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Roger Linn: The King of Drum Machines
This is a video by Jack Pearson in which Roger Linn, creator of the legendary drum machine, tells his own story.
Newsletter, 4 Sep 2025
Greetings .
relating to MIDI, soundchips, electronics, small-scale instrument-making and music-related retrocomputing.
Recently I .
Without further ado, read on for more musical news, views and reviews.
Contents
- My world
- MIDI Inbox
- Sound chips and retrocomputing
- Products and reviews
- Performances
- Traditional and acoustic instruments
- But is is art...?
My world
MIDI Inbox
Arduino and SP0256A-AL2
This is part 6 in a series of blog posts in which Kevin makes a vintage speech synth chip sing!
He initially wanted to play with the speech but then discovered that he could vary the speech-chip's clock programatically to make it sing musical notes.
In this most recent instalment he's hooked up a MIDI keyboard to make the speech chip sing Do, Re Mi etc as appropriate. He comments that it's not as responsive as he'd hoped and has a limited musical range, but it's a fun experiment.
I built a reverb tank out of an old lamp
On my very long to-do list is building a plate reverb. It may not happen due to space, but you don't need a massive slab of steel to create an interesting reverb. David Hilowitz has used a discarded angle-poise lamp which has some interesting properties thanks to its springs. He also coaxed some interesting sounds from bowing, stroking and striking the lamp.
How to build your first (good!) contact microphone
It's well known that a piezo disc can be attached to any surface and act as a microphone, but I learned from this tutorial how to wire two to make a balanced microphone with a stronger output. I was also inspired by the number of interesting places that The Sound of Machines found to record interesting sounds.
Building my childhood dream instrument
Brady has turned his childhood dream instrument into a polished project. It's a violin-like MIDI controller which includes a ribbon, force-sensitive buttons and rotary controls.
It's open-source, so you could make one too!
Sound chips and retrocomputing
Chip SID Show, 31 August 2025
In the latest issue of the Chip SID Show (as I write), Max Hall pays tribute to Peter Clarke, SID musician and videogame composer.
How to control Commodore 64 SID chip directly from DAW
In this short tutorial, LukHash demonstrates a couple of ways of driving real SID chips from your DAW
The Coral Caves of Illusion
Paul Duffy of The Coral has reworked their entire debut album in 8-bit style and it sounds amazing. The album is called The Coral Caves Of Illusion and it's available for streaming on Spotify here.
Paul used miniBit platform and was inspired by Megadrive games such as Sonic and Castle of Illusion.
www.nme.com...the-coral-rerecord-entire-2002-debut-album-in-retro-video-game...
Products and reviews
Landscape Noon
This very weird device made Venus Theory say "WTF". It's a "Passive, analogue, rhythmic instrument", powered momentarily by gate and control voltages.
Blockenspiel / Xylophone - Functional and Playable
The Blockenspiel is a xylopyone which is entirely made of lego - even the beaters. It sounds surprisingly good.
It was designed by Zung92 and appears on Lego Ideas, where you can create an account if you don't have one and give the idea a vote.
beta.ideas.lego.com/product-ideas/0b54f8fc-e926-4d53-8cca-e3937b794e6f
MONKEY
MONKEY is a 2-octave pocket-sized bluetooth MIDI keyboard that promises ultra-long battery life and low latency.
The story behind the Loopa
ferluht has published this short video documenting his five hardware revisions to reach the Loopa synth as it exists today.
Performances
Sunday Fretless Meditation
I enjoy a free improvisation and the notable thing about this one is that what sounds like an atmospheric backing track is entirely reverb provided by the Echolocator, it's a delay unit by Erica Synths.
Traditional and acoustic instruments
A speaker built like a wind instrument
As a brass player, I've never made a connection between speaker and wind instrument design.
Hasehiro Kogyo have developed a laminated design which allows them to create curved sound paths for a more lifelike sound.
Gemshorn
The Gemshorn is an early instrument; modern ones have recorder fingering.
Veronika demonstrates the bass that she has waited for since 2023.
But is it art...?
All that remains is for me to thank everyone who blogs, writes articles or posts pictures on the subjects I'm excited by.
Nor can I do the things I do without your support, so thank you for that.
If you're on the email list then please forward this to anyone who may be interested. If you've received this email from a friend, then please consider joining the list, the sign-up form is below.
It's always good to hear from readers for any reason and I'd particularly like tip-offs about about any relevant stories, video, websites or social media accounts that I should be following.
Happy music-making!
Shiela Dixon - Editor / curator
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