Archive for the ‘Current Artists’ Category

Igor Vitkevich joins Classitronic

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

A warm welcome to Igor Vitkevich from Latvia and now living in London who discovered Classitronic a few days ago and I’m very glad he did.

He has done some really great work which I have posted a couple of examples of here.

This is what says about himself on his website http://www.ivitkevich.net/

“I Was born on October, 16th 1962 in Balvi (Latvia).
In music took a great interest since the childhood. As the musician, has made the first steps at children’s musical school of the town of Balvi.
After five years of studying of physics and mathematics at Daugavpils State University has made sharp “turn” in a music and theatre direction.
As the actor worked at theatre (the Daugavpils State Theatre, theater group CHEMODAN), acted in film.
Wrote music to drama performances, acted with different groups (DZINTARS, OVERNIGHT SENSATION, RUSSKIJ KVAS). After acquaintance to computer technologies becomes their active supporter and starts the “classical” project.
Now lives in London, where actively co-operates with electronic groups and works over solo projects.”

I’m really looking forward to hearing more from Igor, i really like  CARMINA BURANA part II which you’ll find on his soundcloud area, its great fun track and sounds brilliant, a great Classitronic track I ever i heard one.

A Perfect Vacuum by IGOR VITKEVICH

THE BIG UNIVERSAL CLOCK by IGOR VITKEVICH
THE GREAT GATE by IGOR VITKEVICH

His soundcloud is http://soundcloud.com/igorvitkevich

and myspace is www.myspace.com/ivitkevich

Vision Fugitives Opus 22 Section 7 – Prokofiev – David Ryle

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

A week or so ago David posted his interpretation of Prokofiev’s vision fugitives opus 22 section 7 on the Classitronic soundcloud group, its only been today that I have finally had the chance to really listen to it, which i have done several times and it really grown on me.

This is what David says of the piece “Synthesizers used were an Arrick Modular, Oberheim Matrix6, Waldorf MicrowaveXT, Prophet8, Nord Lead2X & Yamaha TX816.
This track is a slowed down version of the seventh segment of the piano opus. The timbre are arbitrary and of course nothing like a piano. Purely straight out of my head.”

davidryle
Vision Fugitives Opus 22 Section 7 – Sergei Prokofiev by David Ryle

As David says it’s nothing like a piano and all the better for it, and excellent orchestration of the sounds gives it s whole new character (note to self, I wouldn’t make a good music critic as I find it difficult to describe in words how a piece like this sounds, I prefer to listen to the music and go on the journey it takes me in my mind rather than write about it).

Very well done and looking forward to hearing more in the future.

David also has a Youtube channel here http://www.youtube.com/user/davidryle where you can see him in action in his studio.

Pavane by Fauré for Modular Synthesizer

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

Yes, well we can see who’s been up burning the midnight oil again in front of a load of knobs and wires !.

Another amazing piece of programing from Alastair Symon and his modular synth, this time its Pavane by Gabriel Fauré and don’t forget folks there ain’t no computers driving this, just good old fashioned analogue sequencers, which is no mean feat.

Alastair summarises up the the set up like this  “It uses three Analogue Solutions Oberkorn 3 and a Synthesizers.com Q960. There are also several sequential switches in use as well as the Moon Modular M563 Trigger Sequencer driving the Analogue Solutions drum modules.”

But other than the shear technical brilliance, it sounds really beautiful and haunting and sounds suit the mood of the music very well, well done Alastair !.


Stravinsky – Rite of Spring – Introduction – Paul Shillito

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

After a bit of a long wait I have finally got around the starting some new works. I have started my interpretation of Stravinskys The Rite of Spring, the first part, the introduction is here and hopefully (time allowing) the rest should be coming along in the not too distantant future.

It’s certainly an interesting piece and allows for a lot of creative sound design and placement, I’m looking forward to working on it and as soon as i have something it will be posted here.

Eric Satie’s Gnossienne No 1 for Modular Synthesizer – Alastair Symon

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

It’s been a slow week with not a lot happening and I’m struggling over sounds for a new piece I’m working on and then comes along Alastair and just stuns us all this amazing piece by Satie and what is more amazing is that the synth is playing itself, no computer, no midi control just hardware step sequencers, gate and triggers.

God knows how long he spent setting up all the sequencers, gates and triggers but result is really really good and just goes to show what can be done with a lot of skill, patience and time. It also shows that modular systems are still amazing synths and not relics of a bygone era, you couldn’t do this on any other synth without the aid of a computer.

Its got a great feel to it, you’d would swear blind that a computer was behind it all but watch all the sequence lights and listen and you can see the parts playing along. Its very impressive and the sounds he used has already given me ideas for what I struggling with at the moment.

Anyway this is what Alastair says about the piece.

