MATRIXSYNTH: EMS Polysynthi


Sunday, September 14, 2008

EMS Polysynthi


images via this auction

"1979 Analog & Polyphonic Synth made by EMS. Serial n° 18 out a serie of 51 units produced"

5 comments:

  1. I always thought it was one of the best looking synths. I especially like the fonts used on the panel. The colors and layout are great too!

    Someone has to make videos of this synth.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @xonox - agreed! Still intrigued by that architecture. Voltage controlled treatments around a top-octave-generator/divider polyphonic sound source. Not so good if you want 'conventional' polyphonic synthesis, but I'm betting that for distorted organ-type sounds, or tone clusters, there was some mileage to be had. I wish one could still buy top-octave-generator chips!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I played one of these many, many years ago. I was all set up for it being the most amazing thing ever - I mean, it's an EMS, right? - but it was pretty bad. The main thing I remember is that there was this unpleasant squarewave-ish character, no matter what you did with the sliders. The looks are undoubtedly stylish in their way, and it's an undeniable rarity, so I guess it'll go for loads, but it's a clunker in my experience.

    ReplyDelete
  4. i had one for a weekend many years ago and agree with n_phay that it's a clunker.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I owned one of these bad boys (s/n 31) for a few years and it was in much better condition than this one. Its a basic synth and better suited to effects more than polysynth sounds. It effectively (no pun intended) had an electro harmonix memory man built in which was fabulous. The whole keyboard assembly used to rock to get the aftertouch/filter/lfo to kick in. You could get some amazing weird effects with it and also some great bass sounds but to get them you had to crank the parametric eq/filter onboard, without it, it was a bit weedy and thin sounding without it.

    I'm glad I had one but part exchanged it for a mk1 Fender Rhodes Stage 73 and haven't missed it since. It is absolutely massive though - it must be a contender for the deepest regular synth panel ever, despite its size, it wasn't very heavy.

    ReplyDelete

To reduce spam, comments for posts older than one week are not displayed until approved, usually same day. Do not insult people. For items for sale, do not ask if it is still available. Check the auction link and search for the item. Auctions are from various sellers and expire over time. Posts remain for the pics and historical purposes. This site is meant to be a daily snapshot of some of what was out there in the world of synths.

PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE HOME


Patch n Tweak
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