010-11-17T08:04:00.000-08:00

Steiner VCO 99% working

2010-10-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

So I finally finished building David and Nyle's updated Steiner VCO. Initially I used some 25k trimmers where there were meant to be 5k ones. I figured since they were basically just voltage dividers that it wouldn't cause any trouble, but I was wrong. Once I replaced those I was able to get all the different wave-forms working. My only issue now is scaling the thing to v/oct, but it sounds fantastic! The sync and pwm modulation inputs are super useful. I'll post some video of it being controlled by a VoS sequencer soon.

Sawtooth:

Square:

Tri:

Sine:

components in Manhattan

2010-10-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

Today I needed to grab some standoffs for my Steiner VCO project and in looking around online I finally found an awesome place in Chinatown. Check out this review on NYC Resistor's blog of 269 Electronics on Canal St. At first glance its another crappy storefront with knockoff sunglasses and headphones, but in back is a great little shop with the owner apparently being well known for fixing all sorts of electronics!

DigATL Circus - 10.28.10

2010-10-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

Next Thursday at the Star Bar in L5P Atlanta, there's a killer show being put on by 4thWardHeroes. I'll be DJing and there will be some rad free masks that I designed based on the Voice of Saturn schematics, printed thanks to Mindzai.

Tragical Misery Non-Tour (USA 2010)

2010-10-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

A few months back - or maybe longer - Blake Helton and I and some of our other musical compadres said goodbye to his gorgeous Mellotron M400 with some fantastic improv sessions. Read the great post and download the tunes on HLFP, my favorite space music blog!

recompas and Voice of Saturn tracks on HLFP sampler!

2010-09-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

Check out the new Homemade Lofi Psych sampler that just came out HERE! There's a recompas/visitor track on it, as well as a Voice of Saturn (I believe what I'm calling my solo work for now) track. Its full of great music. HLFP is a really fantastic blog based out of Berlin with a wealth of killer music.

Music in NY

2010-09-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

This last week was insanely busy. Here's the mix I did for Friday's Lorick New York fashion show at Tela Design Studio. It was a lot of fun coming up with something that would compliment the collection.

DJ Mix for Lorick New York show - 09.10.10 by recompas

I'll have an excerpt from Wednesday's Siki Im fashion presentation where I did a live minimal electronic soundtrack to a choreographed fashion show.

Next up: playing with Zoroaster on Wed the 15th at Webster Hall and Sunday the 19th at the Knitting Factory!

The Voice of Saturn in NYC!

2010-08-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

I've been in Brooklyn for nearly a month now and it looks like I'll finally be able to set up shop soon. Lots of interesting things happening in the next month. Look for the Voice of Saturn VCF in Eurorack format at Analogue Haven very soon! Also, I'll be doing some live performances for fashion week for Siki Im and Lorick New York. Analog modular synths and fashion - who'd have thought!

That's all for now. More noise soon!

T

LIL CHUD

2010-07-27T06:47:00.000-07:00

Finally got this built for mr. Visitor before I leave Atlanta for NYC. He made a video, I'll get some photos up soon. Its a really fun little modular consisting of an MFOS VCO, a Thomas White Buchla LoPass Gate clone, 2x Voice of Saturn Modulators (LFO sections) and a Voice of Saturn VCF. Lots of noise in a nice little compact unit.

lil chud cvm modular from blake helton on Vimeo.

Voice of Saturn synth in good company!

2010-07-22T09:40:00.000-07:00

Check out this post on Matrixsynth about the Sydney Fringe Festival.

We've been busy

2010-07-07T10:21:00.001-07:00

Finally, the new Voice of Saturn VCF is nearly ready. We'll be selling it through Analogue Haven soon. I'm really happy with the way this one came out, visually. I'll be doing a panel for the synth soon!

We still have a very limited amount of the Blacet/Frac versions, so get them while you can here, at the Curious Inventor store.

In other news, at the end of this month I'll be moving up to NYC for a while. Looking forward to setting up shop in Brooklyn/Williamsburg and making a lot more music!

-Travis

BentFest Performances

2010-04-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

I've got tons of photos and videos to dig through when I get home from NYC (tomorrow) but for now, here's my Bent Fest performance from Saturday, and the set I did at Silent Barn in Williamsburg on Sunday. Its been a great weekend, and musically, this was a pretty fun experiment.

Bent performance Dumbo, NYC 2010 by recompas

Silent barn performance by recompas

NYC Bound - Bent Fest here I come!

