Well, you cannot quite take your gigantic modular synth in the cabin yet, but the European Parliament calls for a revised "Air Passenger Rights" that will settle down and harmonize how air companies view musicians taking small instruments with them, in the cabin, in Europe. The precise wording will generate smiles on thousands of musicians' faces as it was, up to now, very much different from airport to airport and from companies to companies...

Here it is: "the air carriers must accept smaller instruments into the passenger cabin and must clearly indicate the terms and conditions for the transport of larger instruments in the cargo hold”.

Very often, musicians have to deal with this on face value and their loved guitar, or horn, or trumpet, can be accepted in the cabin with them in Brussels, but put in the cargo in Paris. And if the way bagages are handled by workers is bad for a simple luggage, one can imagine how bad it can be when it's a fragile music instrument. This happen to Dave Caroll from canadian band Sons Of Maxwell who's guitar's neck was broken after being mishandled by United airlines people. Originally, United didn't want to accept to pay Caroll...

Very funny and interesting article about Isao Tomita and his Moog III C (C stands for cabinet)... In a way, Walter Carlos and Tomita are a bit like The Stones and The Beatles: Walter would be more adventurous and raw while Tomita would be more family friendly and safe. He actually says it himself " I believed that, even if you're using a machine like Moog, the music has to be something the whole family can enjoy.".

So, initially Isao san was a classical musician but he felt frustrated as, for him, everything had been said in classical music after Wagner. He wanted to experiment with sounds so when he heard Walter Carlos' Switched On Bach (which was originally sold in Japan in the sound effects departement of the record stores...) it really made such an impression on him that he decided to get a Moog IIIc, you know, l'armoire normande of electronic music (funny to think the US Moog did a gigantic synth while at the same time, the UK EMS did a suitcase...).

Problems started to arise when the Moog came to Japan: the customs didn't believe it was a music instrument and Tomita had to show them pictures of people playing the thing so they would let the machine in...And...

You saw the post about the US study showing that, if blinded, people would consider the Stradivarius (the Tesla of the violins, the Champagne of the strings instruments, the truffe noire of the four stringed bows) as sounding flat and rather less musical than modern 1.000 dollars equivalents ? Well, here it gets worst :)

I'm pretty sure the DigiEnsemble (8 musicians and singers from Berlin) doesn't mind the contradiction between having been classically trained (read: sometimes rather stubborn when it comes to novelties and re-intepretation of the classics) and being a chamber music orchestra using state-of-the-art new millenia instruments with portable phones and latest generation laptops.

You can see them here, controlling audio samples of classical instruments using portable phones and Ipads. While the sounds aren't too bad and the expressions/vibrato/bowing they can give to the instruments using the gyroscope is frankly uncanny at times, and strangely they do have rather the same body language that if they were playing their cellos and violins...

Now, guys, try the same with full-on tuxedos and a larger repertoire and I can predict you quite a (well...

Mute Records, the iconic record company home to Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, Erasure and now very cool new acts Beth Jeans Houghton, Josh T. Pearson, S.C.U.M, and others, finally comes full circle and is releasing the perfect Xmas gift for all musicians or wannabee musicians: a small two oscillator synthesizer (equipped with a sequencer/pulser, yes....) controlled by touch and tilt: the Dirty Electronics Mute Synth. And it is shaped around the Mute logo too.

The more you squeeze it, the louder it gets or the crazier the sounds could go: this device is truly amazing and sounds lethal indeed. There are no knobs, there are no confort zone for you to rest on: this synth is dysfunctionnal by design and that's one of the beauty of it as sounds come and go and will never, ever be reproduced twice. Don't even ask about a memory patch, duh :))

This incredible instrument is so much at home in the Mute Catalog, and it would be a great add under your Christmas tree (sale price is about 70 Euros).
I want mine signed by Daniel Miller :)

http://www.mutebank.co.uk/mutebank/mutebank/Mute-...

The Jew's Harp, or guimbarde as it's called in ze french (and in the picture), is often considered like a minor instrument, something only hobos or old bluesmen play but it is very reducing as that weird instrument is rather rich harmonically speaking, can hit low notes as much as high notes and sound uncanny like a synthesizer at times, or a digeridoo at others: that alone tells you how wide its range and richness can be...

Tran Quang hai is a world famous ethnomusicologist, 5th generation musician, and more than a virtuoso at the Dan Moi, the Vietnamese jew's harp.
But he's also a specialist of diaphonic chant, believed to be one of the oldest human chant, used by Inuits and shamans...Getting spooky, no ?

see this amazing clip for siberian chant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYqrWRiS204
Tran Quang Hai website http://tranquanghai.info/

Kollector is also about cultural diversity !

Moog, the US company famous for the huge Moog synthesized shown on the groundbreaking Walter Carlos record or the Minimoog (the first all public synthesizer in the world), have come up with a real cool software synth specially designed for the Ipad and man, does it sound cool or what.

