David Kronemyer

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).  We [...]

[Read more →]

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

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

“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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

The first string synthesizer I recall was the Mellotron as heard on early Moody Blues and King Crimson records.  This would have been around 1968.  Of course the Mellotron isn’t a synthesizer at all.  It ingeniously plays back tape loops like a gigantic cassette deck. 
There are two ways of mixing the Mellotron: one where it [...]

[Read more →]

Recently there has been considerable controversy regarding alleged similarities between the Roland SH-1000, the Roland SH-2000 and the Multivox MX-2000.  In an effort to investigate the situation further we recently set up all three at a studio where I do a lot of synth programming, electronic composition and re-mixing.  The resolution of this vexing problem is [...]

[Read more →]

I keep getting asked questions about the transformer-based processing arrays I designed in the mid-1990s, so here’s the information.  The line output of most synthesizer modules sounds pretty lame.  It might be characterized as “thin” or “weak.”  It lacks spatiality and dynamics.  In the case of IC or chip-based samplers and romplers (ROM-based player devices) [...]

[Read more →]