Next Gig November 20th

We'll be playing at La Rotonde in Nantes on November 20th.  2 rue Louis Blanc. 9PM.

The concert will be followed in december by another more intimate, acoustic performance at L'absence.

More details to come.

Some Semi-New Stuff Coming Up

I'm still working now and then on the "Up the River" album, but I took some time to heavily remix the 1975 cover song from this post.

So expect some nice exotic pop this week...

Oh, and I bought Moog's new iPod app, stay tuned on that as well!

More Zelda Music

And what about this one?

Again, a Prophet 08 tune using a Zelda MIDI file.

Sanctuary Theme

A Link to the Past

This blog's past, that is...

Browsing the first batch of posts back in late 2008, I ran across these Prophet 08 tracks I had totally forgotten about.

Both tunes were done feeding MIDI files to the outstanding Prophet 08 analog synth.

Zelda 3 Lost Woods Theme

From the classic Nintendo game, Zelda : Link to the Past. Written by Kōji Kondō. 

Speedball Theme

Another old school hit on the Amiga (booo) and Atari ST (yeaa) home computers.

Slim Phatty : All you Need is Moog

What do you know, it finally happened! This has been requested since day one on the official boards, a Little Phatty rack.

As an avid Phatty owner (I use it on EVERY track, no matter the genre), I can only say that this might be the best analog buy you do this year.

The oh-so-famous Moog sound in a convenient and affordable package, shame on you if you haven't already got one.

Unplugged du Jour : "Nixonia"

New recording - piano and guitar.
Unplugged take from upcoming "Up the River" album.

"One bored Saturday morning 
With your good dog the evil boys went hunting
Through the darkened woods
Through the rain
I lost track of time, empty, nothing
Summer was black and flowers were droning
Through the darkened woods
Through the rain
By Saddle River, struck by self-pity
An old man stood, quietly weeping
“Sad men long for fortune and glory”
One of the boy tripped and fell down on me
I lost my temper and tried to hurt him
Instinct reigned free and he kicked me so mean
I saw a black hole in a tree
A black hole in a tree
A swarm of fear came to me
They knew I was gone but no-one would search
This poor dog’s eyes were swelled shut
I jumped in the river and slept on the bank
Back home I wished you were here
I brought myself down and know I was weak
I gave them the sword and they stuck it in
Back home I wished you were here
You’d raise your finger and say failure’s a sin
You’d say unless you hate them they don’t win"

Nixonia (Unplugged) by khoral

More Electro-Harmonix Playing

If you're interested in Electro-Harmonix guitar pedals, here's some audio clips : Download MP3

First, dry guitar sound (Vintage V100 Les Paul), then : 

0.16 : Small Clone (chorus)

1.16 : Stereo Pulsar (tremolo)

2.07 : Stereo Electric Mistress (flanger/chorus)

3.00 : Memory Boy (delay)

3.50 : Big Muff (fuzz)

5.10 : Several of 'em 

These are the Times

Pure improvisation : the monophonic synthesizer Doepfer Dark Energy is plugged into a Boss RC20 loop station, which is plugged into a Lexicon reverb unit.

One single live take.

These are the Times by khoral

MicroMoorg (Quick) Mod Tutorial

So, I was asked how this mod was done.

I'm afraid I can't explain in too much detail because:

- I've picked up the mod half done in the first place, thus did only see the result of the early work.

- I then gave it to a third party to finish it up.

BUT, what I can do, is provide a general account on the process for people who might consider modifying their Microkorg.

I) The early stages

On this older post, you can see the state I first got the MicroMoorg in : http://khoral.blogspot.com/2010/05/introducing-micromoorg.html

The owner had cut the plastic at the junction, using a very good saw, just between the keyboard section and the board section. Needless to say, this has to be done very carefully in order not to damage the circuit laying down below.

At this point, the board was totally independent from the keyboard, because once you unscrew the original wood parts and the junction is severed, nothing but the keyboard cables stand between the two sections.

That is why you can lift up the board like it is on the photograph, but if you were to look behind the mod, you'd see that there's just a void, all circuits are open to the air.

That's why you have to add a back panel. 

II) The new wood panels

On the above pics, you can see the finished mod, with measures.

Please notes that the measures are in millimeters. You may use http://www.convertunits.com/from/inches/to/mm to convert.

The side panel is composed of two different pieces, which assembled look somewhat like a Little Phatty side panel. You can obviously create a single pieced panel, but this was assembled from various spare wood parts.

The back panel is also composed of two pieces, and here you may see that it isn't varnished yet like the other parts. Then again, a single piece is possible.

The screws in the wood panels then go through the plastic casing on the inside, without touching the circuits.

You can see a hinge is running along the junction on the front. That's because the original plan was to have the board able to move down  à la Minimoog. This proved a bit  difficult, and here the more modest solution of a still board was chosen, à la Little Phatty.

On the inside, the cables going from the circuit board to the keyboard were changed for longer one, so that the added distance wouldn't stress the original ones.

That's the basics of it, if you plan to do a mod like that, please keep me posted!