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Published on Nov 25, 2016 orangecoals
"1st part -- just pure tones of unit - straight into soundcard
2nd part - straight into soundcard - through filter plugin and delay plugin
3rd part - are 3 overdubs -- using 2 overdubbed sounds to make a chord and the third playing with the pitch through small stone phaser guitar pedal and some spring reverb."
"Armon P300 - NO FX, NO EQ, NO COMP, just natural sound."
More organ than synth, but still some synthy sounds on this one along with a built in rhythm machine. I believe this is the first time the P300 has been featured on the site. See the Armon label below for other keyboards they produced.
Here's an interesting bit from the past. I believe this is the first time this software has been featured here on MATRIXSYNTH. This one is in via Joel Braverman who has actually worked with it: "here is something I think is worth linking to - took me quite a while to find it because I forgot the name, its been more than a few years since I last experimented with it probably in the late 1990s or early 2000s - this a MIDI programming system **created by AT&T**, perhaps in the vein of Max MSP/ PureData/ OpenSoundWorld toolkits."
If you are familiar with this software, please leave a comment.
"KeyKit used to be called Keynote. It is a programming language and graphical user interface for MIDI, useful for both algorithmic and realtime musical experimentation. A screenshot showing a collection of its graphical tools is shown here. Here is more information about the features of KeyKit, and here is a FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions. For examples of music created with KeyKit, visit the home page of Tim Thompson, or Stephane Rollandin's GeoMaestro. KeyKit is being made freely available by AT&T for non-commercial use."
Update via Tim in the comments: "KeyKit has been recently ported to 64-bit as well as to the Raspberry Pi. You can find the latest source code and some binaries here: https://github.com/nosuchtim/keykit"
Anyone know more about this one? I don't believe I've ever seen one of these before. The listing doesn't state much: "Up for sale or best offer is one Vintage Street Electronics Echo PC2 Synthesizer!
No card was included in the box, however it includes the external speaker box unit,manual,
and two larger floppy discs."
According to one of the floppies the brand is Street Electronics CORP. and the copyright date is 1988.
Update via Dave O Mahony in the comments: "Looks like the Echo 2 speech sound card add on for the Apple II. Seems it used the same chip as the Speak & Spell! [link] Auction doesn't include the card - just software and speaker!"
"The Echo II was a plug-in expansion card, speech synthesizer card for the Apple II and Apple IIc personal computers that allowed applications to use speech synthesis. The Echo II used the TMS5220 speech synthesis chip to synthesize speech. The Echo II software could synthesize either unlimited text-to-speech using stitched phonemes, or play back raw LPC data for specific words, with resulting higher speech quality.
LPC (linear predictive coding) was the speech synthesis technology used, which allowed applications to encode speech data in a compact form. The Echo II used the TMS 5220 LPC Speech Chip which was popular in other speech synthesizers"
Above is a recording of Alan Turing's Manchester Mark II computer used to generate music. According to the title, it is the first recording of computer music. The following are a couple of excerpts on the piece from the tech blog Engadget, followed by the British Library Sound and Vision blog. Both imply that Alan Turing's machine was the first computer to generate music. I was curious about the timeline, so I took look at at 120 Years of Electronic Music, which is a running list of the history of pivotal instruments in electronic music. Alan Turing's Manchester Mark II is not yet listed. The RCA Synthesizer, however is, and is dated 1951. There were two versions of the RCA Synthesizer, the Mark I and the Mark II which came later in 1957. There was also a computer located in Sydney, Australia that generated music in the 1950s. Based on the following, Alan Turing's Manchester Mark II first generated music in 1948. It's not clear when work on the RCA Mark I may have generated it's first sounds, however it appears it was completed in 1951. There were two previous instruments that influenced the RCA Mark I, namely, Givelet Coupleux Organ of 1930 and the Hanert Electric Orchestra in 1945, however, they do not appear to have been computer based like the RCA Mark 1, or Alan Turing's Manchester Mark II. Worth noting is the the RCA synthesizers were specifically created to generate music, while, Alan Turing's Manchester Mark II was not.
