images via this auction via Dave"Fabulous-looking and displaying synth/organ made by Ace-Tone, the predecessor of Roland. This is the Top-1 organ, which utilizes what sound like sawtooth waveforms to generate tone. It is polyphonic, but I have no idea if it's analog or digital. I'm guessing the latter, since analog polyphony didn't really exist in the '60s. [I'm guessing analog divide-down technology - if you know, feel free to comment]. All I know is this thing looked great set up next to my tiki mug collection, but the girlfriend has decreed that it is time to make room her our ever-increasing pile of makeup and tampons or whatever.
As you can see from the images, the legs unscrew and are stowed in the detachable lid, similar to the Yamaha CS-series synths. There are a trace amount of scuffs in the organ itself, but nothing too fugly. The case itself has about as much wear and tear that you'd expect after 40 years, and the underside of the synth has tape marks. Functionally it's perfect except for the first white B key inexplicably plays one octave too high. However, if you are high yourself, you probably won't notice.I've seen a few of these organs listed over the last few months, but this is one of the few units that comes with a music stand and almost perfect operability. And as I said before, it looks great. I know that you are attracted, magpie-like to the shiny, shiny red brilliance of this vintage classic. Just bid on it and get it over with, so you can sleep tonight without obsessing."
Thanks for the post Matrix. Although... there's currently no auction link; so here it is if you're interested. :o)
ReplyDeleteSorry about that. It's up now. I also put up a new post letting people know.
ReplyDeleteThese 60´s Combo Organs normally use 12 top octave oscillators and then divide down circuits. Later came the ones, where a master oscillator was driving a chip creating all 12 top octave tones and then again the division further down. Digital came later in the 80´s and then sampling. For more info check out
ReplyDeletehttp://www.combo-organ.com/
http://www.combo-organ.com/how_they_work.htm
This is MatrixSYNTH, not MatrixORGAN ;-), but there are quite some organs having synths built in, some have been used on cool synth records, i.e. from Mr. Jarre (Eminent 310 Unique or the Elka X-705).