X-Station Faders - New Flickr Shot

flickr by Daragh.

Roland System 100 - New Flickr Shots

flickr by mixdelayoutonly. Yep.... Title link takes you to more.

Hmm... Might have put this post up too soon. I subscribe to a couple of flickr feeds and got to the shot above first, so it went up and it will stay. However there are some really nice gear shots in the set as well, such as this shot of a Jupiter 6. The gear in the shots are immaculate - some of the cleanest I've seen. Title link has been updated to bring you to the start of the set.

Melbourne, Australia DIY Modular Synth Builders unite

For those of you in Australia, Ross Healy asked me to post the following. Sounds like a great idea.

"Melbourne, Australia DIY Modular Synth Builders unite

In the Spirit of the 60's Modular synth builders....

Modular Synths cost way too much for Australians to import (I know I
just bought a 5 panel Serge Modular Synth) so kits seem to be the best
option, but for a noobie to solder and build here is an idea...

This idea came from *Serge Tcherepnin and the 60's spirit.

I have a classroom in the centre of town that we could use on 1
Saturday a month to get together and build modular kits. W*e would all
buy the same board and parts ( say of a Ken Stone - Low Pass Filter) and
build it all on the same day, this would enable people with no knowledge
to be next to people with no knowledge and in the process have fun.

I am collecting names of people who are interested, I am hoping to get
10 - 15 people max interested (already have 5 people, all you need to do
is get involved in the spirit ..., pay nothing except for the Board,
parts, and your own solder etc. and come along..

Contact Ross Healy healyr@tpg.com.au and I will start to get the ball
rolling."

Juno 106 Replacement ICs

There is finally hope for the dreaded failed voice of the Roland Juno 106. Someone has cloned the chip.

Click here for the official page on the chips with more info and how to get them. They are also up for auction here.

Anyone else thinking what I'm thinking? These might be great for a DIY project or a new synth.

Details:
"The most common problem with juno-106's is one or more of the voices going dead or that keep hanging. The problem is the poorly manufactured A1QH800170 or A1QH80017A custom vcf and vca ic. Since these ic's are no longer manufactured and roland has no spares for them anymore, we are forced to scrap other 106's for spares. Which is not a good idea because every single one of these ic's will die. Therefore I did some research on those ic's.
First I designed a vca clone, that only took over the vca of the 80017A, but still used the vcf part (if that was still alive). This design was completed at the end of 2003. Numerous of these ones have been sold and installed to great succes in juno's worldwide.
After that I continued my research on this ic with the goal of designing a full clone of it. This was a particulary hard job because only little is known about the intestines of this ic: only the rough outlines which are displayed in the juno-106 service manuals and the little info that is available on the IR3109 and how it is used. It took no less then 6 restarts from scratch until I had a prototype of which I thought that it was on the right track. The bigest problem was the creation of an exponential current source that has the same error and temperature tracking as the one inside the IR3109 (of which no one knows how it was built). When this problem was solved (about nov 2004) I could start doing signal analysis on both an opened 80017A and my design to adjust gain levels so that the non-linearities (tanh) of each stage were the same(summer of 2005). After that I designed a smd prototype for further testing which surfaced more problems: strange behaviour with resonance at very high and low frequencies, which were all solved by the end of 2005. At this moment I was unable to measure nor hear any difference between the original and the clone. After that I built some more prototypes and installed these in 4 different juno's owned by different people. These have been in test for several months now and none of these people were able to tell which voice had the clone.
After that only minor changes (pcb-design)were done until the final design which is now (may 2006) for sale:

summary:
-Designed and built to the highest standard.
-No measurable nor audible difference with the original. I'm very serious about this and I'm well aware that my clone is the only one which sounds right.
-All integrated components are in mass-production by more than one manufacturer and have been available for over a decade. Thus have a proven reliability and are easy optainable(in the very unlikely event of failure).
-Used discretes are close tollerance and high quality (capacitors are the infamous panasonic stacked pps film ones)
-very high quality pcb.
-Installation is straightforward: remove the defective 80017A , replace it with my clone and re-adjust your juno as described in the service manual. (please do not ask me how to do this. I simply do not have the time to give electronics lessons. If you don't have the knowledge: consult your local synth-geek)"

Serge Modualr Synthesizer Prototype - New Flickr Set

flickr by wayneandwax. Title link takes you to more.

