Tama Techstar TS-305 analogue drum machine - Japan

via this auction
"This machine was originally intended as the brain for an electronic drum pad kit. It doesn't come with an internal sequencer, and thus went fairly much 'under the radar' when electronic drums went into fashion. HOWEVER, it sounds bloomin' great! You get infinitely more control over the sounds than you would get with any of the famous Roland machines, and a real true analogue sound that is impossible to copy with a digital machine.

There are 6 drums sounds, which can be used in 'memory' or 'manual' mode. Memory mode is the single preset sound for the voice, and they are set up as: snare, rim shot, tom 1, tom 2, tom 3, and bass. In manual mode, you can synthesize pretty much any drum sound you want with some careful tweaking. It's not just limited to drums, you can get all sorts of electronic sounds out of this.

To make up for the lack of internal sequencer, there are 2 different input options for each drum channel: pad input, and external input. In reality, you plug external audio into either of these and get good results. I sent the toms, snare, rim shot, clap, even cymbal from my tr909 into these, and they triggered the drums excellently. Even cooler, was that the decay length of the input signal was shaping the envelope of the techstar sound. - So, when i plugged a 909 tom tom into the external input, the techstar's sound could be modified by the 8 knobs on the unit itself; then also modified by tweaking the decay, pitch and volume of the tom signal coming from the 909. The wonders of analogue synthesis never cease to amaze :)

here's a good info site: http://www.cykong.com/Synths/Tama%20TS-305/TamaTS305.htm

As you can see, it's missing 3 knobs. But other than that it works well and makes a great sound. It is old though, so you want to keep the pots well cleaned to make sure you don't get too much noise when tweaking in realtime.

Shipping is from japan and is insured. Takes about 2 - 3 weeks, sometimes a bit faster.

*Seller is based in Fukuoka, an area of Japan which was unaffected by the recent earthquake and tsunami."