Here's something you don't see everyday. This might be the first one to be featured on the site. Kind of interesting to see classic Oberheim knobs in off white.
Details from the listing:
"Comes as seen
Great used shape.
The unit powers on sounds very good
Phasor effects working good
all original, w/ original speaker
Pots and Speaker date to 1976
Very rare Synth amp. serial # 0028
you probably will not see one on ebay soon - so don't miss out
has an Old Oberheim sticker on the side panel " Some things are better than others"
see all pictures for condition
not a large amp - 14" T x 11" W x 7" Deep.
8" speaker"
Never seen one before. The MDK-7 Hypercat appears to be a MIDI controller only. Some specs from the listing below.
"Rare Kawai MDK-7 Hypercat Keyboard Controller in perfect like not used condition, in factory box with Japanese manuals and power supply 100-120V input, all functions tested ok, worldwide shipping!
Description:
Kawai MDK-7 is a Keyboard Controller For Computer Music it has the following structure:
- 37 mid size velocity sensitive keyboard
- 7 SEG x 6 LED display
- Bank select (MSB 128 x LSB 128)
- Pitch band wheel
- Assignable wheel (control change data & channel, pressure data, velocity data)
- Octave shift (4 octave up/down)
- Transpose (1 octave up/down)
- Transmit program change number & bank select
- Reset all controller / GM reset
- Midi IN merge
- Hold pedal jack"
Just when you think you've seen it all... Another vintage synth never featured on the site until now. Check out the Welson label below for other models by them.
Note it only has a single Tone knob from Soft to Hard on the left, and a vibrato switch on the right. Interesting piece of kit.
"Hillwood PO-500 Combo Organ Rare 70's Japan Vintage Analog Synthesizer - This unit has some scratches and paint chippings, but fully operational and functional in pretty good condition. We have maintained this unit, tested all keys, switches, knobs, in / outputs works perfectly."
Note the above links are affiliate links. See the site's privacy policy Update via subtokyoshop in the comments:
"Hi, I am Shin subtokyoshop, I like to add one point, this main drum sound is from yamaha EM-90 mixer, it contains vintage analog beatbox and spring reverb inside. Korg ER-1 is for adding some drum sounds for EM-90. thank you for attaching my youtube anyway."
Note this is the first post to feature the Yamaha EM 90.
"This listing is for one Tama Techstar TS-202, an analog drum synth module that features two independent voices (snare and a rim). It can be triggered either via drum pad, voltage gate or audio. Unit has some scratches here and there but ultimately works great. Power LED is blue (worth mentioning I suppose)."
I believe this is the first TS-202 to be featured. It might look familiar, but you are likely mistaking it for the TS-204 as seen here.
Here's an odd find sent in via MATRIXSYNTH reader Kaden who had the following to say about it:
"This isn't really a synth... more of a controller development toolkit apparently, but by far, it's weird. It's a Silicon Labs QuickSense Music Keyboard with accompanying Toolstick [USB] dongle. Aside from the descriptive PDF I've attached, there's no information whatsoever available about it; the silab.com site has been wiped clean of all mention, and there's no sign of the requisite software package *anywhere*.
Capacitive keyboard, and the graphics seem to indicate 12 buttons, a slider, and a rotary controller, all capacitive, with a few position indicator leds scattered about, all in a USB powered package about 1/8" thick. I plugged it in and it lights up, but I can't be arsed figuring out how to access it without the dedicated software.
I pulled this out of a gaylord full of scrap salvaged from a company that manufactures radar detectors; I guess one of the R&D grunts there dabbled in music software development."
You can find screenshots of the complete PDF here in this post. The following is from page 4:
"The Music Keyboard application plays musical notes and other sounds whenever a user presses a capacitive sensing key on the Music Keyboard. Figure 4 shows an example of the Music Keyboard application when connected to a Music Keyboard EK. To connect the Music Keyboard to the application, follow these instructions.
1. Run the Music Keyboard application, which is found by clicking StartSilicon LaboratoriesMusic Keyboard App.
2. Click OptionsKeyboard Input... and select the connected Toolstick Base Adapter from the list. The ToolStick Base Adapter will be a device on the list that begins with the letters “TS”.
For detailed instructions describing how to use Music Keyboard Application, see the application’s Help documentation
Note: The Music Keyboard Application uses MIDI sound information that is included with a PC’s sound card. To hear notes when keys are pressed, the PC being used must have the capability of playing MIDI sounds, and the audio must be enabled and audible."
Never seen one of these before. Note the Retro Gear Shop is a watermark and not printed on the unit.