2010-04-21T00:49:00.001-07:00

Leaving tomorrow afternoon for some dj gigs and BentFest 2010. I've just packed the most ridiculous amount of electronics into 2 suitcases that I will end up paying a fortune to take on the plane.

Anyway, Come check out the Voice of Saturn stuff at BentFest this weekend. I'll have sever VoS synth, sequencer and filter kits along with me, as well as a fully built sequencer for sale. I'm also bringing along a few of my telephone microphones to sell. I've only got a few parts left, so I probably won't make many more of these.

If anyone reads this blog - hope to see you in New York!

recompas performance, with 5 Drummers!

2010-04-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday we had a really interested Recompas show at the Star Bar along with Noot D'Noot and the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra. My "score" can be seen to the left. I was basically going for a great big kraut-rock/drone explosion, and I think we executed it rather well. We managed to have 5 Drummers playing at once, with help from members of Noot D'Noot, A Fight to the Death and more! Below are some videos.

recompas live part 1 4/17/10 from Travis Thatcher on Vimeo.

recompas live part 2 4/17/10 from Travis Thatcher on Vimeo.

Help Bent be Awesome!

2010-04-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

So Wednesday I'll be flying up to NYC to participate in BentFest 2010. Really looking forward to hanging out with some fantastic designers and musicians (see previous post for more info). I wanted to post up the kickstarter widget for Bent. They still need to raise some money to help make sure the fest really kicks off. Donations are really appreciated, and there are different levels. One of the prizes is a Voice of Saturn synth.

The Voice of Saturn at BentFest2010

2010-04-12T13:49:00.001-07:00

Check out the post on CuriousInventor.com. Can't wait to get up to NYC next week and kick glitched out stylee!

Circuit bending Alesis HR-16

2010-03-11T22:37:00.001-08:00

Circuit bending Alesis HR-16, originally uploaded by recompas.

Sick at home all week and bored to tears I've been trying keep busy doing what work I can from home, writing music, and tonight - building this.

The HR-16 is extremely easy to circuit bend if you stick to the 2 pcm sample chips. There's 25 patch points on this one, and using stackable banana cables the combinations are pretty much endless. Been meaning to bend this one to use in my set for Bent Fest 2010. Sounds samples coming soon, click the flickr set to view a few shots of its guts.

Progress...

2010-02-22T09:31:00.001-08:00

Voice of Saturn LFO CV Mod!

2010-02-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

Making CV1 more useful by routing it to the LFO speed. Documentation to come on the Curious Inventor site.

New Custom Modular

2010-02-11T11:51:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a small custom modular system for a good friend (in trade for his MS-20!). It will consist of a Voice of Saturn Filter, as well as the panel below which has a Music From Outer Space OSC, Thomas White Buchlas LoPass Gate clone + 2 x Voice of Saturn Modulator (LFO, and AR section only). It'll be all banana jack...should be a really fun little unit. I'll get a pic up of the panel when it arrives next week from FrontPanel Express.

modular sounds

2010-02-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

Modular by recompas

Done using roland space echo (reverb), custom modular, and blacet modules.

The Voice of PBR

2010-01-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

Voice of Saturn + PBR art entry from Travis Thatcher on Vimeo.

Modified Voice of Saturn Synth I made for the PBR Art show tonight in East Atlanta. There's a speaker in the can and it makes lovely noise.

JH Polymoog Resonator with Voltage Control + Voice of Saturn

2009-12-19T09:15:00.000-08:00

JH Polymoog Resonator + voltage control and Voice of Saturn from Travis Thatcher on Vimeo.

Recently finished my J.H. Polymoog Resonator clone and stuck it in a temporary case until I find time to make a nice panel for it. The module is great for changing the harmonics of a simple input signal and the multiple filter modes are very useful. On its own, a very nice module, but I wanted to try to add some simple voltage control to make it more interesting. This was easily accomplished with the use of some vtl5c/3 vactrols. You need two vactrols per frequency band. They are basically used the same way that the frequency pots are used, and are soldered in parallel with the pot connections. I used the holes on the board that are meant for the board mounted pots, since my panel mounted ones were soldered into the jumpers. In this configuration, the pots act to offset the voltage control. I soldered the 2 neg legs together, and then ran a wire from that to the ground of the cv input jack. The 2 positive legs of the vactrols were connected, and soldered to a 1k resistor for protection. This was then soldered to the signal pin of the cv jack. All three inputs were done this way, and I normalled the cv inputs jacks, so if a signal is inserted to jack 1, it goes to all 3.