Contrary to most softsynths for mobile phones or Ipads who are simply rather good looking apps but sonically deceptive, Animoog really takes up the touch sensitive screen and makes it a complete WYSIWYG sound machine: you can really SCULPT music and use the screen as a XY axe where you draw the sounds you want to hear. And this is taking us back to the genesis of sound synthesis where one mimes the effect of the filter :)

After Gorillaz and his Fall album (http://thefall.gorillaz.com/), will we see/hear more artists using the Ipad as central part of their recordings ?

the words according to Moog Inc website:

Animoog, powered by Moog’s new Anisotropic Synth Engine (ASE), is the first professional polyphonic synthesizer designed for the iPad. ASE allows you to dynamically move through an X/Y space of unique timbres to create...

The wah-wah pedal is one of those incredible inventions born from hazard and visionary moments from individuals...
Del Casher was a guitar player and session musician in the USA and he was always in the look-out for special effects. He was very much in love with the wah/mute effect used by trumpet players when they sometimes cover the cone of the instrument, giving it a voice-like effect. Around the same time, the british music organs company VOX wanted to establish its range in the USA and Casher was incororated in the "Vox Ampliphonic Orchestra", a band that would show the organs at work. There was a device called the MRB, a medium range loudness device but the price of a knob was deemed too expensive for the company so instead they installed a rotary knob. And while you were turning that knob up and down, the coming and going effect was tantalizing to Del Casher: this is what he was looking for... But how to operate it while playing the guitar ? A US engineer called Brad Plunkett changed the knob into a pedal and there it was: the wah-wah pedal was born. We're talking 1966 here but it took 3 years to reach that magical moment where the Mc Clyde Wah-wah V846 pedal...

Stevie Wonder is a musical monument (and a very funny man too) who's career started way back in 1961 when he was signed bu Benny Gordy on Tamla Motown. He soon had a major hit with "Fingertips" in 1963 and enjoys massive recognition and success since then.
He teamed up with Malcom Cecil and Robert Margouleff for 3 records that definitively put him on a global status with songs as vital and cult as "Superstition" or "Living For The City". he was also among the major artists to use this new invention, the synthesizer. His co-producers had a gigantic beast called TONTO (The Original New Timbral Orchestra) consisting of huge Moog synthesizers all combined in strangely shaped wooden cabinets.
The video illustrates how one of the most soulful musician alive teamed up with two guys and a Godzilla-like synthesizer..

more on TONTO: http://youtu.be/nGfR3G6si_M
Stevie and his ARP 2600: http://youtu.be/Hzp6ly1mOIE

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The theremin is nothing new, it was invented back in the 20's by Leon Theremin, but there's something so magical about making music with an instrument you actually never touch. I don't mean the stacks of violins one can control thru a midi software, I mean a real, genuine and physical instrument you can use and make sounds with.

The theremin is rather simple: you control the oscillator's frequency with one hand while the other one controls loundness. Very handy when you want to make creepy sci-fi sounds, but if you get to be a virtuose like Pamelia_Kurstin it takes the instrument to new highs. See her using the theremin like a double bass, or a violin, it's quite amazing. She also gives some explanation from 5'30" and her freshness/enthusiasm is energizing!

Moog has come up with a very reliable and reasonably priced theremin: check it here in this perky video: http://youtu.be/stobfk1Mfjk

It's funny how guitar players, bass players, pianists, horn players and cello people are so madly in love with their instruments, and we can understand that, and share that feeling.
But would you believe it if we were to tell you that synthesize players are sometimes as dedicated and physically bounded to that electronic instruments ? And in the midst of that you'll find a hardcore of people, a niche if you like, of people totally mad and crazy in love with MODULAR ANALOG SYNTHS.

Yes, synthesizers like they used to make them back in the late seventies, big, huge sometimes, chunks of metal and wood and knobs and ...other stuff that make weird noises. Of course, bands like Depeche Mode or NIN use these machines often and have been more than vocals about them. And there's a real modular synths movement bubbling up.

There's a new film, directed by Robert Fantinatto, "MODULAR, the documentary". It still is in production but It has us already floored at Kollector as this movie really transcends the love these musician have for these wild beasts of sounds...

some cool links about these synth/musical geeks:
...

We're all quite intrigued when it comes to the equipment Depeche Mode uses. And while doing compiling this, it appeared to us that the Basildon' Four list of equipment is a catalog of all the great synths that have come out since 1981..
Here's that never ending list of Depeche's equipment from 1981onwards...get your saliva buckets ready...
(Not in the list but probably used: a Fairlight, a VCS3 and Sounds Of The Universe gear list not include but we know they're back in the analog/vintage machines and do use some stuff from http://www.schneidersladen.de/en/ )
Feel free to add instruments in the comments...

Korg KR55
Moog Source synth
Moog Prodigy
PPG Wave 2.0 synth
TEAC A3440 Tape Machine
REVOX A77 Tape Machine
Roland Promars
Roland TR808
Roland Jupiter 8
Prophet 2000
Octave Voyetra 8 Synthesizer
Emulator II
Yamaha DX7
Korg DW 8000
PPG Wave 2.3
Oberheim OB
two Prophet 2000 samplers
Akai s900 sampler
EmaxHD
Yamaha DX7II
EmaxHD
Korg DW800
Tascam 48 Tape
Tascam 38
...