I just bought a Nord Lead 2 for quite a good price. Apparently Clavia made the first virtual analogue synthesizer, the Nord Lead, somewhere in the mid-nineties. I’ve been interested in analogue synthesizers for quite a while, mostly to learn about sounds and how to create and modify them. This tutorial is a good start and the Nord Lead has this wonderful interface where there is a know for every function. Unlike my microKORG, which only had 4 (functional) knobs. Much much better.
Today I listened to the Venetian Snares album and wondered where the track Öngyilkos Vasárnap was sampled from. It seemed that it was a Billie Holiday song, but upon searching further, it seemed that the real original song was a Hungarian song called Szomorú vasárnap, that translates in “Gloomy Sunday” written by László Jávor. Apparently it has been banned in Hungary because of the believe (urban legend) that anybody who listens to it will (eventually) commit suicide - including the original writer and his wife. Nevertheless, it hasn’t stopped over 80 artists to cover this song, including Heather Nova, Sarah McLachlan, Sarah Vaughan and Bjork - making this some sort of folk/jazz/whatever standard. I’m still going through Youtube for interesting covers.
The video above shows the original one. Read the Wikipedia entry for more information.
“Midnight Surprise” by Lightspeed Champion. The video is really strange and 10 minutes sounds really long, but the song is structured really well that it’s never boring. There’s an interesting interview here.