Voice of Saturn Voltage Controlled Filter - Frac Format

2009-12-07T20:48:00.000-08:00

Finally got it finished - the VoS VCF, modules and kits will be released within a week or so on curiousinventor.com. The video quality kinda sucks, as I think I screwed up the lighting, but you get the idea.

Voice of Saturn Voltage Controlled Filter (Frac Format) from Travis Thatcher on Vimeo.

Zoroaster Shoutout

2009-12-07T15:32:00.000-08:00

thequietus.com has an interview with Atlanta doom band Zoroaster about their new album "Voice of Saturn". They give us a nice little shout out (I recorded some noises on the record), and they're awesome.

Voice of Saturn on the Make Holiday Gift Guide 2009

2009-11-30T15:21:00.000-08:00

Yup, pretty awesome. Check the link here. Also, big up to Wire To The Ear for making the Vimeo video they wound up using!

Win a free Voice of Saturn Synthesizer!

2009-11-30T08:38:00.000-08:00

Yup, this Thursday at the Star Bar in Atlanta, is a benefit for the Marcus Autism Center. Our good friends over at 4th Ward Heroes and Whynatte will be raffling off a ton of cool prizes including one of our very own Voice of Saturn Synths. Also, check out the great lineup of bands. It'll be a good Thursday.

Voice of Saturn Sequencer music

2009-10-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

analog sequencer experimentation by radiophonic

Click here for the blog post on cosmic country noir.

The League of Automatic Composers

2009-10-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

Just got my League of Automatic Composers anthology from alku. Awesome packaging, wooden usb drive with tons of music. If you aren't familiar with the League, read this. The League and later the Hub were pioneers in early computer music, with an emphasis on networked devices and interaction. This is proper nerdy stuff, and a big influence on some of my work.

Voice of Saturn Filter in Blacet/Frac Format

2009-10-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

Coming in 3-4 weeks, we'll be selling the VoS VCF in Blacet/Frac format.

Click here to go to the Curious Inventor website for more info

80017a

2009-09-29T08:20:00.001-07:00

80017a, originally uploaded by recompas.

Repairing an HS60 (Juno 106) - had to make some new legs for an old 80017a...

Voice of Saturn fun.

2009-09-14T15:05:00.001-07:00

Art Project

2009-08-18T11:43:00.001-07:00

Circles 2009 from Travis Thatcher on Vimeo.

Recompas

2009-08-10T09:22:00.001-07:00

Recompas, originally uploaded by John!!!.

Last Friday recompas played on the patio outside Eyedrum. We need to do more outdoor shows!

DANCING Pt. IV with E-Squared 4-25-09 at 529

2009-04-23T08:35:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, Eric Archer will be joining us with his buddy and performing as E-Squared for a crazy diy techno dance party! These guys are really interesting, and Eric has documented some of the incredible projects he's made on his site. Here's a video from Handmade Music up in Brooklyn on 4.16.09.

As always, Judi Chicago will be performing and then presiding over the freaking crazy ass dance party!

Jeff Mills is awesome

2009-04-22T11:23:00.000-07:00

I seem to remember hearing about this at some point, but I've never seen it before. Its pretty fantastic.

acid

2009-04-15T23:43:00.000-07:00

here's a 2.5 minutes of nice happy ambient acid.

linky

used:

Roland Jupiter 6
Boss Dr 110
Jomox xbase 09
oakley tb3030
moog mg1
roland re-201 space echo

Recompas Live Video from 12/08/07

2009-04-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

My Friend just realized he had this video up on youtube, but hadn't made it public. Nice little recording and good quality.

Tonight we're playing with Themselves at 529 in East Atlanta.

Next week is going to be a busy one...

2009-04-03T08:25:00.000-07:00

Tons of stuff going on next week in recompas land. First, next Wednesday, April 8th, I will be presenting the Voice of Saturn stuff at the Dorkbot Atlanta meeting. I'll be joined by Scott from Curious Inventor who will be showing off some other projects of his, including the stribe1. Also presenting will be Beth Millikan, talking about Freeside Altanta, a non-profit hacker space they are trying to setup.

Then Thursday at 529, recompas will be playing with Themselves (cue immature joke). Should be a really cool show, I've been into Themselves for quite some time, and I think Chris Devoe will be djing the night! You can get your tickets from Ticket Alternative.

