Various test recordings of a number of custom and low volume studio equipment designs over the years by D.A.Wilson (Hideaway Studio) including a number of tube hybrid rackmount audio processors originally conceived and built for Jean-Michel Jarre...

Studio Equipment by Hideaway Studio in Action...

Detrius & Murmuration Club

release on 28 November 2024 : www.wabi-sabi-tapes.bandcamp.com
@savvasmetaxas

Greek composer Savvas Metaxas is based in Thessaloniki, Greece. His music revolves around field recordings, experimentation and minimalism.

Savvas Metaxas - Folk Tales & the Rain (Side B extract)

Water ripples all around, and echoing sounds stretch out into a shady sub aquatic habitat. Its dark corners slowly burst into view as cresting noises reveal fresh caverns teeming with liquid life. This is Sueños Acuáticos, the latest sonic exploration from Lamina, a musical project by French artist, Clarice Calvo-Pinsolle. Built from years of carefully gathered field recordings, the album constructs immersive, detailed soundscapes where watery environments, caves, and forests intertwine with digital manipulations.

Rooted in the myth of the ‘Lamina’, a creature from Basque folklore, the project blends this oral tradition with technology to build a geological myth. The Lamina’s world—a nocturnal ecosystem of water and stone—serves as the foundation for the album’s sound design. Lamina reshapes these natural recordings into something new: stretching, pitching, and layering them to build intricate sound environments that feel simultaneously organic and synthetic. “I transform these sounds much like I would sculpt in ceramics,” explains Calvo-Pinsolle, “by adding, removing material, and imagining landscapes.

Drawing from hydrofeminist and posthuman ideas, particularly those in Astrida Neimanis’ Bodies of Water, the album treats sound like water—shifting, flowing, connecting, and buoying life. Tracks flow into one another without clear boundaries, much like the natural currents they represent. The result is a continuous listening experience, inviting deep focus on texture above melody.

Lamina is exploring the potential of the field recording as a compositional tool. Natural sounds, like trickling water or wind through trees, are processed out of recognition—or cliché. A sense of weightless immersion takes hold as Lamins’a music unfolds, and listeners float freely and choose their own adventure in the Lamina’s home. Less a set of songs than its own evolving environment, Sueños Acuáticos (‘Aquatic Dreams’ in English) is a meticulously constructed work in which we can freely float.

All tracks composed, recorded and mixed by Clarice Calvo-Pinsolle in Brussels in 2024
With the voice of Hochiwah on Aqualines

www.claricecalvopinsolle.com
lalamina.bandcamp.com
www.instagram.com/laminalalamina/

Mastered by Adam Badí Donoval
abdonoval.com

Artwork and design by Fen ToucheMoulin
www.instagram.com/touche_moulin/

Words by Tristan Bath
Photography by Michaela Cagáňová

Released by mappa as MAP054 in 2024
licence
mappa.bandcamp.com  
credits
released November 4, 2024

Lamina - Éclipse

NEWS UPDATE: The second batch of 25 pre-production units are nearing completion and am now taking pre-orders for delivery in June. A new Patch Editor/Librarian App & VST/AU plugin with full automation has also been developed complete with a new library of over 250 sound patches for Win/Mac/Linux and will be free to all Elfin-04 and 01 owners.

Introducing Elfin-04, Hideaway Studio's Compact New 4-Voice Polysynth Expander...
 
I have been working round the clock for weeks now on my dinky little 8-bit 4-Voice (4 x [2osc+1sub+LFO]) VA Poly Expander with 1960's style transformer-mixed output voicing and finally No's.000 thru 010 are born to the world and receiving very positive feedback from their new owners....... this 4-voice polysynth measuring just 16x12x3cm has full real-time control over her 32 parameters via simple midi ccs and 16 built-in patches. 

Based on an expanded form of a customized software synth-core design by ISGK in Japan, I think the Elfin-04's unique voice ouput/mixing transformers do add something for sure - they are driven full-swing with 60KHz PWM resulting in a lot of additional harmonics/mirror frequencies and some saturation that all gets trapped within the transformers which adds a richness/darkness to the sound (no-doubt inspired in part by my beloved DK Synergy). In the Elfin-04, the 4 voices are passively mixed but, unusually, by the topology of the output-transformers themselves which is a trick that used to be found in some more exotic 1960s valve test equipment where multiple signal outputs were mixed on isolated outputs (eg. my huge old Panoramic TTG-2 tube Dual Sinewave Generator). Also, each voice CPU is independently clocked so everything is genuinely free-wheeling across the voices so even the noise phases slowly when played on multiple notes and unison which is pretty cool.

Any questions, please PM me here on S/C or to EF86 on GearSpace.

All Sound Design & Recordings Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025.

Hideaway's New Elfin-04 Polysynth: Detuned Unison Mode Montage 01

NEWS UPDATE: The second batch of 25 pre-production units are nearing completion and am now taking pre-orders for delivery in June. A new Patch Editor/Librarian App & VST/AU plugin with full automation has also been developed complete with a new library of over 250 sound patches for Win/Mac/Linux and will be free to all Elfin-04 and 01 owners.

Any questions, please PM me here on S/C or to EF86 on GearSpace.

Introducing Elfin-04, Hideaway Studio's Compact New 4-Voice Polysynth...
 
I have been working round the clock for weeks now on my dinky little 8-bit 4-Voice (4 x [2osc+1sub+LFO]) VA Poly Expander with 1960's style transformer-mixed output voicing and finally No's.000 thru 010 are born to the world and receiving very positive feedback from their new owners...... this 4-voice polysynth measuring just 16x12x3cm has full real-time control over her 32 parameters via simple midi ccs and 16 built-in patches. 

Based on an expanded form of a customized software synth-core design by ISGK in Japan, I think the Elfin-04's unique voice ouput/mixing transformers do add something for sure - they are driven full-swing with 60KHz PWM resulting in a lot of additional harmonics/mirror frequencies and some saturation that all gets trapped within the transformers which adds a richness/darkness to the sound (no-doubt inspired in part by my beloved DK Synergy). In the Elfin-04, the 4 voices are passively mixed but, unusually, by the topology of the output-transformers themselves which is a trick that used to be found in some more exotic 1960s valve test equipment where multiple signal outputs were mixed on isolated outputs (eg. my huge old Panoramic TTG-2 tube Dual Sinewave Generator). Also, each voice CPU is independently clocked so everything is genuinely free-wheeling across the voices so even the noise phases slowly when played on multiple notes and unison which is pretty cool.

All Sound Design & Recordings Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025.

Hideaway's New Elfin-04 Polysynth: Polyphonic Patch Montage 01

What gathers ((in the heart))

Yeroyefev:::
https://soundcloud.com/yerofeyev

Photo By Ivons

Yerofeyev - Smares (Senglar Puentes Rmx)

Yerofeyev::: 
https://soundcloud.com/yerofeyev

Photo By Ivons

Senglar & Yerofeyev - Tempest Too

Elfin-08 No. 000 (basically two stock Hideaway Elfin-04 Poly Expanders bolted together running modified firmware with a stereo output) fires up for the first time on all 10 of its 8-bit processors and 8 output transformers!....

The allocation of the 8 voices has been distributed between the left and right audio outputs with even voices on one channel and odd voices on the other giving a rather pleasing stereo effect. The Detuned Unison Mode on the 8-voice is just massive!

All of the sounds in the test recording are factory Elfin-04 patches loaded up from the new Elfin Controller VST/AU/Standalone (win/mac/linux) patch editor which currently has around 260 patches built in.
 
NB: I am building these 8-Voice proof of concept variants in very limited numbers for those who can't wait for the official Elfin-08 otherwise the current Elfin-04 offers the very same sound but with less polyphony.

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025

Hideaway Elfin-08: 8-Voice Functional Prototype Awakens...

