This post will be the first of a set of blogs outlining the key points to Studioworkers, and will hopefully provide a bit more information on what users can do with the system. Alongside this article you should find attached a video tutorial which I suggest watching for clarity.

So why do we need groups?

If you’ve been on Facebook, you’ll be no stranger to Groups. With Studioworkers, a group can be set up by anyone who is a member of the site, and based on anything industry related. Each group can optionally have a forum attached, or simply have posts made by users. When you create a group, you automatically become the group admin. You can also designate multiple admins. In turn group admins can control all posts made to the group – so if someone gets out of hand the admin can kick them out. Here are some everyday examples where you might find groups useful:

1. The Expert & Academia

Imagine you’re an engineering or production guru, and you wish to share tips and tricks with other individuals. There’s nothing to stop you from creating your own group with the forum enabled so you can start topics that interest other people. Say, for example, Bob Katz wanted to post up written material for others… he could create a group called “Bob Katz Masterclass”. At which point other members of the site can simply search his name in the groups section and join his group. This way the system becomes very much like Twitter with followers, only it’s much more community orientated where people can share thoughts and ideas. Want to control who joins the group? No problem, just set the group as hidden or invite only and invite or approve those you wish to join in.

2. The Equipment Junkie

For example you may have a Pro Tools HD3 rig, but need some support and information on the system. If you just want to know more about Pro Tools, then you can head over to the groups area, search for it, and join in. If you need more specific help on Pro Tools (system crash with a particular plugin) then you can go to the forums area and type in the search box. You will then be presented with forum topics related to that specific issue and their respective group. You can join in the conversation, or browse the groups forum for answers.

Finally, you may own a piece of studio equipment which you just want to talk about from a passionate “hey I love this gear!” level. There’s nothing to stop you creating groups for it. Other individuals who like the equipment can join in to the group and share their love and praise! In my case I’ve set up groups for vintage keyboards, as I’m very much in to analogue synthesis, so individuals who like, say, the “ARP 2600″ can join it and start chatting.

3. The Inventor & Press

So, you have a musical product that you want to promo for press or friends only. Simply set up a group for that product and flag it as hidden. You can then send out invitations to your friends on the system and keep them updated on its progress. If you’re happy enough for this to go public then all you need to do is set it to a “public group” and watch as individuals join to find out more. The site offers automated live streaming, so as soon as it becomes public visitors will be able to get an overview of updates through the activities page. Posts made to groups can have links to media, or other websites.

4. The Networker & Individual

The music industry is all about networking. Without the ability to share with others there is no possibility to show businesses, labels, publishers and studios what you can do, or what you are capable of. As with most social sites, Studioworkers has a profile area for individuals to write more information on themselves. The system automatically tags company names and job roles, so if for example I worked at Sony, users could find me by typing “Sony” within the members area search box – The system will search for all members working at Sony. In future updates I hope to include media rich content for profiles so users can post up images, galleries, or videos for projects they’re working on.

That about wraps it up for today! The video accompanying this blog will give you a brief overview of the system, and will outline how users can create their first group. This should give you enough leverage to start creating your own content and share your passion for the music industry!

Note: Video will be up in the next few hours.

Although the Red Square has little resemblence to the classic generation, a great deal of the circuit arrangement is similar to the Moog Prodigy. The 5 HE big Brit looks like a real gentleman. Metallic red with 50 chrome jacks and 31 black knobs give it an air of importance and whet the sound designer’s appetite.

Not enough hard wiring

With a prearranged modular system it would seem obvious – in order to start out right without a patch cable – to standardize run-of-the-mill wiring (that is, keyboard-CV connected to VCO and in following through the VCF, all controlled by the envelopes). In the Red Square e.g. VCO1 is prewired to the 24 dB Lowpass-Filter and connected with the AR-envelope. the whole thing is nurtured by the built-in Midi-Interface. The pre-wiring is a little scanty, in my opinion: the VCO2 could easily have been included along with the solitary LFO and the ADSR-envelope 2 (perhaps connected to the filter?) – that would have been really practical, especially since there are classic models existing for successful prewired half modular systems: ARP2600, Korg MS-20.

