euphony has go vintage - voguish . fatty , beep - y 60s- and 70s - earned run average deduction sounds are hot , and it ’s no craze — classical electronic sound are here to continue . Audio electronics inventor Bob Moog is now a virtual God , with amovieand soundtrack out . But maybe you ca n’t give shell out a few grand for the original , or $ 2000 + for a newMoogsynth . And you do n’t want to have to bring up your calculator just to make music with a software instrument . Take pith : new hardware rivals software system for levelheaded timber and even price .
Witness the cute - as - a - button Alesis Micron ( reviewedat createdigitalmusic by oldtimer tech author Lee Sherman ): lead - glowing controls , full - size keys , comfy knobs just waiting to be deal , and a street price of just $ 400 . This thing can pump out nigh - precise replicas of vintage instruments , including the distinctive speech sound of an analog filter . Quite simply , fun to spiel .
This week also fetch news of something new : Creamware ’s $ 900 clone of the Moog Minimoog(plus a $ 1000 Prophet 5 clone ) , in a keyboard - less sound mental faculty . Even if you ’ve never try of theMinimoog(1970 ) or Sequential’sProphet 5 instrument(1978 ) , you ’ve heard the sounds in nearly every kind of euphony of the past three decades : everyone from Jethro Tull to The spill the beans Heads to Jefferson Starship to Pink Floyd to Kraftwerk to Brian Eno to Yes to Kool and the Gang to Nine Inch Nails to take composer Hans Zimmer to minimalist composer Phillip Glass to . . . well , you get the approximation . Creamware commute its software + PCI card solution tohardware , complete with physical knobs so you may get courteous and swirl - y without a mouse . CDMmostly like the Creamware oblation , but it will have a tough time competing with instruments at the same toll ( or cheaper , like the Micron ) that bundle a keyboard and other features .
Whither package ? Hardly . Both of these instrument emulate analogue sounds with digital engineering . The music computer hardware basically is a software system + hardware solvent in a specialized package , extend on number - crunch DSP chips . And once the heavy dependance sets in , most hoi polloi are using some compounding of computer hardware and software instruments . Either fashion , with lots of new analog toys in hardware and software , you could party like it ’s 1979 .
Peter Kirn , editor ofcreatedigitalmusic , handicap in regularly with gearing too cool for only euphony geek to be in the know .
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