TeenageEngineering from 14 to 17 January 2010 will exhibit the uber geek micro synth + controller OP1 at Namm Show 2010!

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Electronic Music Producer Skweee Recording and Artist Fredrik Mjelle from Stockholm created these super kawaii LEGO synths to celebrate their MP3 album "The Future" downloadable for free from BEEM official website (in the ZIP file there are 10 differentes LEGO cover artworks for each of the 10 lego elecro/disco tracks)...

(via Mixi) Next week I'm going to the Japanese Analog Synth Builders' Summit. This is a smaller event compared to Comiket or Wonfes but it's a great chance to keep in touch with the vulcanic Japanese home made synth scene!

Zepy has spotted (in the latest issue of Famitsu) this new Vocaloid 2 Miku chan inspired game for PSP to be released at the beginning of next year. The main game is a rhythm game with a story mode. You can win stuff in rhythm mode to decorate Hatsune Miku room and watch pur Vocaloid godness walk around and do random stuff.
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Today Gakken released the kit of the SX-150 analog synth (a perfect match for the new Nintendo DS  Korg DS10 analog synth card!).

GAKKEN SX-150 MIDI MOD: RJ, a Japanese hardware hacker, has posted a guide to create a Midi interface for the Gakken SX-150!

• Gakken SX-150 Midi Interface schematics
• Gakken SX-150 Midi Interface Hex code (+ C Source code)

After realeasing the great mini Theremin kit, Gakken has just announced a new build your own analog synth kit called SX-150. This synth is controlled trough a slider (this is a clever choice made by Gakken to keep the kit super cheap) and can even be connected to the teremin kit. The kit will be realeased on July 27 at 3360 Yen.

Amazon Japan has just started preorders for the Nintendo DS Korg DS-10. This card will be released on 24th July in Japanese shops.

Our friend Jaime pointed us to Create Digital Music blog post (ok I've been offline for a week so 2 days ago in my analog world are still a news) about Korg working with AQ Interactive to release an
MS-10 analog synth emulator for DS!

Product info, specs, samples [AQ Interactive; English]

Blog [Japanese only]

Now I just wait that Propellerhead will wake up and produce my old dreasm: a DS version of Rebirth (I'm dreaming about a portable version of Rebirth since Game Boy Advance and the first time I saw the DS I tough that Roland sooner or later will produce a card with a 303 or a 909 emulator) !

Features:

• Dual dual synths: Two patchable virtual synths, with two oscillators each
• Drum machine: Four-part drum machines loaded with samples of the virtual synth
• Sequencer: 2 synth tracks, 4 drum machine tracks, 16 steps
• Effects: Delay, chorus, flanger
• Input methods: Touch-control screen with real-time sound control, a keyboard screen, and matrix screen

Crypton has finally revealed the official Vocaloid 2 new package and... I've been really surprised to discover that Rin got a brother called Ren!!! Actually they seems twins (as they got the same look and age). There will be two data sets of voices Rin/Len (at the same price of the original Miku box).
The game, ops, the application will be released on 24 December!


Rin: 14 years old -  152cm tall and 43kg.   Len: 14 years old, 156cm tall and 47kg

(via CreateDigitalMusic)  Although it was first announced September 2000, Noah Vawter & Brian Whitman have finally release Pushpin: a MIDI synthesizer kit for your Nintendo Game Boy Color.
This is a sample track made with Pushpin.

Pushpin includes:

* ROM file, to be flashed to a cartridge
* Instructions for a cable that connects GBC’s link port to MIDI
(standard DIN)
* Receives 90 MIDI Control Changes, note messages, pitch bend,
program changes
* Four channels, multi-timbral

Origins of this project  -  Official page with files and schematics - 

Today watching this Miku Chan video (control Vocaloid 2 trough the Miku Theremin seems great!) I discovered Keromin:  an eclectic electronic musical instrument in the shape of a frog puppet. Kero in its name is an onomatopoeia for song of a frog in Japanese (like in the anime Keroro Gunsho). Min is after "Theremin" by which Ithe japanese creator pays homage to the world's first electronic instrument created by Russian inventor Léon Theremin in 1919.
In playing the Keromin, the pitch is controlled with the angle between the thumb and other fingers which manipulate the puppet's mouth. The sounds programmed are those of instruments for orchestra and real frog songs as well as sampled human voice saying "kero-kero."


Like a Theremin, the pitch changes according to continuous movements--the opening of the puppet's mouth. It is, however, easier to play than a Theremin because the movements are converted into sounds in accordance with musical scales automatically.

And if the Miku Theremin and Keromin are not enough there is always Matryomin: the Matrioska Theremin invented by Masami Takeuchi in 1999 (via Gizmodo/Trend in Japan) and produced by Mandarin Electron (video here)....

Basic64 is inspired by the 8 bit sounds of the legendary Commodore 64.
It's not a straight emulation, but is based around the SID chip with some extras for that 8-bit retro game sound, lofi gritty noises or just plain oddness...  Seems that  Basic64 could became the "Rebirth" (Propellehead) for the chiptuners out there...
(If you prefer the real thing there are always the original SID cartridges made by prophet64.com. Free trial here)

Download zip file (1.2 MB)

                 (more on Akiba Blog)
Few weeks ago, after I found it on sale in Akiba's Laox MusicVox shop, I posted about Vocaloid 2 on my mixi blog.  According to Akiba blog and several other sources seems that this music software has been really succesfull (it's on top spot of Amazon Japan sales ranking) and the first printing is already sold out. Vocaloid is a technology and application software developed by Yamaha that enables users to synthesize authentic-sounding singing by just typing in the melody and the lyrics of a song. Yamaha announced its development in 2003, and in 2004 the first application software product was launched. It was not released as a Yamaha product, but a software package of Vocaloid Singer Libraries developed by third party licensees (Zero-G and Crypton) which included Yamaha's Vocaloid software. Vocaloid 2 singer, just released by Crypton, features the voice of Atsune Miku: a 16 years old virtual Singer (according to her official bio she is 158 cm tall, weights 42 Kg  and loves pop and dance music).
These are official MP3 demo songs: Song 1,  Song 2 and Song 3 or YouTube medley.

In the last two weeks Atsune Miku stormed the japanese otaku and video gamers undeground and many users poster their own music created with Vocaloid 2 on Nico Nico (japanese equivalent of You Tube). It's really impressive how powerfull can be a 100$ software!  Finally anime and videogame fans can have their personal seiyu in their room!
These are some some Nico Nico video reposted on gaijin friendly You Tube:

True my heart: a pure bishoujo song!


Another otaku classic vocaloid mashup!