Alien Waterscape is the latest atmospheric addition to The Blue Zone for Kontakt 4.2.4 and above. A series of tube processed mostly white noise based SFX made with the Hideaway Studio Triple Tube Hybrid Phaser, a gorgeous 1966 Krohn-Hite 310-C all tube swept BPF, a White Noise Generator, TL Audio Tube EQ, an old 78 on a 1955 Garrard RC80M (well why not!), a very mangled bit of Blofeld and a recent very wet Atlantic Front!!

D.A.Wilson Equipment, Sound & Patch Design, Stephen Howell GUI Design & Graphics, Mario Krušelj TBZ Engine Script.

HS-4KL-BZ23 (07/11/13)

Panoramic Tones was the first opportunity to try out a new (old!) piece of kit I’ve been working on – a 1960’s Baldwin all tube “Panoramic Stereo Tone Converter“.  The PTC  is an extremely unusual spring reverb in that the audio is passed over the spring as a 20KHz ultrasonic AM modulated carrier using piezo ceramic transducers.  As a result it is much more complex than the usual offerings and has a considerably more tortuous signal path.  Having built a high voltage power supply to drive the chassis I modified the spring tank itself to add a transmit transducer in the middle of the spring with receivers at the ends to impart a pseudo stereo effect.  This very clever and almost forgotten technology has a number of advantages… firstly the spring is almost totally immune to vibration and it’s quite unnerving how the occasional accidental knock doesn’t result in the usual cacophony of clangs.   Secondly the frequency response appears to be flatter and the results somehow more musical.   I have had other success with this unit but that’s for later…

Panoramic Tones was made by feeding patches I dialled up in the SE Omega 8 and Supernova blended and fed hot via a tube EQ into the ultrasonic reverb.

Credits

D.A.Wilson Sound & Patch Design

Stephen Howell GUI Design & Graphics

Mario Krušelj TBZ Engine Script

HS-4KL-BZ22 (03/11/13)

Radio_TBZ was made with a gorgeous 1950 Pye P35 all tube short wave radio set to the 31M and 19M bands and capturing a long sample of a data carrier tone submerged in DX radio noise along with some heavily distorted distant Morse code.  Several loops were made and a number of random round robins setup.

Credits

D.A.Wilson Sound & Patch Design

Stephen Howell GUI Design & Graphics

Mario Krušelj TBZ Engine Script.

HS-4KL-BZ21 (14/10/13)

Electron Clouds is the latest addition to The Blue Zone.   It was made by feeding an xmod’d dual oscillator source from Minimoog 7751 into a gorgeous 1966 Krohn-Hite model 310-C all tube Band Pass Filter which I recently fixed up.   An external regen path was connected to the tube BPF using a tube preamp to impart strong resonance to the point of near self oscillation.  The result was remarkably effective and the cutoffs were controlled to gently sweep the harmonic resonance points.  Several loops were setup and presented as random round robins.

This download features 4 example patches and 1 multi.   The basic sound is presented as keys, a pad and an arpeggio.  As usual, all of the patches are quite sensitive to velocity.

D.A.Wilson Sound, Patch Design & Equipment Restoration, Stephen Howell GUI Design & Graphics, Mario Krušelj TBZ Engine Script.     HS-4KL-BZ20 (22/09/13)

Quantum Entropy is the latest addition to The Blue Zone Series for Kontakt 4.2.4 and above.   It consists of a three layer multi presented as separate instruments which can be layered with any of the other sounds in the series.  In this release the raw material for all three sounds was from rather unusual methods…

Octave Flipper was  made by recording the vertical signal output of a 1968 Tektronix 545B tube oscilloscope with the timebase pushed into instability between single and double cycles on the screen whilst triggered by a cyclic input signal and chopped (multiplexed) with the timebase sawtooth waveform!  This caused a harmonically rich octave flipping effect.

