SH101

Background

There’s nothing quite like the subtle detuned modulation that you get with the 101.. I fell in love with this machine after growing up listening to Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin in the late 90’s early 00’s and it’s been a foundational component to my production ever since. The monophonic construction means every sound that comes out is solid and lends itself well to most mixes. Most Arthr tracks have been influenced by it in someway as it never fails to bring nostalgia to proceedings.

The Animation

As it’s been such an important part of my musical passage, ’A Journey Through Synths’ had to include the SH101. As with all the animations in this series, the sounds are recorded/sampled from the original unit that’s visually featured. The style of the main lead line you hear appears in most of my productions with the cutoff frequency and square wave mix parameters being modified.

To maintain an accurate sync between the audio with what’s happening visually, I built a little slide controller in 3D that would control the corresponding controls on the 3D SH101. To sync these with accuracy I matched the FX envelopes in Ableton to the timeline in 3D. Arthr also plays out the arrangement of notes on the keyboard, so each key was animated in line with the audio timeline. Next to the parameter controls, I thought it might also be fun to have a live recording device setup with a visual waveform to capture Arthr’s live performance as it happens.

// Available as a single edition 1/1 NFT: Arthr (@arthr) | Foundation

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