Retro Thing

Roland SH-201 Synthesizer: Affordable Hands-On Synthesis

I love Roland's new SH-201 synthesizer (yes, I know I'm going to catch serious flak for this). Why? Because its user interface is brilliant and it's affordable. Sure, the front panel is a bit garish and Roland is trying to cash in on the resurgence of analog synthesis, but this SH offers a wonderful array of knobs and buttons that let you experience super-fast tactile sound creation -- instead of navigating through menus on an LCD, it becomes possible to reach out and tweak a sound in real time, just like the old days.

The SH-201 is a 10-voice polyphonic synthesizer capable of producing two different sounds at once. It includes USB and MIDI ports, so you can use the 49-key keyboard as a controller for MIDI gear or a computer-based music system. The synthesis engine digitally recreates the classic waveforms of analog synths - there are no wavetable-based pianos or flutes here. There are minimal effects (reverb and delay), along with nifty stereo RCA jacks on the back panel so you can plug in an external sound source.

Best of all, there's no multi-line LCD display (or even a 7-segment LED) to be found anywhere on the front panel, just like the analog polysynths of the early 1980s (the SH name is borrowed shamelessly from the ultra-cheap 1980s SH-101 monosynth, by the way). If you can get over its weird looks, this little virtual analog synth could turn out to be a bargain priced addition to your musical rig.

Roland SH-201 Analog Modeling Synth (Roland USA)

A Look Back At The First Popular MP3 Player

Portable mp3 players haven't been around for long, but a few are already collectibles. The first unit on the market was the Korean-made Saehan MPMan, which hit Far East stores in 1998. It arrived in North America as the Eiger Man that summer, beating the Diamond Rio to market by a few months. Diamond became famous by attracting the wrath of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), even though their product wasn't first to market. This was probably because US-based Diamond was a much easier target for a lawsuit.

The original MPMan offered a whopping 32MB of flash memory, enough for an hour of music. The follow-up F20 (shown above) includes a SmartMedia slot, allowing expansion to 64MB. Tunes are transferred to the player using a bizarre parallel cable that connects to the printer port. Believe it or not, Eiger introduced Windows XP drivers for this puppy in 2004. It looks huge in comparison to today's svelte players, but I still enjoy the sparse and simple Sonyish design.

Believe it or not, you can still buy these new for $50 (Amazon)

A $99 22-Jewel Automatic Wristwatch

The Troika Spain is a marvelously understated German-designed automatic watch that's on sale at Overstock.com for a mere $99. It features scratch-resistant mineral crystal on the front and back, stainless steel bezel/crown/case and a see-through skeleton case-back so you can admire its 22-jewel mechanism. It's also water-resistant up to 30m (100ft), just in case.

Troika Spain Automatic Wristwatch

Musical Distractions: NAMM Music Technology Show

OK, I'll come clean. The massive NAMM music technology show is running in Anaheim until Sunday, and I run a music technology company. Because of the NAMM "distraction," things will be a little slow around here for the rest of the week, and my posts might be a tad more musical. La-la-la.

By the way, my company's newly updated Sonia Xi music control surface is now shipping. It includes several nifty upgrades including ControlChain, which lets you to link up to five units together under the control of one unit. That's 60 knobs and twenty-five programmable switches.

News & press releases from 2006 Winter NAMM

Williams MultiGame - This 6-In-1 Arcade Game Uses Original Hardware

Three of my favorite arcade games were Defender, Stargate and Joust. They were all manufactured by Williams, and there was something magical about the gameplay and 19-inch Wells-Gardner display that was absolutely incredible back in 1981. Defender, in particular, took serious effort to master because of the complicated controls and lightning-fast game play. Still, it was a run-away success and is estimated to have grossed over one billion dollars.

Coinop.org is now selling rebuilt Williams games in a 6-in-1 format. The game titles are selected through a menu and run on the original hardware -- no emulation here. You'll find Defender, Stargate, Robotron, Joust, Bubbles, and Splat lurking inside. Each complete rebuild starts with a less-than-ideal Williams cabinet and new 19" Wells-Gardner monitor, power supply, controls, and a refurbished Williams logic board (with additional magic to enable game-switching). The price? A cool $2495. But that buys you the heart and soul of a real Williams arcade machine. Priceless.