Laziness is the father of all economy

Along with ergonomic considerations, laziness also plays a role – designers are human – and it does happen that useful prewiring simply doesn’t get done: it’s either forgotten, or too expensive, or too complicated. Probably something like this is at the bottom of Analog Solution’s decision to do without more expensive prewiring.

Dual VCO, but never unison

Let’s look at the sound modules: VCO1 sounds really juicy in all its waveforms (triangle, saw and pulse). Those who want more can also activate the sub oscillator (pulse, one octave below). The four waveforms can be individually mixed, and there is a glide function in addition. The tuning knob allows variable tuning within the range area of a fifth. Pulling the knob transposes the VCO down two octaves. There is also sync-in, which is great. That’s about it on the oscillator side.

VCO2 is identically organized – except for the sync-in – and is tuned one octave lower. It’s equipped with the same detuning possibilities as the VCO1. The two VCOs are therefore never in unison at the same pitch – unless you don’t care about the warranty, open up the instrument, and manually change the circuit to give it a practical open-tuning beyond the quint/octave limits. In my opinion, they could at least have included a descent octave range knob (16′, 8′, 4′ – something in this direction)!

Modulating ok – but how?

Decent sound can be made with the OSC-Sync, although a couple of modulation sources would definitely be of practical use. If you patch the ADSR-envelope onto the pitch of the synched VCO1 you come up with sounds you can use. If, however, you use the LFO for the same purpose, the results are rather drastic: the intensity of the modulation can be adjusted (on the VCO board), but neither can the pitch be sufficiently heightened nor is there a possibility to modify the offset of the LFO.

We also look in vain for an additional VCA for controlling LFO intensity by the single envelope, or for use as a simple mixer (to combine different control- and audiosignals). That was probably too expensive.

What’s left are three multiples, which are primarely capable of splitting audio- or control signals (if e.g. the LFO is supposed to simultanueously control the VCO pitch and filter cutoff, in which case the LFO out plugs into a multiple as do also the VCO-pitch and filter-cutoff. If, however, ADSR and LFO are supposed to modulate the pitch of VCO1 together, this is not possible on the Red Square – unless per chance a proper modular system is reesting right beside it, which is generous enough to do the job.

Externally usable Midi-to-CV/Gate-Interface

I found the ring modulating tantalizing and useful for creating sounds with a large share of non harmonics. The Sample-&-Hold-Module is also seductive to experimenting. Great too, the fact that the MIDI interface is easily appplied to other analog voltage controlled synthesizers, it having three separately installed control voltages for pitch, modulation and accent (velocity) and trigger-out.

Strong filter

The filter is a powerful 24 dB LowPassFilter. The AR-envelope is permanently patched on to it; its intensity can be regulated. There is also a modulation-in for the cutoff frequency (for the ADSR envelope for example). The LFO sounds beautiful there, too – especially if it comes in the range of audio frequency, so you can fake FM sounds. Even the filter resonance can be modulated, whereby the intensity of all of these modulations can be adjusted.

In order to adjust resonance, though, you need a fine sense of feeling. The grey area between the first fading in and the transition to self oscillation is approx. between 3,5 and 4. Finally, there is another knob marked X.Mod in the filter section for routing the signal out of the audio out back to the filter as a source of modulation: a nice little thing, but no big deal.

The Red Square can be used as an effects unit. Just route a drumloop or a pad in the ext. in and off you go. Filters, ringmodulation, rhythmesizing… But here too you should not expect too much. You only have one filter characteristic, the modulation sources are limited, there is no module to analyze the audio signal (that is, no pitch recognition as in the Korg MS-20), no envelope-follower such is standard in other synths, no panning module, no phaser or spring reverb.

