# NAMGLA, Day Two (Updated)... - Site: Analog Industries - Author: Chris Randall - Date: 2011-01-16 - URL: https://analogindustries.com/2011/01/namgla-day-two-updated/ I just got back from the [Trash\_Audio](http://trashaudio.com/) BBQ. You may or may not have heard a rumor that I tried to start a fight between Alessandro Cortini and BT, the two friendliest people in the music industry. This is patently untrue. Alessandro started it. I had nothing to do with anything. These are not the droids you're looking for. NAMGLA, well, what to say? Today was stupider than yesterday because of the simple fact that all the has-been musicians that have to spend the week working a "day job" have Saturday off, and don't realize that hanging around other musicians isn't really a good enough reason to pull out the full Genre-Related Fashion Statement. We were noting, however, that nowhere else on earth could you take a random picture and have every fashion fad of the last 45 years equally represented in its full splendor, from Rockabilly to Hippie to Punk to Hairspray Ass Metal to Industrial to Grunge to Hipster (and some outliers like "Candy Raver Goth" and Ukelele Ray.) This has to be worth something. Today's highlights: [![NAMGLA, Day Two (Updated)...](https://analogindustries.com/images/ext/farm6.static.flickr.com/5243/5359688656_11c952685d.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisrandall/5359688656/) **1\. Black Waldorf Blofeld.** It's a Blofeld. It's black. What the fuck else you need to know? [![NAMGLA, Day Two (Updated)...](https://analogindustries.com/images/ext/farm6.static.flickr.com/5128/5359682680_80b4d5ca0d.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisrandall/5359682680/) **2\. Perzina Upright Grand.** This instrument is very obviously the absolute pinacle of both woodworking craftsmanship and mechanical engineering. I played several pianos while I was there, and this was, by far, the nicest. It sounds as nice as it looks. Above my pay grade, unfortunately. It also comes in Grand. **3\. The Z-DSP Euro-Rack Module from TipTop.** I know, I know. These things are old news. But seriously, I didn't really understand what it could do until I got a hands-on demonstration from Gur. The cool thing isn't that you can use some random DSP program that you downloaded from the Spin Audio site. The cool thing is that you can _SERIOUSLY_ fuck with it afterwards, via CV. I couldn't believe some of the weird-ass yet useful sounds he was getting from $RANDOM\_FILTER\_PROGRAM. Extremely cool module, and the programmer makes all the difference. **4\. The Vintage Vibe Electric Piano.** Interestingly, NAMM put these guys right next door to the new Rhodes people. This made things a little uncomfortable albeit convenient for someone that wanted to compare and contrast their new EP against the Rhodes. But that said, I played both their new one and the new Rhodes for quite a while, and the Vintage Vibe piano dusts the new Rhodes. It sounds better (Rhodes smooth on pianissimo, barking in to Wurli territory on forte), is lighter, has a much nicer action, and looks cooler. All other things being equal, my opinion is that it is the better instrument. Wish I had thought to get a picture, because it's a really sharp looking instrument. Anyhow, I was on my feet talking for over 20 hours yesterday, and frankly I'm too old for that shit. I'll post further thoughts on the Tempest later today or tomorrow. It was really cool to meet so many active AI members at the Trash\_Audio BBQ. (Yet my Twitter stream is strangely silent this morning, which leads me to believe that things got a bit out of hand after I left last night.) I'm already looking forward to next year. ## Comments (17) **canuckistani** (2011-01-16): Incredibly disappointed with this post: 1. no pictures to illustrate the fashion genre overload. 2. no details or impression of the Tempest, *as promised* yesterday. 3. I don't even know you, and I totally think you tried to start that fight. **quantize** (2011-01-16): Yeh would love to hear some more info and thoughts on the Tempest...there are no audio demos around apart from that one youtube vid with Smith and Linn **Chris Randall** (2011-01-16): Sorry. It was 2 in the morning, I had just gotten back from a party after being up since 5AM talking. Wasn't feeling very Tempest-y. I'll get there. -CR **canuckistani** (2011-01-16): Sorry. It was 2 in the morning and I was more than a little drunk, having just lost 2 rounds of board games to the same jerk, er, friend. Had spent all day looking at badly shot youtube videos of Roger or Dave demoing cheesy, CHEESY music on the Tempest, which did not inspire. Aside: You should offer to write them some Micronaut-y demo material. You know, for the low low cost of a free unit. **mitchell** (2011-01-16): Dude, you really are off- missing such an obvious lame pun... you weren't feeling "Tempestuous". I expect more (less?). **shamann** (2011-01-16): I'm interested in finding out more about the Vintage Vibe instrument. They have a bunch of awful youtube videos up, but no details yet on their website. **beauty