EMS AKS OS X BetaTest, Virtual Instrument Options

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EMS AKS OS X BetaTest

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Please send me a information about EMS AKS osx beta version

[lepetitmartien]

You have to contact Pierre Couprie on his site, the link is on the homepage.

If Pierre was seing your post he'd be very annoyed as you are not a registered user so there's NO WAY to join you…

[Jaysee]

This I gotta see! MY very first Synth was an EMS SYnthi A, (I didnt have the little KS 256 note capacitance keyboard sequencer built into the the briefcases; curiously although ithe KS's real time pitch voltage was a mean 1V/octave, its Sequence pitch voltage was 0.32V/octave)I had the DK1 Cicklewood keyboard, velocity/dynamic voltage to boot, plus another useful sawtooth oscillator ) I bought it in 1974....and it was second hand even then, so it might date from a few years prior to that! I loved that quirky little machine. A marvel of miniaturisation for its time, and TOTALLY open! There was none of this predictable logical path left to right of oscillators > envelope, closely related to the trapezoid, sort of envelope follower >Filter>output amplifier(S) (It was stereo too!)> and so to the outside world... no with the Synthi you could 'get away with'(As in without fear of internal damage; to the synthi anyway!) total crazy routing of *anything* into *anything* else via the pin matrix and control output jacks or signal output jacks, maybe adding ring modulation or stereo panninga, controlled by nice X/Y jiystick (Or a multitude of other thinsgs to the sonic brew.THe modulation possibilities were endless, coz you could use just about every device as a modulation source.....if you turned the Q or resonance knob clockwise it gave a lovely almost pure symetrical sine wave which was very useful and could go down to extremely low frequencies. So could Osc3, which was the lowest of the three and provided modulation source but could work as a regular Osc) square wave(At such low freq it could be more a switch!) plus a triangle waveform of approx one cycle every 40 seconds!!! talk about infrasound..I doubt if even blue whales could hear that! A heavy session modulating modulators with more modulators out then back into its on board voltage controlled reverb(Who need convolution ha!) ONes head began to spin at the complexity of the path and of course as its components warmed up it would change, it brought home to me even back then in pre Mandelbrot days, the notion of the fractal idea of 'the draught from a butterfly wing causing a typhoon on the other side of the planet', ie of tiny causes having immense effects and consequences. One millimeter difference in the setting of any knob on the fascia and the sound could alter dramatically! disturbing to modern sensibilities no doubt, but it was precisely those serendipetous combinations of slight oscillator heat instabilty and other peculiar things which gave it 'personality' Just try scaling the keyboard to sound vaguely equally tempered over its 3 octaves after a 'herbal Malboro':)

Tune a b5th to sound as an octave and you could get whole tone scales when you played a chromatic run of semitones.....tune an octave to sound as a b5th and you get quaerter tones when you play the same chromatic semitone scale.......wonderful!!!! (Unless you're trying to use it live on stage as a main melodic solo instrument of course, when endearing quirks become rather embaressing; on the whole though it was very well behaved in public.I still own my old EMS and would never part with it. EMS are still in business BTW, servicing and performing loads of strange modifications to peoples old EMS gear, and building new VCS3s and other EMS products to order. They command quite a hefty price in good nick, I believe one belonging to Brian ENO at some point in its history recently changed hands at auction for £!6,000.00! I like mine a lot but thats a bit OTT, between one and two grand is more realistic.
So I"ll be absolutely fascinated to see the 'virtual' version of the AKS when its released, what a labour of love that must have been to create! I"ve owned lots of analogue synths in my time, oberheims, ARP's you name it...... but the Synthi A is still my favourite.
I just hope the 'virtual' version doesnt iron out the rogue elements of serendipety and chance born of the sheer potential for mind boggling complexity of discreet component interactions in this box of tricks. I never conidered them as 'faults' but almost an inspirational extra input of a second personality ofa musical intelligence...er....person....er no.....synthesiser....ehm "Dave"............
regards, Jaysee