MATRIXSYNTH: 1978 Aries Modular Synth


Wednesday, July 23, 2008

1978 Aries Modular Synth


via this auction

"If you are reading this, you know all about the Moog, Buchla, Arp, etc. synthesizer craze of the Early 70’s. But these synths were expensive. Some companies decided to make modular synthesizers available at a slightly less astronomical price by offering them in kit form. At the low end was PAiA and at the high end was Aries. Aries was only in business for a few years, but they were considered the best modular kits of their day.

While I was building my PAiA, a more well-heeled friend of mine built this Aries. However, he was a real electronics genius and made some modifications to his keyboard and input stage so that he could run it as a polyphonic synth using a microprocessor. This was a fairly advanced idea at this point in time.

After he played around with it and got bored with it, it went into his parents’ attic where it remained untouched for 30 or so years. It was given to me during a recent attic cleaning.

Here is a list of modules:
1 Keyboard
3 VCOs
1 Dual LFO/Lag inverter
1 S&H Clock/Noise Generator
2 envelope generators
1 balanced modulator
1 dual mixer
2 multimode filters
1 phase/flange
1 stereo (spring) reverb/Output
1 VCA
2 unknown & unlabeled modules - these are probably custom interface modules for the keyboard/microprocessor, but I don't know since they have no labels."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: comments that insult people will be removed. Critique on gear is allowed. Do not ask if listings are still available. Click through auction links to check yourself. Posts and pics remain for historical purposes. To reduce spam, comments for posts older than one week are not displayed until approved (usually same day).

PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE HOME



Switched On Make Synthesizer Evolution Vintage Synthesizers Creating Sound Fundlementals of Synthesizer Programming Kraftwerk

© Matrixsynth - All posts are presented here for informative, historical and educative purposes as applicable within fair use.
MATRIXSYNTH is supported by affiliate links that use cookies to track clickthroughs and sales. See the privacy policy for details.
MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH