I Think I’m In Love With Synthesizers.

I Think I’m In Love With Synthesizers.

July 18, 2023

I seem to be surrounded by them lately and notice them everywhere I look, 80s music videos, walking around town, etc. Especially the vintage synths from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Of course I love my Commodore Amiga computers, that goes without saying. Music trackers forever for me, but alongside Amiga, Synths have taken my heart officially. I don’t understand why the freak I didn’t dip my toes deeper into the world of synthesizers when they’ve literally been around me my entire life?!

I’m already excited about my next album. Speaking of which, I wish to say a big thank you to you all! Many of you from around the world even, have already been enjoying Paradox and its been so touching to see the love for it.

Get Paradox Here

I didn’t expect people to record it onto cassettes and Minidiscs, printing album artwork for it and asking for physical releases. Which to be honest I’m trying to look around to see where’s the best place to sort that out. I think it would be fun at some point to do a limited run of cassettes and CDs.

There’s even been people around the world recording my album onto cassettes!

“I really enjoyed making it and listened to the album while cutting and pasting.I attached photos of it with the walkman I saved up for and lusted after in summer of 1994. The album reminds me of what I would have probably listened to on the flight to Greece that summer and this is exactly how I would have listened to it!” Paul Δ

And not just Paradox, this guy’s also recorded my other albums onto cassette too.

recorded cassettes of my music in someone's collection

It’s amazing to see cassettes of my music in other people’s tape collections, this just warmed my heart right up 🙂

And elsewhere a Minidisc Of Paradox was recorded 😀

Getting back to Synths for a moment, I’ve been messing around with a few lately and be sure that I have videos upcoming too of a couple.

The thing is, I did sample from synthesizers back in the day but I never thought to mess around with MIDI like I’m doing now. I guess it must have felt a little intimidating for my teenage self to delve deeper into it…Why?!?

Where as now my curiosity causes me to dive into it to the point where I’m swimming in synthesizers. Clearly I had it low key strong attraction to them because I got my Yamaha Reface DX in 2017 and immediately picked up ADSR and Synthesis so quickly. It goes to show when you have that passion for something, it just flows out, sometimes too quick for you.

There’s something else that arrived today, a gift from a regular here, Paul Jackson, who sent me this cute Amiga Sound Enhancer unit. I’m excited about trying this and seeing how it sounds, if I do like the enhancement effects of it, then who knows, it may be used on my Amiga MOD creations on my future album.

I wish to finish off by saying a big thank you once again, to ALL of you for showing your love and appreciation for my album ‘Paradox’. I really wasn’t expecting comments like these nor people recording my music. I’m really touched! 🙂

If you haven’t checked out Paradox yet, then please check it out here:

Paradox On Bandcamp

Also, if you’ve not yet watched my recent video on the creation and recording of ‘Paradox’ you can find that here:

Edit: Bob from RetroRGB has also posted a blog entry about Paradox, check it out here:

Paradox on Retro RGB

Amiga, Audio, Music, Retro, Synthesizers, Vintage

8 responses to “I Think I’m In Love With Synthesizers.”

Jason Marrison
July 18, 2023
Hiya Maddi ☺️….Wow, Paradox has gone down a storm! and l am so pleased that people like myself have transferred this album and others in your discography onto other mediums to enjoy listening to it. Fantastic!
When l said the bar for this new album was in the upper atmosphere, l knew straight away that the metaphorical space suit was going on and the next album ideas and concepts are in the works already.
Massive congratulations Maddi and l can’t wait to see and more importantly hear where your continued love and passion for music and it’s creation will take us all next ☺️👌🏼
Reply
1. Maddi
  July 18, 2023
  Hey Jason! 🙂 I’m surprised myself at all this haha. I know how I go about things is a bit of an acquired taste and not for most, so I wasn’t expecting all this, especially people like yourself recording my music onto tapes 😀
  I’m kinda excited to start my new album now, i’m already faffing around with sounds and synths lol
  Thanks so much for your support as always Jason, I really appreciate it! 🙂
  Reply
Paul Δ.
July 18, 2023
Aww this made me smile. Thanks for including me in your post! It’s also really cool to see it recorded on MD. Much love from NYC and see you in your next video! 🙂
Reply
1. Maddi
  July 18, 2023
  The pleasure is mine Paul, thanks so much for sharing your love for my music and all what I do! 🙂
  Reply
Paul Jackson
July 18, 2023
I’m delighted that I was able to add yet another dial to MsMadLemon mission control. 😁
That lovely coffee table is certainly earning it’s keep! Each time we see it your creative horizons have expanded even further. I wonder how long one coffee table will be able to contain all this creativity?
Each time I’ve listened to the Paradox album I notice something new and when you said before that “The Amiga version of Paradox is a little statement being made by the Amiga…” well, IMHO, and if you were to ask me, it’s a chuffing great big statement! Love it!
And that birdsong in Sama, fabulous and the tremolo(?) effect at 3:55, loving that too!
And Scanlines, just awesome.
Outstanding album Maddi. Congratulations!
Reply
1. Maddi
  July 19, 2023
  Lol mission control. You certainly have done and quite a cool one 😀
  Funny thing is I was thinking the same about the coffee table just the other day. We saw it by chance and got it on impulse. It’s certainly been earning it’s keep as you say, I really think it was meant to be!
  Thanks Paul! I’m glad you’ve been noticing the small details in my music, I’ve always been one to notice the little details in the background of tracks and appreciate the parts which most others seem to overlook (or overlisten? :-p). When I started doing the Amiga version of Paradox, I was expecting the music having huge limitations but, I’m sort of surprised how it sounded in the end!
  Yes you’re right, tremolo effect in Sama 🙂 I’m not good with terminology, I just tinker lol
  Do you use tapes or any physical media at all?
  Thank you Paul, I really appreciate! 🙂
  Reply
  1. Paul Jackson
    July 19, 2023
    To be honest, and shhhh don’t tell anyone, I’m not good with musical terminology either! I had to Google tremolo before I asked haha.
    I know exactly what you mean about just tinkering. In my box of Amiga mod disks, from back in the day, I have a printout of all the tracker effect commands. I would just work my way down the list trying each one and if I liked the effect it stayed in the track.
    Nice to see so many people are still enjoying their physical media. If you do a limited run of physical copies, how cool would that be! I still play the occasional CD and have a twin cassette deck so I’ll be in the queue to purchase one of those for sure.
    Reply
    1. Maddi
      July 19, 2023
      That’s interesting, i’ve never thought about trying tracker effect commands from a printout and going through.
      With me (really showing my nerdy side here) I actually used to enjoy sitting and watching the tracker in great detail while listening to mods (I still do enjoy it *ahem*). But i’d literally spend hours listening to mods and watching the tracker screen on Soundtracker Pro 2. I think it stems from watching VU meters. Anyway, I always noticed the effect commands that way and used to try them on mine.
      Nice! I was asking because you being into mods and interested in all this, I just had a feeling you would be. i’m really gonna have to do the physical release aren’t I 🙂
      Reply