Original Track by::::
https://soundcloud.com/yerofeyev/yeko_2-feat-ka
Photo by Ivons

Yerofeyev - YEKO_2 (feat K.A.) (Senglar Score RMX)

Bégayer, La Munglesa

Prométhée

Co-production https://soundcloud.com/dollarstore-keyboard

This is Pestilence, this part of the 5times1 explores what happens when pride becomes too strong, when ego starts to infect every part of you like a slow, creeping disease.

5times1

Bandcamp

Worm Bite (feat. Dollarstore Keyboard)

Hideaway Studio's ultra rare Dual Tube Hybrid Filter in Action - Originally designed and built for Jean-Michel Jarre in 2011 by D.A.Wilson as a live performance filter the unit features a complex and unusual union of a diode ladder with multi-mode input mixer and a resonant tube based band-pass filter tube buffered and mixed in parallel with a phase reversal option.  

The filter can be used in live performances via its 9 CV control channels using a modulation matrix and a hand controller.

The demo shows when used in this way various aspects of the filter can be sequenced as the filter is opened and closed.

Only two examples of this beast were ever built.

Composition & Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2011.

The Dual Tube Hybrid Filter In Action...

A rare demonstration of what is perhaps one of the most complex and exotic analog phasers ever devised.   The Triple Tube Hybrid Phaser was originally designed for Jean-Michel Jarre by Dani Wilson at Hideaway Studio and is one of only a very small handful ever built.

On a huge custom pcb it comprises of three 4-stage phaser blocks similar to the Small Stone with tube (ECC83) pre-amp and post amps and tube buffers between each phaser.  The OTA based phasers are combined in an unusual series/parallel arrangement with their own regen paths each modulated by one phase of a triple phase LFO generator thus allowing the phase spread to be set between each phaser block from  all three on top of one another for a huge plunging effect to being 120 degrees out for a swirly effect.   There are variable controls for the LFO offset, depth, rate and spread as well as a variable regeneration level (heard being turned up in the first minute of the demo).

The stuttering effect heard later in the demo is where the spread control is being set to a new position thus allowing the phasers to realign and commence on new phase spread angles.

Please note the phaser was recorded into delay to generate some stereo spread.

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio

Triple Tube Hybrid Phaser: An Uber Rare Beast In Action!

A quick test recording of my 1979 Korg Sigma playing Bach via MIDI on a ring modulated brass patch from a newly installed prototype Hideaway Dual MIDI2CV interface now with tweaks to the firmware to improve the Legato note handling...

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2019.

1979 KORG Sigma: Brassed On MIDI (Bach) Improved Legato Handling

D.A.Wilson is an Electronic Engineer, Sound Designer & Vintage Synth Specialist with a particular interest in combining vintage tube, classic analog and modern digital technologies working as a synth engineer looking after a very considerable amount of vintage studio equipment for Will Gregory (Goldfrapp / Moog Ensemble) and a number of other internationally celebrated electronic musicians and producers.  Having undertaken several major restorations and produced custom electronic designs for a number of major artists including Jean-Michel Jarre, Dani is also known for fully restoring two out of the world's four remaining 1979 Crumar GDS and partially restoring 1938 Novachord 346 (the only known operational Novachord in the UK) to playable order along with developing and producing the new Elfin family of 8-bit polysynths and the popular MIDI Front Panel Animator (FPA), Filter Defeat Module (FDM) and XD-280 Drive Emulator upgrades for the AKAI S612 sampler.

Demos of the S612 Upgrades in Action: 

https://soundcloud.com/hideaway-studio/sets/hideaway-studios-s612-front


Hideaway Studio Kontakt Sound libraries may be purchased directly from: 
https://www.lootaudio.com/category/kontakt-instruments/hideaway-studios
 

..and a nice introduction by Cory Pelizzari to the Hideaway Studio Kontakt Libraries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-C7a3ChC9U&feature=emb_title


For more on releases from Hideaway Studio for Kontakt please visit the blog at:  www.hideawaystudio.net

1979 KORG Sigma: Brassed On MIDI (Bach) Improved Legato Handling

Hideaway Studio

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