The CS-15 is screaming for a hard sync button, and ring modulation. They even put a separate slider on each VCO that let the pitch glide or rise from a chosen point at a chosen speed. What else could that be useful for than a hard sync sweep/ringmod? Weird. Mmm. I always found the CS15 a little fru...

Here's a higher-quality official Vimeo version of What the Future Sounded Like. Still only standard-def, because we never had an HD master of this one, but higher quality than the ABC TV rip.

Your best bet would be to have a browse through the schematics of various units and see which ones look the most hackable. Anything using well-documented components you can generally figure out the architecture of with a bit of work. I suspect that later units might be easier because the processors ...

I remember there being undocumented ASICs in the S-50 that would make writing custom code a pain in the arse, and there's also the issue of nutting out how the boot ROMs and OS interact. The main problem is that detailed documentation of the architectures of these types of units are difficult to get...

I especially like the fact that it uses the same knobs as the original Monotron - which going by their size in the picture means that each of the keys is around 6mm wide.

Presumably it comes with some sort of key-pressing stylus to play it.

Yeah, just clarifying that for the OP's question about processing. With fixed-point processing you can use standard integer operations for the most part, and use software implementations of the operations that behave differently (multiply/divide etc) using simpler algorithms than software floating-p...

I would also assume that most of the early samplers would have used a fair bit of fixed-point processing internally, for the sort of operations you'd do in floating-point nowadays.

Er... I don't agree with that at all. There's a difference between the combination of aliasing, DAC filters, etc. and the blanket of wideband hiss that some of the early samplers put over the top of user-sampled audio. If the noise was the "warmth", "dirt" and what-have-you then you're essentially s...

Ah, interesting! I've never actually looked into the differences of the Atom architecture before, just marvelled at their inability to handle tasks that my 166MX could accomplish with ease.

Because netbooks are built to be a cheap, low power computer, not for working with audio. Yep. Netbooks are rubbish for audio. I was stuck with one as my only musical tool for a while during a renovation, and they just can't hack it. You might think a dual-core 1.66MHz could handle sample playback ...

Yep, pitch changing with volume is a fairly well-known phenomenon, and one of the reasons mix engineers often recommend monitoring at sensible volume levels.

Not a bad question at all! That would be fine but Maschine is my sequencer, and it has only one MIDI out. I'm trying to switch between sequencing two of my hardware synthesizers when I record, so that's where the midi switch is needed. Unless I've completely missed something and there is an easier ...

No worries, Ruff. I generally do the same, but the Prophet 2000 is so brilliant at producing weird fantastical acoustic sounds that it's one of the few vintage samplers I bother multisampling on. I don't know why, but it just seems to have a knack for making things sound like they're being recorded ...

Are you joking? The P2000 has one of the most singularly fiendish patch architectures in existence. Trying to keep track of sound and map parameters and how they interact, the map modes, which sound you're editing at any given moment, and then editing all of it with three LCD digits, a single pot an...

Well, this suddenly cropped up in a recent search for P2000 sysex info: Prophet 2012 Haven't had a chance to try it yet (being at work), but it looks very promising. About time we had some up-to-date software for our underappreciated vintage samplers. And god knows, if there's a sampler that needs a...