7 January 2018
Legowelt & Intergalactic Gary in London
At Phonox London this Friday – more information & tickets here
4 January 2018
Re-issue of the 4xLP TEAC LIFE album at Clone
Well…not only at clone but lots of record stores – the 2011 4x vinyl LP Legowelt TEAC Life is available again. Get it here or at your local dealer!
Bandcamp digi version is available on my bandcamp page – including some extra tracks that aren’t on the vinyl
The Legendary Freaks In The Trash Of Time album is also repressed so you just as well might pick that up too at clone here!
29 December
Legowelt in Berlin – Groningen & Hamburg this NYE weekend
We start Saturday in Berlin at About Blank were I do a live set. With the Exaltics and lots more! Sunday I fly back to Holland to play at Paradigm Groningen with David Vunk for New Years Eve and Monday I head to Germany again to play Hamburg at Ubel & Gefahrlich with Deltafunktionen and lots more!!! See you there!
Shadow Wolf Cyberzine Issue 5
Here it is…Issue 5 of the Shadow Wolf Cyberzine.
Featuring an interview with IASOS – pioneer of Inter-Dimensional music, Alexander Robotnick, A synthesizer Quiz, A Guide to Lucid Dreaming & lots lots more!!! Read it here
Here is also a fresh new DJ Mix to celebrate the new Issue tracklisting is in the cyberzine!
Synthstuff Yamaha MK100
12 december 2017 – Got this from the cult dutch electronic music artist Phochos yesterday, the YAMAHA MK-100 – A 1983 homekeyboard with some synthesis functions and a very cool 1 pattern programmable ‘drummachine’.
listen to some sounds from this instrument (with some ableton ping pong delay & reverb FX etc. added)
Amateur Space Jazz Improvisation
The coolest thing is that it hasn’t got a screen for “programming” the functions – instead it uses a rotating cilinder behind plexiglass on which you can see the different menus printed. A very clever and jaunty system that seems to come straight out of a 1950’s Tupolev navigation computer.
The synth sounds are pretty bland yet very ‘warm digital’ – reminiscent of rudimentary FM sounds. The more lighthearty bellish sounds have the most character and the electric piano has a sweet dusty jazz aura somehow. Put this keyboard through an analog filter to soften its tangy frigid bite and add some delay/reverb and the sun really starts to shine.
The synthesizer method is a bit mysterious – based around an obscure Yamaha IG10771 Custom ASIC chip and an Intel 8085 processor. It does sound like early FM but it isn’t – it uses what is best described as a sort of “digital wavetable recombination synthesis” According to this website: “Interesting pre-FM soundsource, with sweet noisedrums and high polyphony (I think it was 12 or 16). Massive 64-pin shrinkDIP. Contains slow ADC for battery-low checking, metronome led driving (oddly specific!), rhythm tempo IRQ generator, internal key frequency lookup table, and a single-loop wavetable ROM. Envelope and waveform is also set by just a preset variation (in chip registers) instead of true ADSR.” In normal mode the synth part is 8 voice polyphonic but when the bass/chord voices are switched on the synth part becomes 3 voice polyhonic – the other 5 voices on the chip are then used for the drums, bass and 3 voice chord parts. You can also turn on a quaint chord memory function called “melody plus – Duet” or either “trio” resulting in one key playing either an interval or chord.
The ‘synthesis’ functions are extremely crude – you can mix 2 preset sounds together and choose from four different waveforms for each one. The envelope generator only has a meagre effect: you chose from 8 different preset envelopes and then it gets either a bit shorter, a bit more staccato, or slighty more stringy – nothing too extreme. There is a vibrato function too that adds slightly more uh…vibrato. The sustain has 2 rather nice settings with a good long release tail. It is possible to program your own rhythms and basslines so thats pretty sweet.
A thing that sucks is that the keyboard/synths sounds are rather loud compared to the drummachine’s volume. There is no way to alter the relative volume of the keyboard/synth sounds – You can do it for the rhythm and bass/chord channels but that doesn’t really fix the problem because the keyboard sound will always be as loud as the main volume. I guess this is easily hackable with some circuitbending or just multitracking.
The drummachine part is fun,. Six sounds of which the snaredrum and tom are (almost exactly?) the same. Extreme robotic electrofunk vibes and a thight groove. You can easily make your own pattern by tapping in the rhythm – it auto quantizes too…and you can make a variation with the fill in button next to the keyboard.