"Drum Line 808Pro
This is a very rare Roland TR-808 style clone. It sounds quite awesome and is very fun to use, with a responsive screen that shows parameter change info, stereo panning features on all drum voices, tune-able kick drum, and stereo filters with resonance on the outputs, with midi in/out/thru plus din, individual outputs, stereo outputs & headphone out. A serious DJ electronic producer machine. It's fully functional and sounds amazing. The only functional thing is the reverb knob on the 3 toms does not appear to have much of an effect, otherwise all outputs, knobs, buttons etc work properly. More affordable and feature rich alternative to an 808. Comes with power cable. Operates at 220v, step up 110v - 220v transformer can be included in the sale if needed. Cosmetically it is in great shape with some minor wear on the sides."
Klaviphon: Vintage Czech Electric Piano Improvisation Published on Oct 20, 2018 Joseph McGinty
Great discovery and story by Joe McGinty. Joe McGinty, btw, was the keyboardist for The Psychedelic Furs. He has also worked with Ryan Adams, The Ramones, Nada Surf, Kevin Ayers, Martha Wainwright, Die Monster Die, Devendra Banhart, Ronnie Spector, Jesse Malin, Amy Rigby, Space Hog and others. And of course, he has also been featured here on MATRIXSYNTH numerous times. :)
Video description: "A short improvisation on the Klaviphon Electric Piano, a rare electric piano from Czechoslovakia. I traded a broken Czech wrist watch for this keyboard at a small shop in Prague. At the shop, there was no way to test it but I could hear the reeds 'acoustically' so I figured it was cool enough to gamble on it. It sounds sort of like a Pianet.
The electric piano is going through a Moogerfooger Analog Delay, an Electro Harmonix 16 Second Delay and a Roland Jazz Chorus. Audio is from the iPhone. Video effects are from Maelstrom from Signal Culture."
And the story of how Joe McGinty acquired the Klaviphon:
"The Broken Watch and The Klaviphon
This is a story that starts with a wristwatch purchase and ends with me owning a rare, vintage Czech electric piano. “When in Prague”, my friend Cathy wrote, “check out Prague Antiques. It’s full of bric-a-brac and the owner is a Serbian man who is married to a Croatian woman”. When traveling, Amy and I always look for vintage stores, thrift stores, record stores and any place that might have some obscure vintage instruments. I had found a record store, but no luck with vintage instruments. Cathy’s recommendation was perfect, so we added it to our Saturday plan. I have to say Prague Antiques did not disappoint. The store was chock-a-block with cool knick knacks from the communist era.
We wanted to bring back a souvenir from Prague, but it was kind of overwhelming. Finally, we saw a display counter with vintage Czech wristwatches. They were all beautiful. Amy and I each picked one out. “Remember”, the shopkeeper explained, “these are vintage watches. They need to be wound. Young people come in here, buy the watch and come back a few hours later, claiming it’s broken. They don’t know about winding the watch”. Of course, we know about winding wristwatches (we’re old).
Later, we’re wandering around Holesovice, a very cool neighborhood. We stop to eat at the cafe at Cross Club, a multidisciplinary art and performance space. There are incredible sculptures there, and vintage czech radios hanging from the ceiling. I notice my watch has stopped. I wind it up, making fun of the youngsters who thought their watch was broken. Well, needless to say, a few hours later the watch stopped. And then it stopped again. So I realize, yes, my watch doesn’t work. Harrumph.
We had a sightseeing plan for the next day, our last day in Prague. Do we go back to the shop to return it? Or do I accept that I possibly have been swindled? We decide to start the day off at the shop, return the watch, and continue with our sightseeing plan.
The next day, we arrive at the shop to a sign on the door: “Please come to our sister shop, around the corner”. “Oh, great”, I’m thinking. We’ve definitely been swindled. However, the shop around the corner is much bigger. And it’s a different man in charge. I show him the watch and explain that it’s broken. He takes it behind the counter, looks at it for a while, and confirms in a thick accent, “you’re right. It is broken. My friend, he doesn’t know”. Chatting with him for a while, he tells us of his Croation wife, and we realize that he is the owner.
He is super nice and helpful and explains that we can exchange it for anything in the store of similar value. Amy asks if he has any musical instruments. Keyboards, perhaps? And I’m thinking to myself, that it would be a stretch. I see a few toy pianos. He brings out a melodica. Some harmonicas. “One more thing”, he tells us. He leads us to a corner in the back. Underneath a random assortment of figurines and statuettes is some kind of keyboard. It looks “vintage”, but it’s unclear what it is. I assume it’s some sort of air organ. He removes the statuettes and places it on a table. It looks cool, but what is it?
