I drove to Portland to see the synthesizer store Control Voltage. Can you imagine a store where there are synthesizers and you can try them and talk to experts and ask questions?
Does this photo make you drool? I admit I do not know what 9.9/10ths of these things do.
This was the most fun toy I played with. The delaydelus from Bleep Labs. I got a Thingamagoop from them a few years ago. This thing has a crazy sound. Who needs any effect other than delay and pitch shift? It has a unique form of a “patch bay,” there are eight pins, and if an alligator clip is connected to one or more of the eight pins, it will play one or more samples. The designer says it allows you to “get intimate with your samples.”
This device, the op-1 sounds beautiful, is clearly much more powerful than a Roland groove box, and is battery powered and portable. You can program it on your train ride! The staff said it has been their best seller recently.
This artistic logo was created with nails in the wall and hundreds of black threads!
A classic theremin! What a beauty.
My primary reason to visit was to try out this new theremin to see if I wanted to purchase it. I decided that no, I definitely do not. This theremin has 32 presets but I didn’t find any of them very useable, they can’t be edited without downloading an app for your iPhone, and the piece seemed very small, plastic and toylike. The antenna is too short! The sensitivity wasn’t to my liking, and I just didn’t like its sound as much as an original theremin. The pitch quantization seemed too good to be true, but I just couldn’t imagine myself playing this theremin.
Isaac and the Awkward Situations 