A sprawling, 3 hour history of electronic music centred on Kraftwerk and their contemporaries. Great stuff.
Kraftwerk 1/18:
Bassline Baseline Roland TB-303 DocumentaryMay 17, 2010
Bassline Baseline is a short documentary about the development and impact of the Roland TB-303 by Nate Harrison.
The production values are weak, the narration sounds a bit like a speech synthesizer and there are some mistakes (the TB-303 didn’t have a sine oscillator, it had a pseudo-square wave created by modifying a sawtooth), but the history makes it worth watching.
Today we have computer software, consisting of representations of a three-dimensional interface on a two-dimensional screen, being controlled by third-party software so as to emulate the sound of a machine built twenty years ago, which was itself built to emulate the sound of a machine built 30 years before it.
What The Future Sounded LikeMay 14, 2010
What The Future Sounded Like profiles Electronic Music Studios, creators of the legendary EMS VCS3 synthesizer.
What The Future Sounded Like 1/3
What The Future Sounded Like 2/3
What The Future Sounded Like 3/3
StylophoneMay 7, 2010
A short history of the Stylophone, the simple electronic instrument that was a predecessor of the Gakken SX-150 and Korg Monotron.
VCS3 Clone ProjectMay 6, 2010
Derek Revell’s VCS3 Clone Project
Derek Revell has assembled a clone of the rare EMS VCS3 synthesizer and is now offering DIY kits. This looks like a very daunting build – definitely not suited to newbies! If you actually build one of these, I want to see and hear it, so contact me.