Williams MultiGame 6-in-1 arcade machine (coinop.org)

Executive Yo-Yo by Troika

Everyone needs to burn off a little excess energy every once in a while, even corporate big-shots. That's where the German-designed $20 Troika Yo-Yo comes in. It's a nickel-plated 2.5-inch gravity toy. Whether you impress clients with your around-the-world prowess or accidentally bludgeon them is entirely dependent on your latent yo-yoing skill. I've mentioned Troika before; they make the nifty retromodern Boombox clock radio.

[Update: sixtoe left a link in the comments to the Duncan Mg, an insanely over-the-edge $400 magnesium yo-yo with surgical steel ball-bearing axle. If it's a bit much to hide on your expense account, Duncan also makes a $4 Classic line -- available at a toy store near you.]

Troika executive yo-yo

8-Bit Zen

Web zen has gone all 8-bit on us. Here's a link to a great post overflowing with 8-bit nostalgia. Be sure to check out the cocaine-fuelled Froot Loop-inspired pastel strangeness of the 1990 World of Nintendo Catalog. Or perhaps a collection of 155 different video game ads is more to your liking?

Microprocessor-powered pixellated memories (web zen)

Design Your Own Mechanical Watch

If you're one of those people who can never find quite the right watch, Blancier might have the solution for you. Their website features a clever interactive workshop that lets you select from a variety of watch movements (18-jewel mechanical mechanisms made in Germany by Lottermann & Soehne), hands, lunettes, faces and straps. The best part? They can manufacture and ship your creation in three to six weeks. Prices start under $600. [thanks, Matrix]

Blancier Custom-made mechanical timepieces

Your Camera Doesn't Look This Cool - Part I

There are a few home movie cameras that are justifiably famous, and this is one. Originally built for regular 8mm, Bolex quickly adapted this Flash Gordon design for Super 8. Besides its stylishness, the camera boasts a built in macro lens to focus on tiny details very close to the lens. Other cameras had add-on macro lenses, but the 160's claim to fame was it's impressive zoom range that went all the way down to macro.

To make room for the lens components, the film cartridge is unusually on top of the camera in what looks like a removable magazine (it's not). Some purists complain that the picture quality isn't what it could be since the image doesn't expose the film directly, but is redirected by a prism. Maybe so, but the 160 yields gorgeous pictures nonetheless.

True to the time, there were some great accessories for the 160 that were simplified versions of professional equipment. The Multitrix is a clip-on arm extending from the front of the camera to a slide, vignette, or title card (these close-ups made possible again by the Macro lens). There is also a light that clips on the side of the camera that gets terribly hot, and simultaneously ruins the futuristic look of the 160.

The rubber eyecups on most 160's you find today have rotted out and are sadly irreplaceable. Mine is a silicone copy made by a company a few years back that was planning on manufacturing them, but then mysteriously disappeared. Without the eyecup, light can leak through the eyepiece onto the film as you're shooting, so the camera without an eyecup isn't too useful. You'd be better off getting one of the many XL (exisiting light) Super 8 cameras that will do a much better job of shooting in lower light anyway.

Bolex 160 Macrozoom pics at Mondofoto
The 160 at Super 8 Filmmaking (scroll down)
More at Super8site

A Low Cost Moog Synthesizer? Here's How They Could Do It

Moog instruments are famed for their warm analog sound, beautiful quality, and significant price tags. Music Thing and Matrixsynth recently let the world know that Moog is rumored to be launching a brand new low-cost analog synthesizer at next week's NAMM show in Anaheim. NAMM is the musical equivalent of the Consumer Electronics Show, where long-haired guitar gods and the pocket protector brigade co-exist peacefully for four days.

There's a problem with low-cost analog synths, though: high quality analog circuitry is expensive and requires custom parts. In the 1980s, companies like Oberheim and Sequential Circuits relied on analog chipsets from manufacturers such as CEM and SSM to work their musical magic. Those companies are long gone, and modern manufacturers are forced to go digital or build circuits from an expensive combination of discrete components and off-the-shelf semiconductors.