"Alan Turing is known for a few small achievements, like helping end World War II, laying the groundwork for modern computers and developing the 'Turing test' for machine intelligence. You may not be aware, however, that he paved the way for synthesizers and electronica by inventing the first computer-generated musical tones. A pair of researchers from the University of Cantebury have now restored the first-ever recording made from Turing's 'synthesizer.'
Turing figured that if he rapidly played clicking sounds at set intervals, the listener would here them as distinct tones corresponding to musical notes. For instance, playing the click on every fourth cycle of a computers' CPU produces a 'C' tone, exactly like a modern synthesizer. He tested that theory on his Manchester Mark I, one of the world's first programmable computers. Instead of making music, he used the tones to indicate computing operations like completed tasks and memory overflow errors (meaning he also invented notification sounds).
Turing knew that he could program songs on his 'synth,' but had no interest in doing it. Luckily, talented programmer and musician Christopher Strachey got his hands on the Manchester Mark II's operating guide, which was, by the way, the world's first computer manual. Using that, he coded God Save the Queen, the longest program ever at the time. The next morning, he played it back to surprised onlookers at the lab, including Turing, who was uncharacteristically thrilled, saying 'good show.'"
"Today, all that remains of the recording session is a 12-inch single-sided acetate disc, cut by the BBC's technician while the computer played. The computer itself was scrapped long ago, so the archived recording is our only window on that historic soundscape. What a disappointment it was, therefore, to discover that the pitches were not accurate: the recording gave at best only a rough impression of how the computer sounded. But with some electronic detective work it proved possible to restore the recording—with the result that the true sound of this ancestral computer can be heard once again, for the first time in more than half a century.
Frank Cooper's original 'acetate' disc (Photo courtesy of Chris Burton)
Fig. 2: The original 'acetate' disc was saved by Manchester University engineer Frank Cooper (Photo courtesy of Chris Burton)
Alan Turing's pioneering work, in the late 1940s, on transforming the computer into a musical instrument has largely been overlooked: it's an urban myth of the music world that the first computer-generated musical notes were heard in 1957, at Bell Labs in America.1 The recent Oxford Handbook of Computer Music staked out a counterclaim, saying that the first computer to play notes was located in Sydney, Australia. However, the Sydney computer was not operational until the end of 1950, whereas computer-generated notes were emerging from a loudspeaker in Turing's computing lab as early as the autumn of 1948."
"In the 1950’s RCA was one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the United States; business interests included manufacturing record players, radio and electronic equipment (military and domestic – including the US version of the Theremin) as well as recording music and manufacturing records. In the early 50’s RCA initiated a unusual research project whose aim was to auto-generate pop ‘hits’ by analysing thousands of music recordings; the plan being that if they could work out what made a hit a hit, they could re-use the formula and generate their own hit pop music. The project’s side benefit also explored the possibility of cutting the costs of recording sessions by automating arrangements and using electronically generated sounds rather than expensive (and unionised) orchestras; basically, creating music straight from score to disc without error or re-takes.
The RCA electrical engineers Harry Olson and Hebart Belar were appointed to develop an instrument capable of delivering this complex task, and in doing so inadvertently (as is so often the case in the history of electronic music) created one of the first programmable synthesisers – the precursors being the Givelet Coupleux Organ of 1930 and the Hanert Electric Orchestra in 1945.
The resulting RCA Mark I machine was a monstrous collection of modular components that took up a whole room at Columbia University’s Computer Music Center (then known as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center). The ‘instrument’ was basically an analogue computer; the only input to the machine was a typewriter-style keyboard where the musician wrote a score in a type of binary code."
The Story of the RCA Synthesizer
Published on Dec 16, 2012 alanoneuser
"History of the RCA Electronic Music Synthesizer and the Victor Synthesizer.
Produced by Kevin Meredith.
Featuring Dr. Alex Magoun of the IEEE History Center at http://www.ieee.org/history_center
and Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D. of Notable Software at http://www.notablesoftware.com/"
1950 early electronic synthesizer: 'This is music with a strictly electronic beat'
If anyone knows what it is and/or has anymore info on it, let us know.
If you zoom in on the bottom pic, you'll see the controls, left to right, are as follows:
WA-WA with Mechanic and Range knobs, and switches below, one Automatic and one Rate.
INFRA-MODULATOR with a Power label below, and knobs for Rate and Range. On/Off and Rate switches below.