pill** (2011-01-16): I just grasped the Tempest's virtues. The first video I saw put me off... the tone of the particular sounds coming out of it did not inspire me. Generally speaking, I don't like sci-fi laser-gun sounds. But I saw another video of it with darker, thicker, more appealing sounds and I thought "Oh, shit." There goes $2k! Fuck. But I've been saving up for this thing http://www.vintageking.com/Lisson-Grove-R-124 , so I don't think I'll be able to afford it for a while. I truly wish I did not have expensive tastes sometimes. Luckily people pay me to do stuff. - c **seancostello** (2011-01-16): Alright. How much cash would it take to put together a basic modular system that can run the TipTop Audio Z-DSP? I haven't kept up with modular systems in a long time - I have a few boxes full of CEM and SSM chips, as well as various circuit boards from my Synth-DIY days, but I put all that aside when I went digital. But having a modular that could run my own DSP code is appealing... **parma** (2011-01-16): @shamann: http://www.vintagevibeepc.com/ **boobs** (2011-01-16): @seancostello - that all depends on which modules you buy. for example cwejman is much more expensive than doepfer. these days there are soooo many choices you can make for oscillator/filter/envelope/lfo/vca... i recommend going to muffwiggler and just reading up in the eurorack sub forum. you can do so much with a small system these days. so many multifunction modules out there. http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/index.php edit: also there is a DIY section there **Pym** (2011-01-20): Stupid weird comment system... I would be that guy who's developing the OS boobs, so feel free to ask more questions and I'll keep posting answers on whatever forums. Eventually I'll consolidate and put a master FAQ up on my blog **bleen** (2011-01-20): me, too! **bleen** (2011-01-20): ^^^^^ meant to be w/teh boobs.... **boobs** (2011-01-20): hey pym.. hope you don't mind me snagging your post from the elektron users forum. thought it'd be pretty relevant here... and i did include a link :) **Duke Fame** (2011-01-20): Greetings Pym, Can you please clarify on the whole "no user samples until ver 2.0" issue? That's not exactly what I'd call a trivial feature. I'm assuming 1.0 will be able to take in single-cycle waveforms like the Evolver, BUT...being able to upload your own drum samples is kinda a big deal. Not to mention the fact that it's killing me that Herr Linn is not revealing the differences between his own version and the Tempest. A conspiracy to make us spend $4k? Like George F'n Lucas and his 8 different release versions of Star Wars on optical plastic... **Computer Controlled** (2011-01-21): I would have paid big money to see a fight between BT and Cortini. BT would lose and whine that it was someone else's fault. **Pym** (2011-01-23): @Duke Fame Re: User Samples in 2.0 This is an analog drum machine. If there were no samples whatsoever, or if I didn't mention that it might be coming, it would be a minor feature since you wouldn't even know it was possible. The beef of the machine is in the synthesis engine, not the samples. It is a fully analog pathway and that's where we put the money, the design, and our time. I'm taking a big risk as a developer for revealing this as a milestone I want to hit. I'm doing it because I hold myself to an incredibly high bar and I've hit that bar every time I've set to it. In my mind, and I'm sure Mr. Randall can relate, the only way to really become one of the big trendsetters in the industry is to do just that. The reason I'm not trying to get it into the 1.0 OS is because the backend is extremely complicated. We're using 9 CPUs in the Tempest. There is a custom and very simple filesystem and compression scheme. The chip we're using for digital playback has severe limitations and we still don't even have access to the code it uses. There are a lot of moving parts. Developing a product of this complexity has a lot of compromise. In every case we focus on the core of the machine, the analog voice and the digital voices we're mixing in. If it sounds good then we've achieved our goal. If it doesn't, we've failed. There is still a TON of stuff to do to get that as stable and until that stuff is rock solid we're not releasing it. This is a HARDWARE project. We do not have the luxury of software developers with many types of bugs. If there is something lingering that crashes the hardware, we're screwed. If there's a lingering hardware deficiency that we overlooked it could break the company. The user controllable samples is not a trivial thing to code. There are some really bad implementations of this on all sorts of products, and I'd really rather not rush it out just to get a half assed feature in the Tempest. Instead I'm focusing on nailing the sequencer, which is the soul of this machine, and the UI. When I do code in the user samples I'll do it right. If all goes the way I'm planning you'll be able to use the USB connection to load samples into the machine just like a normal file system you'd see on a USB drive. Have a little faith!