Pulse width? What’s that?

Yes, missing mixing modules remain a topic with the Red Square. The only components that can be combined are the four waveforms of the VCO1 (Tri, Saw, Puls, Noise or alternatively Sub) and in addition a waveform of VCO2 plus the ringmodulation signal. I could not discover anything else. Sure, it’s nice to know this is a real “classic” analog synth design, but it was not necessary to keep it that strict classic.

The ADSR is an advantage – compared with the SEM- and early Moog-envelopes, where decay and release were combined in one knob. However, this means the Red Square envelope is more versatile. On the other hand, pulse width modulation would have been a nice addition, too. Sure, no Minimoog or Moog Prodigy features PWM, but in the end it would have improved the poor modulation features on the Red Square a little.

I don’t wanna trump up and down on the Red Square all the time. It does have a really proper analog sound, I can’t emphasize this enough. In these days with inadequate native synthesizer simulations flooding the market and ruining the ears, this can not be valued enough. A pure sawtooth sound, minimally filtered and eventually synched, gussied up with the glide function, and you’ve already got those lightly shimmering solo lines and subtle sync sounds that made the Minimoog so popular. A really good deal.

Tweaking knobs is simply better for your fingers

The envelopes are not necessarily the fastest, but sufficient for all kinds of electronic percussion sounds. Sufficient in any case for basses, solo lines and percussive short sounds. The only sacrifice is getting along without those unpleasant little crackles made by extremely fast envelopes – let’s be honest, we usually find ourselves reducing those attacks of the extremely short envelopes, because the static gets on our nerves.

I also find fault with the envelopes of the Red Square. Why is a synthesizer of today, if equipped with two envelopes, not provided with two complete ADSR envelopes, istead of one ADSR and a reduced AR with switchable sustain. Look, who these days would want to do without a starter on a sports car in favour of a crank – with explicit mention in the user manual, that sports cars are for sporty people.

Good sounds from an inflated modular bag of tricks

The Red Square is a good sounding fully analog synthesizer. The modular, however, is an inflated bag of tricks that is more likely to impress users than it is to help them make music. With a little common-sense-wiring surely 95% of the sound patches could have been applied with 100% less spaghetti wiring in half the time. As a modular synth the Red Square offers little versatility and a lot of short comings on the control side. Versatility is certainly not its greatest asset.

Speaking of assets, a remark concerning the brand name of the Red Sequare. Company founder Tom Carpenter reckoned with the good reputation of the other british synthesizer brand Analogue Systems in naming his “Analogue Solutions”. He cleverly took advantage of the similarity of the two brand names in order to profit from the reputation of the longer exisiting “Analogue Systems”. This was clever of Mr. Carpenter, but it’s a pain for people like me who don’t remember names well, and constantly end up at the wrong web site.

Originally written by Bluesynths.
Review, pictures, sounds, translation: Curte Nolte
Layout: Theo Bloderer
Programming: Lawrence Eldridge

The unusual design boasting black along with blue and silver and the very large number of controls, buttons and knobs, immediately struck the eye. Amongst others, there were controls for three very complete and loopable (!) envelopes. Unbelievable.

Fully analogue…

The signal path of the synth is fully analogue and everything is controlled by a motorola microprocessor. The parameter resolution is very large (too large at times). The machine can be tweaked through the classical analogue controls or an array of eight softbuttons and a large display in the middle of the panel. All together, there is such a large choice of controls and modulation parameters that almost certainly no wish should remain unfulfilled here. As an example, let’s just mention the very numerous parameters of an envelope which can be of linear, exponential and some other shapes with two decay, sustain and release parameters. The structure of each of the 16 voices is classic but very complete…

VCOs

Each voice has two VCOs with 4 waveforms (pulse, saw, triangle and square). All waveforms can be activated at the same time. The level of the pulsewave can be separately modulated. Moreover, there is soft and hardsync, linear and exponential FM and ring-mod! Nothing was left out. Plus, there is a suboscillator for each VCO. Everything is freely modable and there is a noise-source that can provide noise of all imaginable colours.