On the top middle left you can see the Transposer, this makes for a cool makeshift ‘step’-pitchbend great for amateur space jazz freak out solos while holding down a chord…
Here is some more info about the MK100 and here are some more sound demos:
9 december
New Fresh Copies Of The Legendary Freaks In The Trash Of Time Album
The Legendary Freaks In The Trash Of Time album sold out 2 weeks ago but its back in stock, new fresh copies arrived from the pressing plant – get it clone or your local dealer!
Check it out here
Legowelt in Bucharest & Rotterdam this weekend!
8 December Legowelt Live at Control Club with Kim Anne Foxman & more in
Bucharest Rumania more information here
9 December BAR Rotterdam with Suzanne Kraft & more in Holland
more information here
See you there!!!
30 November
Coming this December
Coming around Xmass -> ISSUE V of the SHADOW WOLF CYBERZINE – more illicit mindcrime for the modern CyBeRpuNk – You can still send in articles, studio tips, poems, D.I.Y guides, reviews of whatever, short stories, weird tales etc.etc.etc.- maybe I publish them in the new issue…please send to shadowcyberzine //A//T// legowelt.org – Entry date closes at 10 December.
27 November
Upcoming Gigs
The Legendary Freaks In The Trash Of Time Tour Continues…
8 December Control Club Bucharest Rumania
9 December BAR Rotterdam Holland
15 December Projekt Lab Poznan Poland
16 December Nr.Z.P. Bielefeld Germany
22 December Private Moscow Russia
26 December Shelter Amsterdam Holland
30 December About Blank Berlin Germany
31 December Paradigm Groningen Holland
1 January Ubel & Gefahrlich Hamburg Germany
12 January Phonox London
19 January Contra Seoul Korea
& more t.b.a See You There!!!
22 November 2017
Legowelt EMU Vintage Pro Synthesizer Sample Pack
375 samples in 16 bit wav format programmed by Legowelt on this 2002 digital american interdimensional space synthesizer – all free for you to use in your sampler, DAW, electribe Volca Sampler Microsampler MPC Octatrack Renoiz Roland SP EMAX Ensoniq ASR EPS16 Mirage OP-1 Commodore Amiga Soundblaster Ableton Simpler Reason whatever u use!!!
Its been a while since a Legowelt Sample pack (2015???) So lets splash out on an obscure exotic dreamy digital synth nobody gives a &*** about
The Vintage Pro is a 2002 digital synthesizer from EMU Inc. A spiritual successor to the early 90s EMU vintage Keys synthesizer – The VINTAGE PRO uses the EMU PROTEUS 1000 class synth engine. At that time EMU released a number of synths using this engine – the EMU MO PHATT aimed at hiphop genres, the EMU ORBIT for dance sounds the EMU Carnival for latin music, PLANET EARTH for world music, VIRTUOSO 2000 for classical music etc. They are all the same synths but use different waveforms to cater for the characteristics of the desired music style. The VINTAGE PRO was directed at emulating vintage 60s/70s/80s keyboards and synthesizers.
Some people, mostly wankers, discard these things as boring sample players or ‘ROMPLERS’. These people think romplers are not real synths but that is just because they are too lazy to dive into menu screens or mask their lack of synthesis knowledge by only using synths where they can twiddle the filter cutoff knob so they get instant gratification.
some interesting LFO waveforms in the modulation department – a HEMI QUAVER wave???
The Vintage PRO is a gateway to an adventerous psychedelic plain of synthesis – a DEEP synthesizer – with 4 “oscillators”, 21 filter models, virtual modular patch cords with crazy modulations routings and more.
The sound is a bit snappy and thin yet delicate and sophisticated – diaphanous, a fancy word for translucent – would be a better description. Like aquarel water paint mixed with pencil crayons it can be a fertile and extremely colorful ingredient in your music.
emu vintage pro the choice for winos
Editing/Programming is done on a little LCD screen affair, its manageable but even the most hardcore digital programmer fetishist like me might find it a bit cumbersome – mainly because of its ‘modular’ patch cord system (imagine a modular system controlled by a little LCD screen) The best way to go about is selecting a nice patch as a basis and shape the sound from there. All the EMU proteus 1000 class synths have a rather intriguing sound randomizer which will create a sound for you ‘ex nihilo’ – giving the synth an almost delphic oracle-esque quality.
As you might see this synthesizer came in 19″ rack format, there is however an extremely rare keyboard version called the VK-6.
Some more random trivia: The first and second Franz Falckehaus albums were made entirely on this thing sequenced by an Electribe ES-1
Check out some sounds from this sample pack through some echo FX:
Legowelt EMU Vintage Pro Sample Pack Demo
download it >> here << 375 samples in wav format, some mono some stereo
comes with info text file and some hot pictures. These samples are free to use, if you make a milllion$$$$$ hit with it you can always send me some or buy me a Mercedes.