COLOR-OPERATING with eight sliders and eight On/Off switches. I'm guessing these are harmonic amount sliders with the ability to switch them off on the fly. So this is likely an additive synth. Curious if it sounds more like an organ or a synth. Also curious if it's monophonic or poly/paraphonic.
GLISSANDO / PORTAMENTO with two sliders and two switches. One switch is On/Off and the other appears to be direction. BTW, this section makes me think this is more synth than organ and likely monophonic.
NOISE GENERATOR knob with On/Off switch.
VOLUME knob
POWER On/Off switch.
Note the absence of envelopes.
Update: it kind of reminds me of the Baldwin Syntha Sound. That one had a SPECTRUM SHAPER. Note the lack of a Baldwin label on the front of the Syntha Sound. The BB on the front could be for Baldwin, considering it's actually a mirrored B.
Update2: New pics in via Justin along with some info.
"I spoke to the girl who owns the synth. She said its a Czech synth and it belongs to her family and was packed away in storage for a long time until she placed it in her store as a display object. She said its not for sale."
This one in via Daniel Wilson: the album "draws attention to one of the strangest sound-making devices ever made - the under-researched Delawarr Multi-Oscillator (c.1962), which was designed to convert thoughts into clusters of frequencies. My research into this oddity has culminated in this release."
Video Description:
"Advert for the new release: Radionics Radio - 'An Album of Musical Radionic Thought Frequencies' on Sub Rosa (due August 5th 2016).
Radionics Radio is an electroacoustic and musical exposition of alternative tuning systems derived from frequencies submitted via the Radionics Radio app. All the sounds strictly originate from respective thought-frequency submissions and octaves thereof.
Further background info on this research-based project can be viewed here: [embedded below]
From press release:
'Daniel Wilson's Radionics Radio draws upon the fringe-science of radionics, with its invisible forces and psychic resonances, to spawn electroacoustic and electronic compositions employing very alternative tuning systems. Radionics' idea that thoughts can be represented as frequencies is vigorously explored on this new release through microtonal compositions which range from mutating drones to electronic sambas, with nods to Raymond Scott and Daphne Oram along the way.'
Radionics Radio was made possible through Sound and Music's Embedded programme and Resonance 104.4FM.
"Radionics Radio is a project by Resonance FM's Sound and Music Embedded Composer in Residence Daniel Wilson. It draws on the radionic idea that thoughts can be intuitively linked to clusters of frequencies. From this, it is possible to explore unusual alternative tuning systems supposedly embodying certain thoughts. The Radionics Radio EP will be released by Sub Rosa in the summer of 2016."
"This is an Atlantic Research TMG-4 Test Message Generator I found in a dumpster today.
It is plugged straight into a 10W guitar amp.
I appoligize for the audio quality.
I did not want to risk recording gear on an initial test."
Update via Steve Cain:
"The freaky part is, the end of the second video [top video above], I had turned the amp volume all the way off. It's pumping enough juice to power the speaker anyway" ... "and they made Minuteman Missiles too." ... "Atlantic Research Corp. was a major military and NASA contractor back in the day."
Another fascinating bit of synth history. Don't miss the UVI demos below. This is the first time the WaveFrame AudioFrame has been featured on the site. There was a controller for one featured here, and it was used by Barry Schrader and mentioned in my interview with him here and one previous post here.
This one was sent my way via swissdoc: "I just scanned my mega-sized German flyer from 1988/1989 of the WaveFrame Corporation AudioFrame. It is 600x600 dpi an weights in as about 32 megs. You can find it here [or check out the images of the complete pdf in this post - click each to zoom in].
It is similar to Fairlight or Synclavier and was kind of the first DAW. The system is still supported by http://www.waveframe.com
"Back in the 80's the WaveFrame Audioframe was the second generation of mega samplers, in line with the NED Synclavier and Fairlight CMI. A complete 48-voice system would sell for over $100,000, and at the time the feature set was worth it! The Audioframe was used by renowned artists like Peter Gabriel and Stevie Wonder and by leading sound designers and foley artists.
The UVI WaveFrame Sound Collection isn't a massive library dredged with tens of gigabytes of super high resolution wave files - conversely, it's a lean and mean library expertly crafted after the original, weighing in at just over 350 MB.
