EDP Stinger

Click here for shots pulled from this auction.

via Tom of MusicThing.

Details pulled from the auction:
"Up for auction is a very rare synthesizer, the Groove Electronics Stinger, it is also sometimes refered to as an EDP Stinger. It is basically two EDP Wasps under one hood, but with midi control. It comes with a fixed 220v power cable, and 3 pages of user manual. When I bought it originally, it did not have any user instructions at all, I got lucky and met someone who sent me copies of the 3 pages of user instructions that he had for the Stinger.

History:
-Only 4 of these synths are known to be in existence.
-This synth has the most amount of buttons on it than the other units.
-Groove Electronics was a samll company, each unit was custom built for the client.
-It was originally owned by The Shamen. On the underside of the synth is a service sticker that shows their name, this was also confirmed by the person I bought it from.

In one of my pics you can see the service tag with The Shamens name on it. In the other pic, you can see the Stinger to the left, behind one of the Shamen band members.

Specs:
Very little is known about these synths so I will do my best to cover all the main features.
-Built in 1989
-Two synth sections; Synth A and Synth B (each of the two synths is essentially one Wasp)
-Two 1/4" Audio Outputs (1 for synth A and 1 for synth B)
-Two 1/4" External Audio Inputs (1 for synth A and 1 for synth B)
- Midi In/Thru
-For more information on the EDP Wasp go to www.vintagesynth.org and read their review of the Wasp synthesizer.

Condition
The synth is in very good condition overall. It has some minor rack rash, and slight cosmetic wear. I recently fired it up before listing and it does work. Synth is being sold "As Is".

I do want to mention one thing though, this synth is tricky to understand. Synth A plays just fine, Synth B has a fixed audio output, like a constant note on. I have determined that Synth B is currently set to midi channel 7, so when your midi keyboard controller is set to that same channel, you can control Synth B. If you push a key down it will send a note off message and the audio will stop, then when you release the key, it will continue outputting audio holding that new note. It will also respond to pitch bend and mod wheel to affect the sound. What I think is happening is that Synth B is stuck in a certain mode, I have been unable to figure out how to get it out of that mode to play normally. I can take it in and out of that same mode in Synth A, but not Synth B. Perhaps someone else can figure out hhow to do that.

The theory behind the Stinger is, both synths should be able to be set to the same midi channel, so that they can both be played at the same time, or used as individual synths set to seperate midi channels."