Voice of Saturn Synth/VCF on vacation

2009-04-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

The Voice of Saturn Synth and Voltage Controlled Filter are up at Vacation Boutique in the ATL. I've also been talking with Kristin, one of the owners, about doing some custom art for units sold at the boutique. If you are in town, and want to try 'em out, head on over.

Voice of Saturn VC Filter released

2009-03-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

Voice of Saturn Voltage Controlled Filter from CuriousInventor on Vimeo.

The VoS VC Filter is based off of a CEM3372 4 pole low pass filter chip, complete with 2 inputs (each with a vca) and a vca on the output. Lots of modulation possiblities. his first limited run of 50 will include the super fun joystick, which is completely modular.

I'm really happy that we've finally been able to get this out the door. Its a lot of fun to play with, and sounds great with the rest of the modules. More details, pricing, etc, here.

recompas <3's homemade lofi psych

2009-03-04T08:25:00.001-08:00

The other day I stumbled upon a great blog, homemade indie lofi psych that, as the name suggests, posts all sorts of rare, and unheard music in those genres. I sent the guy that runs the site some recompas stuff, and they've been showing us some love lately. Great blog, I highly recommend checking it out.

In other news: The VoS VCF test pcb run came in yesterday, if all goes well, we'll be releasing kits very, very soon. I'm excited. Also, recompas will be opening up for Themselves at 529 in East Atlanta on April 9th. flyer to come soon.

Voice of Saturn CEM Filter

2009-02-18T13:20:00.001-08:00

Coming soon - The Voice of Saturn Voltage Controlled Filter. We're currently finalizing the first version of the PCB, which should be sent out for manufacturing in a few days. The filter is based around a cem3372 vcf chip, the same chip found in the Sequential Circuits Prophet 600. I'm particularly excited about the first 50, as they will have a nice joystick controller built in (if we can find more, we'll make more with them).

sound samples coming soon...

new project

2009-02-11T17:52:00.001-08:00

new project, originally uploaded by recompas.

traded the rogue for a sci prophet 600. Needs a little lovin' but it sounds fantastic. currently hunting down some keyboard contact strips and a 'D' key.

The Devil's Sleep demo

2009-01-28T15:40:00.000-08:00

The first run is super limited, and they can be found at Criminal Records and at Vacation Boutique in Atlanta, GA for $125.

3 of 8

2009-01-19T21:50:00.001-08:00

3 of 5, originally uploaded by recompas.

First run of the hand made Devil's Sleep booster pedal destined for Vacation Boutique this week sometime. There's only going to be 8 of these hand-made ones. Soon i'll have other cases and printed circuit boards. These will blow up speakers.

christmas toy

2008-12-29T23:45:00.001-08:00

christmas toy, originally uploaded by recompas.

Got a Blacet Darkstar Chaos for xmas. Lots of video game sound fun. Decided to build a modular cabinet for that, my Evenfall Minimodular and my Blacet Stonez which is on the way. Time for bed now.

Live set - Eyedrum 12.19.08

2008-12-20T09:59:00.000-08:00

Here's our set from last night. This one is all minimal, no drums. Really nice board mix.

linky

Live recording 12-13-08

2008-12-19T09:21:00.000-08:00

Here's our live set from last weekend at 529 in East Atlanta. Pretty decent sound quality, though the drums are mixed pretty loud (I think this was from only one channel in the board).

linky

Moog Rogue - Craigslist deal of the year

2008-12-17T07:14:00.001-08:00

Moog Rogue, originally uploaded by recompas.

Its nice to know you can still come across good deals on craigslist if you keep your eyes peeled. I scored this Moog Rogue for $50! It took some contact cleaner and rubbing alcohol and about an hour of work, but it looks really good. I still have to get inside and remove all the deteriorated, oilified foam under the panel (total mess), but I rigged up a power supply and it works like a champ. Tuning is a little unstabled, but I only had an 18vac supply laying around, and it requires 24vac. Hopefully that will fix it.

Judi Chicago Promo Shots

2008-12-10T23:34:00.001-08:00

Judi Chicago Promo Shots, originally uploaded by FuckYouNinja.

Here's a bunch of synths and crap and Judi Chicago

Orgone Accumulator

2008-12-02T08:45:00.000-08:00

From our show last Saturday, Fringe Factory at the Highland Inn.

For everyone with a Korg Poly 61...

2008-11-30T22:28:00.000-08:00

Merry early Christmas

I've been thinking about this for a while, and thanks to some pointers from the Synth DIY mailing list, I've managed to get a nice workable mod for realtime filter cutoff and resonance on my Poly 61.