This is another of Satie’s beautiful melodies done using just analog sequencers. It uses the Synthesizers.com Q119 and Q960 and the Analogue Solutions Oberkorn 3 as well as the MoonModular M563 trigger sequencer. It also uses MoonModulars M564 and Club of the Knobs C962B sequential switches. The M564 is used to switch the gate busses and the COTK is used to play the three rows of the Oberkorn and then 16 steps of the Q119. The M563 is used to control the timing of the bass and chords. Trying to synchronise the three step sequencers, two sequential switches and the trigger sequencer with the rows shifting at different rates proved to be very challenging. The only effect used apart from the Modcan digital delay is some reverb.”

I think even Iaso Tomita would be impressed by this, it certainly blows the rest of us away. What next from Alastair?, I don’t know but I think that it will be pretty amazing.


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Sibelius Intermezzo Karelia Suite Op.11 – Paul Shillito

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Just completed my latest piece, this time it’s my take on Sibelius Intermezzo from Karelia Suite Op.11

The style is well, I would call it Classitronic for want of a better word, it certainly is influenced by Tomita style I like very much, and like many of these projects I do it developed a life of it’s own, so now it’s time to let it out in to the wild and see what happens :-) .

The gear used to make this included Malström, Thor, Minimoog V2, Jupiter 8V, Battery 3 and Omnisphere soft synths, and was arranged and mixed in Cubase 4 and took about 2 weeks of evening and weekend work to complete.

I hope you enjoy it.


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Bach’s Bourrée #1 – David Kristensen

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Just as the virtual ink on the virtual blog paper i’m writing on about Davids last post has dried, he sent me another little cracker of a track.
This time it’s Bach’s Bourrée #1 from Orchestral Suite no. 2. Short and sweet and sounding very nice indeed, being played on the Native Instruments Pro 53 soft synth.

This is what he says of it :

For this fast-paced piece from Bach’s second orchestral suite, i chose the Native Instruments Pro53 software synthesizer (emulation of the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5) as the logical continuation from the Moog Modular on the Gavotte (suite #4 in Bm).

Even though the Pro53 only has two oscillators, a single filter, I was able to coax some very nice sounds from it, naturally tuned in Werckmeister III-tuning for maximum authenticity.

The continuo (improvised chordal and ornamental line, typically played with a harpsichord) is one of my finest yet, I believe. And it was fully improvised in one go to guarantee that taste of synthetic authenticity you just don’t find these days ;)

Nice work David,  keep it up !.


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David Kristensen joins Classitronic

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

We would like to weclcome our latest artist to our current list, David Kristensen from Denmark.

David Kristensen

David has produced several great renditions such as the one below of  W. A. Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik which was done completly on a Novation XioSynth in a W. Carlos style, which just go’s to show you don’t have to have a huge amount of equipement to product great sounding work.

David has since expanded his synth range and produced more pieces, his latest being J. S. Bach – Gavotte from Orchestral Suite no. 4 in D.

You can see more of Davids work on his Youtube account here http://www.youtube.com/user/syntesen, he has been busy recently and has several new pieces available there.

You can read more about him on his bio page here http://www.classitronic.net/david-kristensen/

Keep up the good work David.

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Paul Glover joins Classitronic

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Please welcome on board to Classitronic.net, Paul Glover.

Paul Glover

Paul has built his Moog 3C replica over the past 15 years and is now turning his talents to recreating pieces from the baroque period as demonstrated by his Sinfonia to Cantata 35 ‘Geist und Seelle wird verwirret’ by J S Bach.

Another excellent piece by Paul, well done.

Paul says that will be putting out more works on to Youtube until he has a CD’s worth of material, just don’t stop there that’s what I say !.

You can see more of Paul’s work on his Youtube channel here http://www.youtube.com/user/cloudhop and read more about him on his bio page here http://www.classitronic.net/blog/2009/07/29/paul-glover-joins-classitronic/

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Alastair Symon joins Classitronic

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

We would like to welcome Alastair Symon to the current artist list here at Classitronic.net.

Alastair has been doing something really rather unusual and also very difficult, instead of taking the easy route (like me)and using a computer sequencer to play music though his modular system, he uses hardware step sequencers which interact with each other to build up and play classical pieces,  so in essence the synthesizer is playing it’s self !, I seen this with basic sequences but not the same level that Alastair has taken it to.

This is no mean feat to achieve and takes a lot of time and patience to setup and get right, below is a rendition Erik Satie – Gymnopedie No 1.

He says that he will be able to make more complex works with the addition of a new Oberkorn 3 sequencer from Analogue Solutions.

This is both a novel and interesting method and to my knowledge that no one else uses and we look forward to hearing from you Alastair, Well done !

You can see more of Alastair’s work on his youtube channel here http://www.youtube.com/user/justwaving and his bio page here

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