David Kronemyer

This is a brief pictorial history of Hiwatt.  Dave Reeves started making amplifiers in the early 1960s.  In addition to trading as Hiwatt, Reeves also did work on a subcontracted basis for other companies such as Sound City and Solasound (which owned the brand name “Coloursound,” its most famous pedal being the “Tonebender”).  Reeves formed [...]

We have a Voyager and wanted to use it as a master controller for a dozen or so downstream MIDI modules (MIDI to each of them distributed from the Voyager through a MIDI splitter/patch bay). We noted, however, that MIDI out on the Voyager affected most of the downstream MIDI functions, in particular, program change [...]

There’s a semi-not-obvious issue with the now-popular Eurorack format, which is that while the modules may be economically-priced, the racks are expensive. And while they are amazing, many of the newer modules no longer are so economically priced. Doepfer’s dealer in the U.S. is Analogue Haven/Shawn Cleary. Shawn sells Doepfer Euroracks for $530 + shipping [...]

It’s astonishing how many synth studios ignore the requisites of proper AC power.  Power behind the racks typically is an afterthought.  It ends up as a confused jumble of cables.  This not only is conceptually offensive, but also results in marked degradation of audio sound quality. Here is the solution we have implemented (see picture). [...]

The Publison Infernal Machine is a wonderful effects device manufactured by the eponymous French company in the 1980s.  It also has a great name!  There seems to be an issue on-line about the lack of availability of the manual.  Here’s a .pdf copy. Publison Infernal Machine – Manual Publison Infernal Machine

These ElectroHarmonix Mini-Synthesizers were pretty beat on arrival so I spent a pleasurable afternoon resoldering connections and cleaning up so they would work.  Particularly annoying is their cardboard enclosure.  My tendency in these matters is to over-improve so I briefly contemplated the fabrication of a new metal casing or perhaps even one of nicely polished [...]

“Everybody’s Been Burned” is a great David Crosby song recorded by one of my all-time favorite bands The Byrds. No doubt but that the early proto-psychedelic Byrds are the best and “Burned” illustrates some of the reasons why – crystal-clear guitars, jazzy chord changes and a wistful melancholic summer-hazy feel. Unfortunately the song as recorded [...]

One of my favorite bands right before the psychedelic era was Paul Revere and the Raiders. One of their best songs was the Barry Mann – Cynthia Weil composition “Hungry”. There actually are a couple of different versions of this. The original is energetic but sounds terrible. A remixed version appears on the band’s “Greatest [...]

Over the years the studio where I produce many records has accumulated a variety of MIDI sound modules (“ROMplers,” so called because their sounds typically are stored on a single ROM chip) and samplers.  The MIDI sound modules include older ones made by Roland, E-Mu, Yamaha and Alesis, together with others.  The newer ones are [...]

The studio where I do a lot of work has a variety of synths and synth modules.  As a matter of performance ethic we decided we wanted to keep all of them on, all of the time, and accessible via a master stereo buss.  Over a period of time we attempted to devise a variety [...]