All this is a long-winded way to suggest it will be difficult for Moog to produce a low-cost synth using traditional technology. Now, let's step back a couple of years -- to the 2004 NAMM show. Bob Moog was showing off his lineup of synths and effects, but he found time to stop by a booth belonging to chipmaker Anadigm for a demo. Their claim to fame? They produce programmable analog chips that can be dynamically reconfigured in real-time. Mull that one over for a moment. Programmable analog chips.

Wayfar Midines Sound Cart for Nintendo

I'm not even sure how to categorize this one. The Midines (MIDI + NES, geddit?) lets you integrate the sound of your Nintendo Entertainment System into an electronic recording rig. It offers external control over the NES's  dual Pulse, Tri, Noise and sample channels and includes 256 8-bit samples that offer up a range of vintage beat box samples, loops, and stabs. And when you're done cooking up new retro techno, you can chill to the sights of NesFX, a retro graphic visualization that is seeded by the incoming MIDI sound data. Only $69 + $10 shipping. Check out the interesting audio demos, too.

Wayfar Midines NES MIDI synthesis cart (via Matrixsynth)

Classic Computer Ads Online

Here's a small but nifty collection of 1980s magazine ads for Atari, Commodore, HP, Toshi, and others. The graphic of King Tut holds a special place in my heart because the Amiga demos left me reeling at the power and complexity lurking within that almost-affordable custom chipset. What a weird and wonderful world it was.

Vintage Computer Ads (via fosfor gadgets)

Underground Nintendo: A Portable CD/VCD/NES Spaghetti Monster

[Allow me to introduce Bohus, the newest member of the Retro Thing team. His first post is about a machine so strange, I can't properly describe it in a single sentence...]

Since we've been talking about playing old 80's era NES games on the upcoming Revolution system, it seems irresistible to talk about how people played these classics in the past. There have been pirate NES systems for years now, usually housed in a brittle plastic replica of a non-Nintendo system (like X-box or Playstation), but here is a personal favorite of mine.

This device wraps up several weird ideas into one: First, it's a cheap portable CD player. Second, it's a VCD player. VCD is a video format (it's a flavor of mpeg1, and looks like crap) that was popular in China and among bootleggers. Third, and most mysterious, it plays NES games.

As you can see from the picture, once everything is connected for game play your tabletop becomes a Rube Goldberg mess of spaghetti. The games play from the "not for sale" CD rom included with the system and use the VCD's menuing ability to let you pick through several dozen NES games with the cheesy remote (accompanied by cartoon pictures from Tenchi Muyo and Samba De Amigo).

The most subversive part was the way it had been smuggled into the US. Nintendo now has their eye out on Famiclone imports and this unit was clearly shipped in separate packages, then assembled in the US and there's no reference to games on the box. Also, the instruction page for gaming is a looseleaf sheet added to the manual later.

Wicked cool in that it does in fact work, though the controllers are clearly not long for this world.  This many flakey connections between so many shoddily built components can't last long.

Learn oodles about the panoply of NES ripoff consoles (emucamp.com)

The Bone Fone: Radio Shack's Attempt At Making Collarbones Musical

The Bone Fone was a floppy fabric covered tube that housed an AM/FM radio and two speakers. It was designed to be warn around the neck like a scarf, with the speakers resting on your collarbone. The idea, of course, was that sound was transferred directly from the little speakers into your body. I played with one briefly as a kid, but can't recollect what it felt or sounded like. It was marketed through Radio Shack, and I'm beginning to wish that I'd kept my dad's copies of their catalogs from the early 1980s.

Bone Fone Stereo (Pocket Calculator Show, via Boing Boing)

SEGA Nomad: A handheld Genesis

Introduced in late 1995, the SEGA Nomad was a neat piece of work. It was conceived as a handheld version of the Genesis console, with a decent 320x224 pixel backlit 3.25-inch color LCD display. The little box could also serve double-duty as a TV-based home console: there was an A/V output and plug for a second control pad. It required six AA batteries, making it a bit clunky to lug around, and the backlit display and dual processor design chewed through a set of batteries in less than two hours.

Sales of the Nomad suffered because it was released near the end of the Genesis console's lifespan, and wasn't compatible with Genesis accessories such as the 32X (32-bit console add-on) and SEGA CD. The price was eventually reduced well below $100, but few people took the bait. Pity. I'd quite like one.