As you can hear in the demos, size isn't a factor for this library. The collection contains a multitude of very useful and organic sounds such as keyboards, guitars, basses, solo strings, string sections, upper brass, lower brass, brass sections, woodwinds, synths, pacific rim, percussion, drums, effects and test tones.
WaveFrame Sound Collection brings you an excellent library of bread and butter sounds that preserve the character and history of this milestone in music tech history."
Curious what this sounded like. I've never seen one before. This is only the 20th Practical Electronics post on MATRIXSYNTH. That's out of over 140,000 posts. Th others include the Minisonic and Minisonic 2, the PE Sound Synthesizer, and the the String Ensemble. You'll find a few posts from Ken MacBeth and AM Synths AM8071 SnowFall Filter, which was "a traditional diode ladder low pass filter, similar to that in the EMS VCS3, Roland SH-3, System 100 and Practical Elctronics Minisonic 2."
Note this is the first post on the Transaudio ProCase 6 on MATRIXSYNTH. The synth is from 1976 and is part of the MESS collection. Only three of these where produced. It is essentially two EMS VCS3s in one unit with extras. See the overview video below.
How's that for pretty cool. The wording follows and matches the Cheetah MS800 manual. You can see an image of one here (there are only a handful of references to the MS800 on the site). This is one rare synth.
"The Aphex Twin Cheetah EP uses digital sound generation techniques combined with wave sequencing technology to bring you sounds with movement and depth rarely found on records today.
To assure you that your Cheetah EP will give you many years of enjoyment, please be sure to read the owners manual carefully before attempting to operate the Cheetah EP.
If you wish to experiment and create some sounds of your own, first try editing some sounds we’ve already made for you, before attempting to create a patch from scratch.
We sincerely hope that having battled through the programming of the Cheetah EP, you have not become familiar with the exceptional potential of this record.
Have fun programming, and if you create any superb patches and tones which you feel deserve to be appreciated by other Cheetah EP buyers, send a MIDI System Dump of them, on a disc to us at WARP and if we also think they are superb, you could be rewarded for your efforts. Try us!”
Features:
Digital Wave Sequencing Synthesizer
Sounds programmed to sequence through changing waveforms as the note plays, giving exceptional movement and character to the music
15 note polyphonic
Velocity Sensitive
Multi-Timbral
Stereo Output
Fully programmable from the front panel
LED display"
Update: Cheetah Sweet Talker cassette pic in via Luan Correa.
What the?...
See video below. Curious if he has one and if it will be featured...
Note this is the first post out of currently 139,421 to feature the Cheetah Sweet Talker, and thus gets the illusive exclusive label. You think you've seen it all and then this. Thanks to Luan for sharing!
BBC Micro Speech Synthesis Published on Nov 24, 2012
"I found a speech synthesis chip for the BBC Micro, so I had to try it out! :L This is just running the demo program. The chip was a Cheetah 'Sweet Talker' extension pack. Sorry about the poor visuals; I would have re-recorded it but the power supply blew up shortly after this video.
For any of my subscribers wondering about the lack of Tiny Tim updates, an awful lot has been happening on the design side of things, and I'm doing regular updates on the website (http://www.northdownfarm.co.uk/rory/tim/). However as not much more has been done on the hardware side, there hasn't been anything to film yet. I will hopefully get a new vid up about memory in the next to weeks."
"Distortotron was made in 1993 by Psybe - Svein Berge and Henrik Sundt"
"Bastl Instruments in cooperation with Mental Overdrive made a documentation of a unique piece of electronic music equipment from 1993 called Distortotron. They created a short film to trace the origins of the instrument and provided sound demos.
Distortotron is an effects processor: downsampler, bitreducer and clipping overdrive. It was made in 1993 in Norway by Svein Berge and Henrik Sundt a.k.a. PSYBE for a Tromsø based musician Per Martinsen a.k.a. Mental Overdrive. The concept for such instrument came from the need to bring back the aliasing and noise of early 80s samplers and it heavily formed the sound of Mental Overdrive’s debut album Plugged released in 1995 which became the landmark of the so called Tromsø sound. The album got re‐relased in 2016 on Prins Thomas’ label Rett I Fletta.
