Molten Music Monthly - May 2020

In this month's extended and waffly round-up of music tech news Moog give Subharmonicons to everybody. There's another ARP 2600 option. The Wing Pinger is growing. Erica Synths gives us another drum. Yaletex will let you design your own controller. RYK M185 is the sequencer we've all been looking for. Vermona's meloDICER beats Omsonic to the scholastic melodies. Make Noise gives us no control. Music Thing gives us big control. Roland is taking everything to Zenology. Behringer gives us a MonoPoly. Error instruments has lots of stuff. Arturia gives us an Oberheim to play with. Audio Damage gets vintage digital with Phosphor 3. Voltage Modular reaches V2. ST Modular does interesting things in 0hp. And Microsoft is all about Re:Surface.

Timing index below!

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TIMING INDEX:
0:00 Intro
1:41 Microsoft Re:Surface
8:22 Antonus System ARP 2600
10:29 Moog Subharmonicon
14:31 Meng Qi Wing Pinger
16:23 Erica Synths Pico Drum 2
18:13 Yaeltex MIDI controllers
21:30 RYK M185
24:49 Vermona meloDICER
28:06 Make Noise 0-CTRL
31:28 Music Thing Control
33:17 Roland Zenology
40:00 Behringer MonoPoly
45:23 Error Instruments
47:11 Arturia OB-Xa V
48:45 Audio Damage Phosphor 3
49:57 Voltage Modular 2.0
54:49 ST Modular 0HP
56:36 Coming soon

[BadChizzle]

You do very nice job with these... and do provide something we don’t get otherwise. Thank you!

Oh! The merry little band reference was a good one. Ha ha

[ajay_Gunn]

Your videos are genuine. Keep making more. Thank you

[hasko_not_the_pirate]

24:20 “just being able to stick in a rest.” Separating trigger sequencing from pitch sequencing in two different modules gives a lot of freedom that traditional sequences don’t provide. I think mylarmelodies mentioned it in one early video and it was an eye opener for me once I got my head around it. Rests suddenly become easy. 🙂

[apislapis]

MMM with (little/big) knobs on. Always interesting, wonderfully quirky, just the tonic for lockdown. Thanks Robin.

[michaeloravecz]

I think the Microsoft Re:Surface Project is basically about promoting to musicians streaming using the low latency Matrix FTL (Faster Than Light). This is a "new" streaming protocol that competes with WebRTC. Both have been around a few years and are considered new and still a bit quirky. Both are considered "sub-second latency" that compares favorably with other protocols that achieve 10-60 sec latency. So musicians can play together from different remote locations and interact easily.

[tomeksojer]

Really love Molten monthly ! Best music-gear news around, it's informative and funny

[ScottLHines]

I was getting worried. Hadn’t seen you for awhile. Glad you’re safe and well

[martintaylor]

Hi Robin
Good sound honest advice for a novice to Eurorack but not into computer generated stuff can’t cope with it I’m old school hardware integration great🆒🎶🎶👍😎67yrs going on25😃

[michaeloravecz]

Another Mixer feature that is highlighted in the Microsoft Re:Surface Project is costreaming with up to four streams combined into one. The FTL subsecond latency is maintained. The chat is also combined making a single experience.

[saren]

Best monthly round up out there, thanks Robin

[ofutur]

Regarding turbo mode, I would look into a tool called QuickCPU. It keeps all the cores at 100%. No tweaking needed. Some monitoring included.

[kitty-o]

Thank you Robin for doing that great job! I love the way you're doing it, the contents and not to forget your English (which is perfect for learners of your language). Thanks especially for the recommendation of Voltage Modular - I found out that EVERYBODY CAN GET IT FOR FREE at the moment! (I think this will certainly give my creativity a completely new direction, since I really can't afford the hardware stuff unfortunately)

[michaeloravecz]

Microsoft UK finally released the RE:Surface Live Music Blueprint videos (6 of them) on YouTube. The way things were done really didn't count much on Mixer. Kind of disappointed as they used a backing track with only Jade Bird truly live for the performance. Then the next day Microsoft announced it will shut its Mixer livestreaming service on July 22 and transition its streamers and audience to Facebook Gaming. Wow! Wasn't expecting that one.

[KarateSnoopy]

Have you looked at VCV Rack yet? It's free / open source, and now has around 2000 modules with most of them free vs Voltage Modular's 100 modules for $100. It combines really well with real Eurorack HW using Expert Sleeper ES-* series.

[mongoosecollector]

Hey Robin, great video as usual. As for the trolls giving you crap about your opinion of a synthesizer regardless of who it is made by that it's disgusting and totally unacceptable in my opinion. I have always found your opinion, assessment and reviews to be honest and objective and about the subject matter at hand... i.e the synth itself. Don't let the bastards get you down mate ignore the lot of them ;-)

[paulusher]

Great show Robin.
As you mentioned Arp, have you seen the new G Storm Electro modules? Look and sound amazing.

[xDenneyx]

What is the touch keyboard on the video thumbnail?

[DBCisco]

Zenology sounds like Arturia V and Mini-Lab software

[XiXora]

Just recorded a touch too early to mention new Ripples/Shades revisions? 😅
Look forward to the livestream.

YouTube supports index markers now btw. You need to put time before the description though as I don't see it working here.

[Krns]

43:25 What this sounds like is that they created an echochamber for themselves. They have retracted from any type of public and open discussion where you have to deal with negative opinions and the fact that you can't do much about it. I don't know, but I believe that it could bite them in the behind later down the line, as soon as the whole "making vintage gear available to general consumers" (which is a good thing, btw) runs out of steam.

Great video, of course :-)