The digital signal for the filter cutoff can be found coming out IC 42, where a simple DAC is created with 6 signals and some resistors. These lead to IC 36, which buffers the signal and sends it to pin 12 of connector 10A (cpu to voice board).

Similarly, filter resonance comes from IC 36, a buffer that is connected to IC 28. Pin 13 is the location on the connector.

Take the signals from the connector cable by carefully cutting wires 12 and 13 and stripping them. Solder wires and insulate propers (this can be tricky, and messy).

For the cutoff pot, you can create a voltage divider between +5 volts and the signal coming from the CPU board (max cutoff is -5volts). There are many places to get 5 volts, I used Pin 26 on IC28.

For the resonance, use a ground point for one side of the pot, and the cpu board side for the other, the signal is 0-10 volts.

Probably not the cleanest mod in the world, but simple to do, and it really adds a new level of expression to the cheap and easy to find Korg Poly 61. One note, when you program a patch now, the cutoff level will determine the max cutoff amount the potentiometer will affect, and resonance amount will determine the minimum resonance setting for that potentiometer. In other words, for full range, set the cutoff to 63, and the resonance to 0.

Enjoy non stepped filter sweeps!

Thomas Henry Mega Percussive Synthesizer

2008-11-28T09:57:00.001-08:00

Finished, originally uploaded by recompas - click for more pictures.

I just spent a very long day building this using a circuit board I picked up from Electro-Music.com. They did a fantastic job with the layout, and thanks to a bunch of great tips and diagrams on the forum I didn't have much trouble. I created the panel using laminated paper, as is suggested by Music From Outer Space (Ray Wilson) and I'm super happy with the results.

I decided to use a giant sized Voice of Saturn case and had room to add a simple spring reverb module as well. Its pre-patched to take the MPS output, but the jacks are normalled so you can use it with any source.

Here's an mp3 of it in action. Towards the end I am triggering and cv-sequencing using a Voice of Saturn Sequencer.

audio demo

More info on the MPS here.

recompas live 10.30.08

2008-10-31T07:30:00.000-07:00

We've been busy. Here's last night's set from Kavarna, pretty chill and atmospheric.

linky.

Video!

2008-10-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

Woo! Thanks to Matt at the Mobius. There's more videos linked from the YouTube page.

Live set from last night...

2008-10-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

Here's the set we played last night, board recording: linky.

The second tune is a cover of Gong's Master Builder. Overall I think one of our best gigs, very space. Sole and the Skyrider Band were great.

Voice of Saturn at Maker Faire this weekend!

2008-10-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

We'll have a table this weekend at the Maker Faire in Austin, TX. Scott @ Curious Inventor will be doing some soldering demos (including some advanced surface mount mumbo jumbo) and I'll be demoing current Voice of Saturn gear as well as the prototype ribbon controller I've been working on (above). Come out and say hi!

Also, be sure to check out eric archer's band operation playmate as they will be performing on Sunday. Eric is behind the wonderful and amazing drone commander.

-t

Voice of Saturn in Italy!

2008-10-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

The nice folks over at the Italian site NoiseCollective.net have some nice VoS tutorials. Check 'em out!

linky

recompas live @ The EARL 9.17.08

2008-09-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

Live set from last night's show with Tussle and the Selmanaires. It keeps growing.

New Voice of Saturn ~Modulator!

2008-09-16T10:11:00.000-07:00

The Voice of Saturn ~Modulator, and compact sound processing module that includes a VCA, Attack - Release generator, and LFO with square and triangle outputs.

More info:

here

Live at the Ice House

2008-08-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

New live set from last night, at the East Atlanta Ice House - link here

booster / distortion unit

2008-08-21T12:24:00.001-07:00

booster / distortion unit, originally uploaded by recompas.

Coming soon...destroys speakers.

recompas live 08.09.08

2008-08-13T09:53:00.001-07:00

08.09.08 @ The Drunken Unicorn

recompas live this saturday

2008-08-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

We'll be playing the Drunken Unicorn this Saturday along with Sonn Av Krusher and Lay Down Mains. Live recording to follow, here is some to tide you over.

New ambient piece

2008-07-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

This was a collaboration between myself and the newest recompas member, Nathan.

07.18.08.mp3

Live set from Silver Apples show

2008-07-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

Here is the set we did last night, opening up for the Silver Apples.

More Voice of Saturn vids

2008-06-26T11:05:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Miyagi for this one. He can be found at http://www.myagimusic.com and
http://www.myspace.com/myagisoleclaw