The Distortotron inspired Václav Peloušek of Bastl Instruments to design eurorack module called T romsø.
note: Svein Berge is NOT the guy from Röyksopp – just has the same name More information about Distortotron [link]
Mental Overdrive album Plugged from 1995 is reissued on Rett I Fletta label Reissue info: [link]
Here's one never featured on the site before. A Waldek Sound Synthesizer. If it is indeed from the 1970s, I'm curious about it's history and why it never came up before. The following is the description from the listing. If you know more, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email. Note the listing has it as Waldek, but you can see it is Waldeck on the bottom right.
"Talk about weird gear! Are you brave enough for the WALDEK modular synthesizer? I’m working on a demo for you guys but obviously with nothing to go except what you see, this will take an evening or two. Unit is labeled as a "Waldek Sound Synthesizer". There is no manufacturing date or city/country of origin (I believe it to be US Made). The Instructional manual and connecting cables are missing, although they appear to be RCA style. It has 3 separate channels of Oscillation. And has controls for, Ring, Noise, Pre-amp, Envelope, Bandpass & Lowpass Filters, Pan and Reverb. The unit powers up as indicated by the pilot light. Beyond that there is no certainty of operation and the buyer is buying this with this full knowledge. The unit is hand signed on the back,"Weldek- Z. Waldek ATW Technology". My research has failed to identify this company or individual through an online search engine. Although, other individuals who own the same unit, seem to date it late 60s early 70s but have no further information beyond that. This unit may be a genuine relic as an example of early synth history, or it may be adapted to experimental uses in unconventional instruments other than Keyboards. Either way the mystery and intrigue is worth the price of admission."
This one popped up on a Swiss auction site ricardo.ch.
Apparently this was a one off system built by a Mr. Thoma, one of the pioneers in the Swiss experimental-electronical scene around Zurich in the late 70s / early 80s. You can find his site here: www.sounddesign.ch. TMS stands for Thoma Music System. It is listed on his equipment page here. The TMS is a Serge Modular clone he built for himself, however he did build some on request. He also has a Serge Modular. You can see it in a video further below. Unfortunately there isn't a video for the TMS on his YouTube channel.
This is one of those fascinating bits of synth history that hasn't been featured on the site before now. You never know what will come up.
This one was spotted and sent in via swissdoc. It appears to be a one off SSM based DIY synth built sometime between 1981 and 1986. You'll find some info and demos on Technology Trendline here. I believe this is the first time it has been featured here on MATRIXSYNTH.
"This keyboard was the manual from a Conn electric organ recovered from a fire and found in the rafters of a pipe and reed organ manufacturer in Hicksville, NY. The keyboard scanner is built from discreet logic producing a monophonic last-note-played algorithm. The circuits were all hand-wired on prototype boards. The sound-producing technology is primarily based on a suite of chips manufactured by Solid State Micro Technology (SSMT)."
Thought this one was interesting. I've never seen one before. A little bit of synthesizer accessory history. Curious if these were made specifically for synths or just as a SCSI compact flash drive in general.
"Used to pair with a sampler for compact flash card storage. I'm used this successfully with a Roland s760, Akai s1000 & s5000, and a Yamaha a3000 & a5000. Plenty to read up on the net about these.
240V - will include a SCSI cable, power cable and nine 512MB compact flash cards."
"Korg MS-20 - Doepfer Dark Energy - LEAK Oscillator ."
I believe this is the first post to feature the LEAK Oscillator. I'm guessing it's a bit of vintage test equipment. If you know otherwise, feel free to comment.
Update: I asked Sound & Things if he had any more info on the LEAK. He picked it up at a garage type sale. The seller didn't have any additional info on it. Here's what he had to say:
"+matrixsynth Sorry i don't have any more information on the LEAK Oscillator. It was bought at a sort of garage sale and the person who sold it didn't even know what it was. It's definitely old, the oscillator needs to warm up for a while otherwise it goes really mental and it cracks a little when you switch waveforms I think it's DIY test equipment from what I've seen of the inside and because the case looks like a LEAK varislope 2 stereo amplifier...Whatever it was made for or by who, it has a sound that can cut trough solid rock!"
