Archive for November, 2008

Life Magazine & Google Parter For Gallery of Historic Photos

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

Life Magazine and Google recently launched a section of the Google Image Gallery dedicated to showcasing Life’s archive of millions of photos dating back to the 1750s. I am seriously afraid of the amount of time I could spend here; they’ve covered an amazing amount of historical events and, I can’t help but think this is an incredible window into the past for young kids who don’t know a world before computers, video games, and text messages.

This is one of the best photos I came across, taken of a ski jumper at the 1972 Winter Olympics.
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Visit the full image gallery here.

Museum of Soviet Synthesizers

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

Electronic music and synthesizers are two things I’ve been slowly getting into as a musician lately. While I’ve always been a fan of electronic music, I’ve never made any real effort to use the only synth I’ve had for a while, the Alesis Micron. We’ve used it in my band but it’s been more than a year since it’s been used in a live setting.

With my recent upgrade to Logic Studio, my access to software synths has greatly increased and I’ve been using an M-Audio Oxygen 49 MIDI keyboard at home. I really enjoy the variety of tones in Logic but feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of what is available. Slowly but surely, as they say…

The Museum of Soviet Synthesizers Web site is an interesting look at a somewhat bygone era of analog synths. Browsing the directory, there are a wide variety of sound clips from most of these synths, and, for someone who is rather new to making electronic music, it’s rather ear-catching to hear some of the similarities between these relics and the tones available in a software recording program. What I find most interesting is that there are bound to be plenty of electronic music fans and musicians who have no idea that such hardware was being made in Russia at probably the same time the European or American equivalent was being made. No doubt that most of the featured synths on this site are ones that many musicians would kill for these days based on nostalgia and rarity alone.

Altair 1
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Polivoks 11
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