01- The Arturia MicroFreak-v5- The RCA Synthesizer on a MicroFreak?

Here is part one of a multi-part demonstration of a sound set of samples of the iconic RCA Synthesizer for the Arturia MicroFreak!
The instruments in the theme music (including some drums) were created entirely with samples of the RCA played on the Arturia MicroFreak, and multitracked. Some drums were assembled out of GarageBand loops.
This video was funded by the Patreon supporters of Automatic Gainsay. Support the creation of this video and all of the Automatic Gainsay videos that have helped you by becoming an Automatic Gainsay supporter on Patreon!
/ automaticgainsay
If you are interested in learning about the history of synthesizers and/or how to become a synthesist being taught by a synthesist and synthesizer historian, check out the OTHER Automatic Gainsay Patreon:
/ automaticgainsaythewav...

[@mediaphile]

A little tip: if you triple-click the preset knob, it will start you at an init patch, rather than having to scroll past your last preset.

[@VELVET462]

thanks!

[@doctorauxiliary]

noice one!!
thanks!!

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

THIS is why i always come back here, Mark. For your quality content and praxis oriented hands on guides. Always love your creative approaches without all this annoying sensationalism like the big majority of "Synthfluencers" on youtube. And yeah i too always wondered how big the memory capacity of the Microfreak actually is? Might be HUGE when they can stuff even more functions into the firmware :O And i too still kept the protective Film on my Microfreak Display as well :P i see no reason why to peel it off when you can see everything just fine on the OLED and it protects it fine against scratches. And yeah it still itches in my fingers to load mine with some of my favorite Fairlight CMI and Emulator II samples. I only heard of the RCA Synthesizer back in 2007 or 2008 when i heard an MP3 rip of the RCA Synth Demo Vinyls. Was super fascinating and i always wondered why nothing really came out of it. Sad they had abandoned it at one point.

[@stephenleejp]

He has finally collected all the RINGS!!!

[@davidgershwin4110]

Yay, one of my favorite “synthfluencers” of all time 😂. You’ve taught me so much over the years with your videos, thanks for being so generous with your time and OG knowledge.

[@bitegoatie]

Thanks for coming back to this little beauty. Even though I am at least as old as you are (dead in dog years), I have never had much nostalgia about old sounds from electronics. Even when played more guitar, a specialty that seems to have some requirement that we love antique equipment, all I ever cared about was whether a thing sounds good. I never understood how people could convince themselves things were great because they were old, from electric guitars with terrible intonation because of bad bridge designs that were supposed to have "mojo" to a Moog 15 that needed a recapping in the worst way that an expert told me was "magical", while guys in the room nodded their heads. People can be strange.
Still, when a thing sounds good, like a Trautonium I heard live one time, or modulars from the aforementioned Moog, Buchla, ARP, and Serge (or new ones from many people) to various sounds from this little Arturia, when I get that hair-raising brush with the sublime, it's no mystery, young, old, or in between. No salesmanship is necessary. This humble little sample is cool less because it comes from a synth as big as a lab than because it sounds good and can be put to musical use right now, with just a bit of manipulation. That it's old in origin is interesting, but if it sounded like nails on a blackboard, no one would care. Or maybe some of us would, with the right sales rap. Again, strange that it can happen that way.
Thanks for sharing. It is always fun to hear what you have cooking.

[@SpacePatrollerLaser]

There were several instruments that could be descirbed as synthesizers in the 1950's. In '59, i learned sound design on my aunt's Hammond chorid organ, it was a 2-channel keyboard treble section consisting of 8' flute and string polyphonic voices and a monophonic section that could generate sawtooth at any or all of 3 octiaves. It had an attack and release ("sustain" in organ parlance) and five fixed filters called "voices"; mellow, second, thirrd, fourth and bright, available in any combination from one (silent) to all. There was a tab called "woodwind" that affected the waveform, if only one of the sawtooth tabs, named for its frequency range was in, a square wave was generated, if two or all of them were in, the wave sounded like a pulse of some kind, there was vibrato and that was about it for that section, but it was amazingly versatile. I believe it was used in 1960's NATIONAL CITY recoriding and by Johnny and the Hurricanes for RED RIVER ROCK, REVILLE ROCK and BEATNIK FLY. While I did start using it to see what kinds of sound I could make, I did not start using it for a musical instrument until 1966. If the Moog Liberation and MG-1 had included a band-passed saw wave in the poly section, one could have done a reasonable imitation of this instruemtn
There was also the clavioline and the Hammond monophonic mini-keyboard and the Hammond Extra-voice, of which the Chord Organ was a derivative. PLus, you could do a fair amount of synthesis with the drawbars

[@josephs2791]

Love my microfreaks! Always nice to see you

[@spaceman103]

1:20 that’s a long long time ago. Did they have , apart from the occasional lighting, electricity? 😊

[@Vanilla_Sun]

dang, i was just recording tape loops with my RCA tape machine and the microfreak today! what a small world

[@KurtLorenz]

❤❤❤

[@jhowellkc]

Which video discusses the samples? I'd love to get my hands on some!

[@automaticgainsay]

I have to figure out how distribute them!

[@macaronafterparty]

@@automaticgainsayI am also very interested in utilizing these samples!

[@adamjacksonmedia]

​@@automaticgainsayI would love to get some samples myself.