Grand Nebula was made by pushing a high frequency LFO modulated sustain on the Monotron into infinite delayed feedback with the filter cutoff set low and feeding the results through the Watkins Copicat tape delay.

Neptune Brass is a warm brass like pad made by gently feeding multiple raw oscillators into a tube overdrive and then into an analog chorus.  Its also presented in arpeggiated form.

Credits

D.A.Wilson Sound & Patch Design

Stephen Howell GUI Design & Graphics

Mario Krušelj TBZ Engine Script

HS-4KL-BZ19 (18/08/13)

Chopped Chymes is this weeks addition to The Blue Zone Series.  It comes in the form of three instruments… Cosseted Organix is a warm dual layer of a phased organ patch I recently programmed on the Omega 8.  This was washed through a stereo analog chorus and tube EQ and one layer tape processed on the Copicat.   Woodstock Chymes consists of several acoustic recordings of a Woodstock wind chime being struck and the results fired off, round robin, via the arpeggiator.   Phased LFO chopper is a feedback effect passed through a Small Stone Phaser and several random round robin starting points fired off by the arpeggiator throughout the natural phaser cycle.  All three work together quite nicely in any number of combinations…

HS-4KL-BZ18 (07/08/13)

It seemed right making this a red one….

Oil Can Overdrive is the latest addition to The Blue Zone Series.  It was made by feeding an X’mod patch from Minimoog 7751 hot into my recently fixed up 1960’s Echo-Reverb Electrostatic “Oil Can” tube delay along with a hand cranked tube generated sine wave to create a feedback effect and the result fed into a Watkins Copicat tape delay. There is a hell of a lot of tube/analog generated magic going on here!!..

Credits

– D.A.Wilson Equipment Restoration, Sound & Patch Design

– Stephen Howell GUI Design & Graphics

– Mario Krušelj TBZ Engine Script

HS-4KL-BZ17 (28/07/13)

PM3211 AirVox is a celebration of the return of yet another old gem to the living world.  This time it was 1976 Polymoog #3211 recently acquired by the musical genius that is Will Gregory of Goldfrapp.   Rescued from the US as a very dead but promising example I set about an intense couple of weeks breathing life back into her.   Some 45 CMOS chips, 37 LEDs and a retrofitted switched mode PSU later along with a deep cleanse resulted in sound – glorious sound!..

PM3211 AirVox is the 1st multi-sample to be captured from #3211 with Will’s kind permission and includes 3 demo instruments and 3 multis…

HS-4KL-BZ16 (29/06/13)
Kontakt 4.2.4 and above.

 Tubed Electrostatic Sustain is my first to be created using a wonderful 1966 Fender Echo-Reverb tube electrostatic “oil can” delay which I recently fixed up.   This bizarre old technology creates a delay by writing an audio signal in the form of a continuously varying electrostatic charge onto a rotating metal disk (like a photocopier) which sits in a bath of dielectric oil – hence the name “oil can delay”.   The technology was developed by Tel-Ray and is just about as analog as it ever gets with its overdriven tube preamp and wonky belt driven disk.

The instrument was created by overdriving the tube stages with several cycling PWM waves from a CS01 synth.

Credits

– D.A.Wilson Equipment Restoration, Sound & Patch Design

– Stephen Howell GUI Design & Graphics

– Mario Krušelj TBZ Engine Script

HS-4KL-BZ15 (09/06/13)

Triple Phased Halo is the latest addition to The Blue Zone Series for Kontakt 4.2.4 and above. It was made with two tube generated bell ratios each created by feeding mixed dual sine waves from a 1960’s tube infested Panoramic Two Tone Generator fed hot into the Minimoog’s external input with the filter running in self oscillation at a fixed ratio.  The results were passed into the Triple Tube Hybrid Phaser and a number of loops created in Kontakt…




Credits

– D.A.Wilson Equipment, Sound & Patch Design
– Stephen Howell GUI Design & Graphics
– Mario Krušelj TBZ Engine Script

HS-4KL-BZ14 (02/06/13)