There’s no way to test it. I don’t see a connection for a power cord, and there’s some sort of weird banana jack for audio. Playing it, I can faintly hear tines being struck, so maybe it’s some sort of electric piano? I’m reluctant: “How can we possibly bring it back?”. But Amy is persistent. The owner says that he has bubble wrap. “But what about our sightseeing plans?” Amy says not to worry about it, we’ll find a box to bring it on the plane. She has Platinum Status on Delta, which allows for a free checked item. But one of this size?
Back at the hotel, Amy calls Delta. The representative says that they have a 50 pound maximum for checked baggage. Rut roh. Not discouraged, she does further research. On the Delta website, they allow 165 pounds for musical instruments. “Phew”.
OK, off on our mission to find a way to transport the piano. We decide that a gig bag would be better than a box, to make it clear that it’s an “instrument” that we are checking. Next, we need to find a music store in Prague that has a gig bag that’s big enough. On a Sunday. Not an easy task, but we find one just on the outskirts of the city. And then to a mall where we can buy more packing materials. Well, that’s how we spent our “sightseeing” Sunday! The keyboard fits in the gig bag, and we fill it out with our clothes for extra padding. It’s now Sunday evening, and I’m determined to find any information at all about this mysterious instrument.
I’m trying all sorts of Google searches. “Eastern European Electric Pianos”, “Czech Electric Pianos”. Maybe it’s from Russia? East Germany? Nothing is coming up, not even on the definitive Simon’s Hall of Electric Pianos. Further Googling leads me to a website devoted to Czech keyboards. Finally! It’s a Klaviphon. And, wow, there are a lot of other cool Czech keyboards that I knew nothing about. I learn that Plastic People of The Universe used this instrument! Cool! In an interview with the keyboardist, Pepa Janicek, it says that his instrument was “bruised by a dog”. Huh? Google Translate in action. Another article with better translation says that a dog chewed the wires. Oh, OK. Makes more sense. There’s a nice Klaviphon close up from a pro-communist TV show, The Thirty Cases Of Major Zeman. The band is a faux hippie rock band intended to be a parody of the “Plastic People”. In the show, they are drug addicts that hijack a plane. Apparently based on a true story. Except that the plane was not hijacked by heroin-addicted psychedelic rock musicians.
I get further sidetracked reading about the Resonet, possibly one of the first electric pianos, invented in Czechoslovakia by Ladislav Korner. He was sentenced to 18 years for treason for trying to sell his patent to Canada and Australia. The story has a happy ending, as he ended up emigrating to the U.S. where, among other things, he designed groundbreaking technology for submarines (and custom work for Jacques Cousteau). It’s a fascinating story. If you’re interested, you can read more about it here and here. Side note: In the early days of the Beatles, George Harrison played a Resonet Futurama.
The next day, at the airport, the gig bag is checked without a problem. Thank you, Delta! And thanks to our super packing job, it arrives in perfect shape. A few days later, at my studio in Brooklyn, there’s still no way to test this piano. I run into my friend, Mike Buffington on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. And because he restores vintage theremins, he has a cable that could work for the Klaviphon. Testing it out, we hear nothing but a loud hum. I call Steve Masucci. Steve has rescued and restored vintage Ondiolines. If there’s anyone that can revive this instrument, it’s Steve. He tells me that he’ll figure out a way to get it working. While working on the instrument, he finds all sorts of random parts, including sewing machine pins. I guess they didn’t have a lot to work with in the Eastern Bloc in the 60s. A few weeks later, Steve returns the Klaviphon to the studio. We plug it in, and it actually works! The sound? It’s a bit noisy, and it’s not going to replace a Rhodes or a Wurlitzer, but it sounds pretty cool. And it’s certainly a conversation piece. I’ll be so ready for the Plastic People Of The Universe tribute. Here’s a short improvisation using an Electro Harmonix 16 Second Delay.
Never seen one of these before. It appears to be a serial buss expansion for computers to use with the Rhodes Chroma synthesizer, with sequencing software. The disks are dated 1982 and from Fender Musical Instruments who took ownership of ARP's assets with the Rhodes Chroma and Chroma Polaris.
Update: some pics and details captured. I made the mistake of trying to capture them all and then realized how many were listed. :) I ended up switching to the more esoteric models. Quite a few have never been featured here on MATRIXSYNTH before. What's a little bit interesting, is only two new labels were needed, one for Domino and one for Side-Kick-Er. All other brands have been featured before. See the labels at the bottom of this post. Side note: Blogger limits the number of characters to 200 for labels, so I wasn't able to capture them all for this post. You can always search for the brand names featured for more. I assume most do this anyway. The labels are more for maintenance and for finding posts that may not feature brand names in descriptions.
