MOPHO Last Analog Transmission

In 2008, the Editor in Chief of Producer’s Edge magazine, Drew Spence, was inspired by the Dave Smith Instruments synthesizer MOPHO. Sound designer and Media Editor Griffin Avid released a soundpack of elements created purely by the MOPHO. Rap Artist Lenzmen Dynamics Plus released the album Dynamic Universe Volume 12 Battlestrux Year One: Captain of a Starship. The bonus track “MOPHO Last Analogue Transmission” was bundled with the magazine DVD. That song was entirely composed of sounds made with the MOPHO.

This work is a depiction of the events detailed in that music recording. It’s a song created in tribute to the Dave Smith Instruments MOPHO desktop synthesizer. A vessel responds to a hail and find out what the Push It button is for on the MOPHO.

The young Captain Dynamics Plus will see the light of destruction. 22 Pages, full color, standard format for your collecting pleasure.

We also have a music video for MOPHO Last Analogue Transmission.

This video is Dedicated to the Memory of Dave Smith.

FREE MUSIC “M.O.P.H.O. The Last Analogue Transmission”

FREE MUSIC “M.O.P.H.O. The Last Analogue Transmission”

Battlestrux Year One: Captain of a Starship Track Spotlight

A lot of my earlier albums had songs called Captain Dynamics Plus and then a more specific subtitle like “Planet Industry” or “stardust Memories”. These are short stories based around the idea of Dynamics Plus being a starship captain and having adventures. I enjoyed making and listening to them, but I didn’t know how to expand the idea beyond an album interlude.

Enter the MOPHO

Whenever reviewing a piece of gear for Producer’s Edge digital magazine, I always crank out a good number of tracks to both explore the unit and to familiarize myself with its workflow and tendencies. The Dave Smith Instruments MOPHO is a monophonic analog synthesizer that I found to be a joy to work with. You can read the review here. I was using both the surface knobs and the soft-editor and generating a ton of usable sounds. That inspired me to start using the MOPHO to create entire tracks by itself. If you are unfamiliar with synthesizers, you can think of a monophonic synthesizer as only being able to generate one sound at a time. Not entirely true, but true enough to realize that it takes a lot of programming and recording in passes or layers to make an entire song. It’s the equivalent of having one musician play every instrument. Easy enough, but now add in the fact that the musician has to make the instrument (sound) first!

One of the tracks caught my ear with an arpeggiated phrase that sounded like something I would have used in a CDP interlude. I hadn’t made one in a while so I thought ‘why not?’ and began writing. I now had a song as full as “Cosmic Centipede Episode V” from Foresight Wars. That in turn inspired a full length album based in the Captain Dynamics Plus universe. I had a lot of fun creating this song and we can explore some of the lyrics in the following Track Spotlight.

* The samples used in this song and more are available for sale on the www.StudioAVX.com Website.

Product page = Griffin Avid presents: MOPHO Drum Kits and Samples

M.O.P.H.O. Last Analogue Transmission

Chorus:
And this composition (Captain of a starship!)
The Xodus Phoenix expedition (Blast off Rocketship!)
My Final mission (A-shaped spaceship)
The Captains’ last Analog Transmission (The Last Transmission!)

My survey ship
the Phoenix Xodus receives a transmission

Xodus Phoenix is the nick name for a Producer’s Edge staffer. Xavier said that his name sounds like a cool Lenzmen alter-ego so I used it here knowing he’d get a kick out of that.

-it’s a series of blips from a far distance
set a course for it
[here’s your mission:] Ascertain the source and maintain an orbit
Sir, I have visual, it’s a spaceship (of an unknown kind)
It’s sending us a analog signal (well, let’s reply)
We can’t respond in digital (we’ll have to go inside)

A small reference to the difference between analogue and digital synthesizers- that the signal coming from the spaceship is so old, our modern equipment can’t understand the message.

The line has died A magnetic storm has arrived
take the ship down planet-side.
Send an away team while we wait for the waves to subside

Part II [Down and Away]

Can you hear me captain? Yes barely, boost his chip
It’s clearly an earthship, buried up to its tip
fairly certain the ancient rocketship has real analog circuits
powered by Curtis chips.

Dave Smith Instruments, the company that makes the MOPHO, has used Curtis Chips in its analogue synthesizers.

We’re stopping the rover and walking closer
There’s lettering on the hull, but its’ covered over
It reads MOPHO what?
M.O. in Code
Mike, Oscar, Papa, Hotel, Oscar
come in over?
Mopho. Find me a reference
the storms too intense
We’re losing communiqué
there’s too much interference
Captain, we’ve entered the main bay
proceeding down main passageway into the command gangway
Captain, the signals split
I can’t receive you but I can still transmit
I hope you’re getting all of this
Look here, we have a dead astronaut slumped over holding a yellow box.

The MOPHO looks like a yellow box in appearance and the dead crew member is holding one in his hands.

Sir, data package, live feed, it’s the ship’s ID
This doesn’t make sense; it’s logged under military defense.
MOPHO the letters meant Mass Obliteration Planetary Heavy Ordinance
There’s a red button sir.

The MOPHO features a red “Push It” button. Before the unit was released, many of us synth-heads were speculating what the button does. It starts the sequencer running and in context of this song, it’s the Red Button that arms/ detonates the MOPHO bomb.

I’m sure it’s a control
Yes, wires leading to the console.
No! Don’t press it.
I’m sure this resets it.
Blast off, emergency Lift-off

The Hull is peeling away!
Atomic yield phase shields raised
Planet Surface giving way.
massive waves of radioactive rays
displayed in an azure haze of Fallout blaze
(planetary shockwave!) gaining a range, mass action engine engage
burning inertial stage, surfing immersing in flames

The above section describes the scene of the starship Phoenix Xodus pulling away from the planet as it breaks apart after being destroyed by the MOPHO device.

Part III [Doctor Atomics sees the Light of Destruction]

The Ark is part of the pardon of Cain

Biblical and religious references abound. The flood, in this case, is a flood of flames and destruction. The Ark is Noah’s Ark which is the spaceship ferrying the crew members away.

the arc is part of the stay from acidic rains in face of his reign

This arc is the rainbow, a promise that the world would not be destroyed again by flooding.

shaping the plane and breaking the chains lights fade in the age of half-life decays
awaken a wraith and awaiting his rage

Describes the anger in using a weapon of this nature to wipe out a planet and its entire civilization. If our concept of God can wipe out the surface of a planet, what kind of terrible entity (us) would use a weapon to destroy an entire planet?

We become gods ourselves based on our destructive abilities.

[it’s the God]
birthing and cursing in his domain
[insert control rods]
the world spins on his lathe
action reaction a vain
attracting your acting a play
a pact to enact a delay
it’s an act of faith

The chance for a few humans and animals to survive gives us another chance to live properly.

we wait as he pulls the reins
plays the strings of fate
it’s the endgame of your ways

There is a pause while we wait. The reins hint at the four Horsemen.

But yet, there is a warning, which is about a coming Judgment Day. That’s considered the Endgame of our Ways.

Sir the gravity gauge
well, check the display
It’s confirmed we’re pulling away.
We were almost burned
Set course for return
Close mission.
Coded: Analog Transmission

Summary

A ship receives a mysterious transmission and investigates. They find a powerfully destructive device at the source of the signal. The explorer group triggers the bomb and escapes as the planet breaks up. This is a song inspired by the DSI MOPHO, I hope you enjoy it.

-Dynamics Plus

www.TheDynamicUniverse.com