Listen Tu Compiuters

Ok, this one took me a bit to figure out. This originally was going to be a New Flickr Shot post for this. I was wondering if this unit actually existed because it looks pretty sweet in red. I then clicked the all sizes link to get a bigger shot of the image so I could read the text. It read more like a graphics design technique on placing text. So I think, ok this is just someone's photoshopped work for a design class or the like. Then I click on the link to www.compiuters.com at the bottom of the flickr shot. I get there and I see what looks like an interactive large scale version of this keyboard. Some music starts playing and I click a key, but nothing. So... I'm thinking this is a work in progress and eventually it'll be playable. Cool! I then notice the player controls and click the forward button. Nothing. I go about my browsing wondering if I should even post this and a few minutes later music starts playing but this time it's actually a song! And... It's actually interesting - catchy, geeky, computer, synth pop in Spanish (actually one track reminds me of "Bust a Move" and another reminds me of Bow Bow Wow for some reason). Catchy stuff. So at this point I'm obviously guessing this is a band's site. Pretty clever considering how I found it through flickr as a synth tagged shot. If you know more about them and/or if that's a real Casio product feel free to comment.

Polyfusion - New Flickr Shot

More great scans by bdu. Title link takes you to more including one for the Oberheim OB-X. Click on the All Sizes link on top of each shot to get to a bigger image.

JSH Pro Rhythm Drum Synt SD1

Shot pulled from this auction.

Details:

"For more pictures and SOUND SAMPLES go to here.

This drum synth sounds AMAZING - check out the samples at the link above.

The synth section has two oscillators, multi mode resonant filter, LFO, ring modulator, two envelope sections and an amazingly versatile architecture allowing the creation of sounds that most analogue synths could not manage.

Better still the drum pad is VELOCITY sensitive so the sound, filter, pitch, etc can change depending how hard you hit the pad!!

The controls are as follows:

VCO 1 (oscillator) - Frequency, Switch (square wave/noise/ring mod)
VCF (filter) - Frequency, Switch (low pass/band pass/high pass), Resonance
VCO 2 (oscillator) - Frequency, Switch (LFO/OFF/saw), Modulation amount (routable to VCO1 and VCF).
SWEEP (envelope section) - Switch (VCO1/both/VCO2),VCO (amount envelope modulates pitch of selected oscillator - allows positive and negative), VCF (envelope mod of VCF), Decay.
VCA - Decay, Volume.

10 knobs and 4 switches.

The architecture and modulation possibilities make for a very versatile unit that can produce sounds from the usual space drum to Kraftwerk snares, Kicks, hats and metal sounds (thanks to ring mod). Also the bass sounds are amazing and really unusual - great for sampling to allow accurate pitch control - or "play" the Frequency knob."

Electronic Latin Love - New Flickr Shot

flickr by AdamVandenberg.

Synthi AKS Vids on YouTube

Via Des choses et d'autres. The following was translated from the post via Google translator:
"Here five vidéos here of Ems Synthi Aks, truth, which was posted by Cores303, a happy owner of this superb synthetizer. It has just carried out very different sequences, showing the possibilities of this sonic instrument. Moreover, obviously, its Ems Synthi Aks was modified. "

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Click each image to launch video.

Udpate via deb7680:
"Here are the modifications of the Ems :
It possesses all the modifications proposed by EMS in the 70s: - modif. on the reverb - modif. on the envellope cad that we can activate(start) a sequence by pressing on the red button - inversion of tensions: with 4 reversers, the sound is to play has to, exellent for news(short stories) sound creations –
- Synchronization 3 oscillateurs which allows to controler chaqun of them independently, this modif. allows to create sounds very complex impossible with a normal aks - modif. on the forms of waves in particular on the third to oscillateur which allows to explode the sound - finally, great pleasure, The aks is entirement CV and Gate, cad that it is completely midi via a kenton kit kind(genre) pro solo or pro on 2000."

Also check out this post.