In German, but you can turn CC on followed by your language of choice. Check out the EMI Bandmaster Powerhouse with 8-track tape. Check out this post for another video and pics of the tapes. The second half of the last video in the playlist above also features a KLONE-KIT 2 which I've never seen before. You can find the original KLONE Dual Percussion Synthesizer Kit previously posted here.
Playlist:
Steve Baltes Stuff präsentiert sein Studio, Teil 1: Modulare
Steve Baltes Stuff präsentiert sein Studio, Teil 2: Synths
Steve Baltes Stuff präsentiert sein Studio, Teil 3: Drumcomputer
Steve Baltes Stuff präsentiert sein Studio, Teil 4: Soundbeispiele
This one is in via @BuckRemus, who was curious if there was any relation to George Mattson's PMS Syntar, the first synthesizer keytar. I reached out to George and he said he didn't know what it is, so there is no relation.
If you know what this is, feel free to leave a comment.
There appears to be 16 buttons (presets?), and three colored buttons, one blue, one orange, and one grey. Note there are six mini keys, so they could be the equivalent of the six strings on a guitar and meant to be strummed rather than pressed like traditional keys. There are three knobs, or possibly four if the one on the right is just missing a knob cap. There are a number of holes as you can see (tuning/calibration points?).
Update: Two more pics added below, and via @BuckRemus: "it didn't come with a power supply so we're hoping to find someone who knows something so we don't fry it (if it hasn't been already). If it helps, it was purchased in Maine."
Here's and interesting bit of synth history if it is indeed legit. If anyone from KORG sees this and can verify, please do. This one was spotted and sent in via Ajgersten.
Details via the listing:
"This is as rare as it can be. Your only chance to own the mother of all korg M3;The prototype used by Korg's engineers to develop the famous Korg M3.
This unit has not been modified in any way. It has the original version loaded. All functions just like the final M3 production unit. It could be upgraded to newer software versions Just like any regular M3.
It is in good shape and everything works. Talked to the engineer that was assigned to develop this unit to confirm authenticity. You can as well.
This one is in via someone looking for some more info on it. This is the first one I've seen, so I'm a bit curious myself. His main question is how to get sound out of it. If you look at the back you will see a MIDI out jack, a Rec/Play jack that looks like a MIDI/DIN jack, and proprietary Keyboard and Pedalboard connectors. If you are familiar with the CD 2 or Godwin organ synths from this period please leave a comment or reach out via email (you can find the email link on the bottom right of the site). Here's what the person that sent it in said:
"Hi i just recently got into synth`s and i bought my self a kawai k1, while roaming my local thrift shops i found what seems to be a drum module that i bought. i started searching on the web for info for this digital drum but i never saw the exact this version but i did found alot of godwins on matrixsynths, and tought you guys would be the perfect ones to ask about this. im woundring if you have any infomation regarding this module and also if you know what sort of connector the keyboard and pedal board is (the blue connector pins with what seems to be a hook) it would be awesome to find this connector so that i could get some sound out it, i have put 12 photos in this email of this module hope this helps"
Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Published on Jul 7, 2015 Amanda Alfaro
I spotted an auction for a Touch Talker TT-DB below. I was curious what it sounded like so I did a quick search on YouTube and found the above. It's $299 on iTunes: LAMP Words For Life - Prentke Romich Company! The original hardware version below utilized Smoothtalker or DECTalk speech synthesis, and was built to interface with the Apple IIe, II+, and IBM PC. Not sure what the iOS version uses - new samples, samples of the original, or the actual synth engine of the original. Another interesting bit of synthesis history...
"Touch Talker, models TT-DB, is a portable electronic communication aid offering synthesized speech output and optional printer or keyboard emulating output. Selections are made directly by pushing one of the keys on the membrane keyboard. Messages can be displayed on an LCD before being spoken. The Touch Talker can be used with Minspeak and Expanded Minspeak firmware, which allows vocabulary to be stored and recalled by semantic compaction and overlays to be created and reassigned. The Touch Talker can also be used to operate an environmental control system and a computer. Options for the Touch Talker include Smoothtalker or DECTalk speech synthesis, external printer, carrying case, keyboard emulating interface for the Apple IIe or II+ and the IBM-PC, the Memory Transfer Interface (which allows vocabulary sets to be stored on Apple diskette), and "Words Strategy" vocabulary software. Kits are also available to convert the keyboard to 8 or 32 positions. Contact manufacturer for option specifications and pricing. COMPATIBILITY: For use on Apple II+, Apple IIe, and IBM PC or compatible computers.
DIMENSIONS: 13 x 8.8 x 2.75 inches.
WEIGHT: 5.25 pounds.
