Ok, so this is cool for all you banjo enthusiasts. Its a a custom made "Tranjo" that looks something like a the unholy marriage between a Steinberger GM and a Parker Fly. The coolest part is they cost around a grand and the company will customize it with any sort of pickup you'd like. Order your TranjoCaster today!

Nothing to do with synths, I know.. but I found them to be quite interesting. To keep it on topic, here's a stellar list of MIDI-fied banjo hits for your listening pleasure:

Sweet banjo MIDIs!

Here's a plugin that may have slipped under your radar: Miditizer. It's a hardcore organ emulator (for hardcore organists?) with a most perplexing name. "Midi" I can understand, as it's obviously controlled via MIDI. I even get the "izer" part...but the "t" in the middle makes no sense to me. It's heavily featured in the virtual logo and I just cant figure it out.

UPDATE: Oh wait, I get it. It's supposed to resemble the big "T" in Wurlitzer. Seems like a stretch... Oh wait, it's becoming more clear. Looking closely, they carefully preserved the last 5 letters of WurlITZER. MidITZER/WurlITZER; so clever!

"WELCOME to VirtualOrgan.com the home of the Mighty Miditzer Virtual Theatre Organ. The Miditzer™ is a computer program for PC's that lets you recreate a Wurlitzer Style 216 theatre organ. With nothing more than a computer mouse and the sound capabilities found in almost all computers you can experiment with all the controls found on a real theatre organ. Using SoundFonts to provide a surprisingly realistic sound and MIDI keyboards for playability, the Miditzer™ will allow you to experience the thrill of playing a Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ in your very own home."

Go order it at VirtualOrgan.com

This fortunate fellow seems to keep finding random drops in his 'hood. Unfortunately he's a podcaster, and as such he decided to podcast the entire event. He went to great lengths to keep things as boring as possible, right down to the NPR style ducking with public domain Joplin tunes. If you actually do manage to make it through the entire podcast, you'll discover that it actually seems like the stole the thing right off some poor dudes front step.

Earshot Radio Podcast

Moving old gear can be a challenge. Usually its either very large or very heavy, and most of the time a little of both. The OB-8, in all its glory, is a big-ole-bitch.

Robert makes a few lofty claims, and I really have no reason to doubt him:

First MIDI software/hardware company
First synth editor (Prophet 600, 1983)
First Pro Digital recorder/editor for computers
First computer SMPTE synchronizer
First MIDI telecom service/client (MidiCom)

My hats off to Mr. Moore: A true vintage MIDI pimp.

Robert Moore Hybrid Arts history

I remember back in the days when I used to crawl around Thoroughbred Music down on Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa. It would have been sometime around 1984, when the DX7 was creeping around and destroying the marketability of analog synths. And since T-Bred wasn't a Yamaha retailer (that was the seriously lame-except-for-the-Yamaha Paragon Music down the street), they were trying anything they could to sell what they had on hand; bunches of undesirable analogs.

Perhaps the most undesirable of all present was the Akai AX-80. It was not uncommon around that time to see a bunch of Ultimate A-frames supporting such luminaries as the Oberheim Matrix-12, Chroma Polaris, Roland Juno-60 and the Korg Poly 800... but what everyone really wanted was conspicuously absent: Mr. DX7. I recall each and every of those now classic synths literally collecting dust while people fawned over the brand new Ensoniq Mirage.

So around this time someone at Akai decided to release an analog synth using what I'm assuming was a new, inexpensive fluorescent display technology (I assume this because my Akai stereo receiver at the time had the same exact shit on it). Since everyone at the time was taking its user interface cues from Yamaha (one slider editing), Akai decided what was needed was a way to visually see what your patches looked like, just like the good old days (good old days being 1 year earlier). What they ended up with was a very attractive, functional synth with its piano gloss black endcaps and the fetching blue displays. Also, rather than using the now traditional single slider, Akai opted for the largest edit knob available on Earth; to be later rivaled only by the Alesis Quadrasynth volume knob.

So how did Akai whiff on the AX-80? The first whiff was the timing. Releasing anything that couldn't do a proper e-piano after 1983 was a no-no. Second whiff was the sound; kinda lame. By that time analog synths had peaked and everyone knew what to expect; big raw power. Companies scrambled to release hybrid DCO based synths with wavetables and analog filters, hoping to gain back some marketshare. Masterful analog synths like the Xpander languished on the shelves due to their sonic limitations. It was tough times all around for things made of wood.

So anyhow, I just spent a while with an AX-80, as a friend unexpectedly bought one and dropped it off at my house. I would put it somewhere in the sonic ballpark of a Kawai K3m and give it a fun factor slightly lower than a Roland JX-8P. It sounds decent, but the sounds it makes are inanimate, drowsy, and just plain old boring. Not to say you cant get some standard stuff out of it, but just don't expect it to have any balls or to impress anyone.

Nice try Akai. Its a fairly attractive little synth with its glossy finish and seductive knob, but beyond that its a snoozefest under the hood.

This video is nothing but AX-80. The opening sounds give you an insight into its lifelessness. Dude was so embarrassed he taped over the Akai logo.

Some nice AX-80 links:

Some dude named Jeffreys AX-80 page
Gordon Reids AX-80 review
SOS AX-80 retro review

You know you wanted one of these. Ever since you saw Steve Stevens in the Rebel Yell video you thought they were the coolest guitars ever. Actually, looking at them now, they are the coolest guitars ever!

They hooked up the the ultra-chic GR-700 controller, which I believe was partly a JX-3P crammed into a floor unit. I mean how awesome is a guitar that has a cutoff and rez knob built right in?

Bill Hillman's olde schoole Roland GR page!
Bill's killer page on the G707!

Check out the self proclaimed Master Of Synth Guitars while you're at it!

And then theres this guy rockin the G-77 bass. Check out his awesome page with a list of all his gear and motivations. My kind of dude!

I am on the hunt for one of these wonderful blue beasties. Aside from the DX7, I can't really remember seeing any other synth more often back in the MTV heyday. It's girth alone insures itself a spot in my studio..

UPDATE: One just sold on the bay for $675 or something, and it looked to be in very nice shape. Drats.

Man, the late 80s were really something. In 1989 Steinberg/Jones was setting the world on fire with products like "MIMIX" and "Topaz." What ever happened to days of cheap VCA automation?

ST NEWS
FOR JULY 1989

Steinberg/Jones, a company well known for their MIDI software, has just announced a new product that may be the next step into the future for the computer/music combination. MIMIX is a multichannel software-based mixing console that offers a screen display including 42 VCA levels, 34 VU meters and 180 various switches, all of which may be manipulated with the mouse.

Audio signals are displayed using a needle meter with an LED peak indicator or using a bar graph with a peak hold meter. Each channel on the mixer features a real-time VU meter; mute, solo and solo defeat switch; read/write update mode; VCA level; and a 24-character name.

The hardware portion of the system is the MIMIX VCA Module, which is contained in a 19-inch rack-mountable unit and includes a real-time noise gate with ten programmable parameters. The MIMIX system can handle eight of the VCA Modules.

The MIMIX system contains too many features to list here; anyone interested should contact Steinberg/Jones. But you'd better look at the prices first: $5,995 for the 16-channel system and a whopping $19,995 for the full 64-channel system.