Been looking for one of these for a long time. In fact ever since the Sigur Ros interview in Soundonsound. I've have scoured fleamarkets in Denmark, and checking the second-hand websites yielded nada. It's not the type of item that one finds in the dark parts of scandinavia. So....

Ebay to the rescue!

I love the crunchy sound and the immediacy of editing. However,... one thing that bugs me is the lag between pressing the Sample Record button and the actual recording. Worst of all - this lag is always different, so it's impossible to time when you actually sample. The end result is that you can't record rhythmic sounds or noises with any form of attack. Then again there is plenty sustained type sounds to sample. So I guess this is all part of the VSS-30's charm. Speaking of charm... the arpeggiator is surprisingly useful and exactly the sort of instant fun that I was looking for.

On a side note. I threw out the box that the unit came in (see pic).... even though it was dilligently stored by the previous owner, which meant that it was at least 10 years old!. I used to store all my music gear boxes... just in case I wanted to "sell it later". But recently I've been thinking "hey, commit to your gear - learn how to use what you have".... by the way I've got a Kyma Capybara 320 for sale.

I just got these on 'extended' loan from a friend, thanks Morten. Who bought them directly from the manufacturer. They are surplus stock, which was built for the Red Studio 4 in DR Byen where I spend most of my daylight hours.
Can't wait to set them up in my home studio,... then finally everything I mix will just come up like pearls and champagne bubbles!

A few summers ago I was up at my parents summerhouse in northern Zealand in Denmark. At the local fleamarket I stumbled across a nicely beaten up organ with a auto-accompaniment rhythm-machine.

100dkr and a sore back later... Voila-

I have no idea who the manufacturer is... The organ itself is an Antilope A-205 and is very flat sounding. But the built in beats are nicely crunchy from the built in speaker (especially when 're-amped' through an iPhone, which is being waved through the air to create a slightly flanged/filtered feel).
rhytem machine beats faster tempoes
bossanova
simple rock
waltz
slow rock
country
march3
Feel free to download and use the samples. They're CC- Attribution. Happy new years!

Yesterday I received a little old audio toy bought from ebay: The Radio Shack Electronic Reverb Control.

It's not really a reverb, but an analog delay from start 90's (I guess). The sound is dubtastic and lo-fi! Here's the first sound doodle:

RadioShack_01

...and here's the second test:

RadioShack_02

The tracks are recorded by plugging the Danelectro guitar directly in the Radio Shack. The MICROPHONE amp is turned down and the three other parameters (DELAY, REPEAT, DEPTH) are turned all the way up for the effects to be maximized. While playing the guitar I fiddle with the DELAY parameter, which adjusts the delay time.

Most people circuit bent these devices, for exaggerating the feedback and for other noise effects. Well, I think that would be a pity, since it sounds great and distict without circuit bending!

Actually Audio Damage has made a simulation of the devices called RatShack. It cost 39.99 us dollars.  I paid exactly 27 us dollars (thats inclusive shipment cost), so here's a strange case where the simulation is actually more expensive than the vintage gear!

Here's a weekend experiment that I did a while ago. It's in the form of a question!

It's based on the sound of scraping a glass window scrape morphed into my voice. There are two version, one done in a normal DAW (the free cheap and excellent Reaper) and the other done in Kyma. Which one is which?
morph1
morph2
And more importantly which one sounds best?
Most importantly which one sounds right?

Note- I have NOT normalised the files, so you'll have to use your volume knob.

I really liked Rasmuses revox tape glitch, and the compositions that came from it. So I went ahead and copied him.... with a few modifications of course (truth be told, I linked Raz to the dust breeding blog, so I'm actually just copying Mr. Marc

I used 2 dictaphones, a Sansula kalimba and voice.

Since the dictaphones only have build-in speakers, I re-recorded the improvisation in the bathroom binaurally using a couple of DPA mics in my ears with the Zoom H4. Messing with the stereo perspective by flailing wildly with the dictaphones.
dictafone glitch binaural recorded
Lastly I tried to tame the rather loud rec-clicking noise... which I completely failed at, and instead decided to just smash the recording with Audio Damages Rough Rider

My dad gave me an old Revox A77 reel tape recorder as a birthday present. He found it at a local flea market somewhere at the countryside at Funen. He asked if he could buy it for 50 dkk (10 us dollars!). The lady said: "Well, why not". "I don't know what the heck it is!".

Revox A77

It worked fine - he had to customize a power cable, though - the plug is an old format. It is only a two track recorder, but hey: "Less is more". Here is my first test on the Revox. I tried to be pure analog. Therefore I used my Danelectro guitar and the Vox amp.

Vox and Danelectro

Here's the result:

Revox test song

I also made a little tape glitch tune with the rec-pause-rec tip from the dust breeding blog:

Revox_glitch

Just recieved a couple of moogerfoogers from the US. Its the beginning of the end for me. Modular gear wuhu!!!
(can't actually try them out yet since the power units are 110v... Yes its torture!!! Though they are nice to just look at;)

EDIT: couldn't stop myself, found an old answering machine PSU.
The Ring Mod sounds like
ring modding round

And the Phaser is a little more synthalicious
phaserlaser
phasering
... and I haven't even plugged them into each other

Found a new fleamarket near my parents summerhouse. Spent more than an hour rifling around and found this nice tape deck... unearthed from a distant and brown past.
time for some lovely crunchy lofi goodness...

Just got the Native Instruments Komplete (which was on sale for owners of Kontakt). First thing to mess with - Absynth and it's lovely new granular reverb type efx.... Here's a bit of improvised, fretless danelectro going through it.
fretAbsynth