Just when you think you've seen it all, something like this pops up. I've never seen one before. Note this 3M was a small Italian brand and not the huge 3M manufacturing company that many of us are familiar with. Below are some details pulled from the auction. If you know more about the unit and the brand, including whatever happened to them, or the people behind the brand that may have gone onto other companies, please let us know! This is an interesting bit of synth history that was unknown to me until now.
"rare 3M vintage analog synthesizer processor, formant synth with vowels and parametric fine tune of vowels
3M - Model PFV3
Item was tested and is in perfect working conditions
This monofonic analog processor with formant synthesis engine inside works with a 9-volt battery inside; to enable it, plug the line input jack and set the switch to On. Then there are two outs: one wet (processed), and one dry; the volume level is adjustable. If the bypass button is pressed the two outputs are identical (dry). For the best effect should be used a timbre of violin as line input, maybe with more octaves (the string ensemble of the period of the birth of this thing).
The three buttons of vowels allow you to have Vowels 1-2-3 on output (A), an analog and hot effect type of variable Voice Choir; 1 is the Aahhh , 2 is the Oohhh and 3 is the IIhhh. Then there is the parametric filter, with three pots, with the typical formant parameters F1, F2 and F3. It must be said that the parametric excludes the vowels, as well as the bypass excludes all, then only one of the effects is used, and not all together. The item was made by 3M, an Italian brand based in Portorecanati. It was produced invery small numbers. The 9 volt battery was replaced by a techincian and it will last years. In the base is a hanging to insert the processor in a bar."
Anyone know more about this one? I don't believe I've ever seen one of these before. The listing doesn't state much: "Up for sale or best offer is one Vintage Street Electronics Echo PC2 Synthesizer!
If anyone knows what it is and/or has anymore info on it, let us know. 
This one was sent my way via swissdoc: "I just scanned my mega-sized German flyer from 1988/1989 of the WaveFrame Corporation AudioFrame. It is 600x600 dpi an weights in as about 32 megs. You can find it here [or check out the images of the complete pdf in this post - click each to zoom in].
Distortotron is an effects processor: downsampler, bitreducer and clipping overdrive. It was made in 1993 in Norway by Svein Berge and Henrik Sundt a.k.a. PSYBE for a Tromsø based musician Per Martinsen a.k.a. Mental Overdrive. The concept for such instrument came from the need to bring back the aliasing and noise of early 80s samplers and it heavily formed the sound of Mental Overdrive’s debut album Plugged released in 1995 which became the landmark of the so called Tromsø sound. The album got re‐relased in 2016 on Prins Thomas’ label Rett I Fletta.
The Distortotron inspired Václav Peloušek of Bastl Instruments to design eurorack module called T romsø. 
Mental Overdrive album Plugged from 1995 is reissued on Rett I Fletta label Reissue info: [link]
"Talk about weird gear! Are you brave enough for the WALDEK modular synthesizer? I’m working on a demo for you guys but obviously with nothing to go except what you see, this will take an evening or two. Unit is labeled as a "Waldek Sound Synthesizer". There is no manufacturing date or city/country of origin (I believe it to be US Made). The Instructional manual and connecting cables are missing, although they appear to be RCA style. It has 3 separate channels of Oscillation. And has controls for, Ring, Noise, Pre-amp, Envelope, Bandpass & Lowpass Filters, Pan and Reverb. The unit powers up as indicated by the pilot light. Beyond that there is no certainty of operation and the buyer is buying this with this full knowledge. The unit is hand signed on the back,"Weldek- Z. Waldek ATW Technology". My research has failed to identify this company or individual through an online search engine. Although, other individuals who own the same unit, seem to date it late 60s early 70s but have no further information beyond that. This unit may be a genuine relic as an example of early synth history, or it may be adapted to experimental uses in unconventional instruments other than Keyboards. Either way the mystery and intrigue is worth the price of admission."
"rare 3M vintage analog synthesizer processor, formant synth with vowels and parametric fine tune of vowels
This monofonic analog processor with formant synthesis engine inside works with a 9-volt battery inside; to enable it, plug the line input jack and set the switch to On. Then there are two outs: one wet (processed), and one dry; the volume level is adjustable. If the bypass button is pressed the two outputs are identical (dry). For the best effect should be used a timbre of violin as line input, maybe with more octaves (the string ensemble of the period of the birth of this thing).