Filter

Same for the filter-section. There are two filters : the classic SEM and Moog-filter, which can be activated either individually or conjointly, routed in series, parallel or mix-mode. The pre-filter signal, the ring-mod signal and the sine of both oszillators can be added to the final sound without going through the filter. The SEM filter offers HP, LP and BP modes which can be all added to the sound and mixed freely. The Andromeda boasts a freely modable filterfeedback, a very important parameter which is rarely offered on any synth. It expands the palette of the basic sounds of the synth considerably. It allows to use simple sine waves to create interesting and harmonically rich sounds through distortion of the VCO signal in the filter. Needless to say that all the parameters are modable by any source imaginable.

Comments about the A6

I one so desired, the huge amount of features of the unit would allow to go on forever with a detailed description but as a musician I prefer to continue this brief essay elaborating on the practical aspects of the use of the instrument. My comments are not meant to be 100% objective but retrace the experience of several years of intensive use of the unit.

In my opinion, the Andromeda has the largest sonic repertoire of all analogue synths on the market. Nothing has been left out. In the mix-mode it is even possible to stack as many voices as desired to create very complex soundscapes. Theoretically, up to 16 different sounds can be piled up. Obviously, this limits the number of simultaneously playable notes to one. The same principle applies to the very flexible unison-mode which allows to put as many voices as you with on each note and detune them.

Sound

The filter-section allows for very subtle tonal creations and contributes widely to the variety of the sounds one can achieve with the Andromeda. Even astonishingly realistic vocal sounds are possible. Sometimes inexperienced A6-users complain about the ‘coldness’ induces by the very precise autotune section which can compensate for temperature differences and retune the instrument in the background while you play. You can switch this function off (I advise to leave it on unless you like the sound of instruments which are out of tune) or add to the sound more analogue randomness and liveliness with the voice random parameter. As we mentioned before, the feedback parameter allows to add distortions at wish, It interacts with the level of the VCOs, the filter-levels and the settings of the resonance. The distortion even allows to produce very fat and if so desired harmonically rich bass sounds on the base of one simple sine wave.

The daily bread and butter synth sounds can be achieved very easily. The basic sound of the unit is quite unique despite the enormous versatility. In my opinion it lies somewhere between elder analogue synths and the sound of virtual analogues especially if you use the on board effects.
The unfiltered sound is cleaner than the sound of my LAMM and a little harder than the one of the Xpander or Chroma for example. If you increase the filter-feedback, you add very analogue sounding sonic artefacts but you should not overdo it if you don’t want all sounds to have the same colour. On top of that, one can add even more dirt with the analog distortion circuit which is routed after the filter.

A complex, but transportable and gigable synth

Objectively, there are just two points which could provoke criticism: The complexity of the machine which comes naturally with the very large number of parameters and sonic possibilities and a conceptual error in the voice layout which essentially makes sounds with very high FM intensities unusable. At some point, the frequency ratios of both VCO start to vary sufficiently from voice to voice to give the impression that each voice plays another sound. Fortunately, this problem only arises if you use the very high intensities other synths which have FM do not offer (yes, I talk about you MKS-80). And to be fair, we have to admit that even the LAMM has this little problem. Not all synth manufacturers were able to control FM so well as Oberheim on their Xpander. If we use the same intensities as the other synths, the feature works very well even for chords. Instead of focusing exclusively on this shortcoming, we should be happy that these high modulation intensities can be used to program unique monophonic FM sounds. I can live with that.

Finally, I consider the A6 a unique AND transportable and gig-able synth which has a place of choice among the analogue classics.

Review, pictures, sounds, translation: Oliver Hesch
Demo Song A6: Javier Zubizarreta
Layout: Theo Bloderer
Programming: Lawrence Eldridge