MATRIXSYNTH: Crumar DS-1 vintage analog monophonic synthesizer


Sunday, July 01, 2012

Crumar DS-1 vintage analog monophonic synthesizer

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"This is the ORIGINAL DCO synthesizer model. Around the time my recently turned 52 year old body was graduating from HS Crumar was selling this item. A synthesizer that would have tuning stability. Yet they called it DCO when in reality the control is ANALOG....however the generation of that initial waveform was a digital chip... a 74LS221 set up as a relaxation oscillator with a capacitor. In other words the analog control currents charge a capacitor to the threshold of the chip and it discharges the cap at that point and then starts a new charging cycle while outputting a waveform that is tied to that frequency.

Anyway DIGITAL was a new buzz word back then :-). Then they didn't want to emphasize the fact that everything AFTER the digital chips that create the initial waveforms is analog. Down to the details of the delay circuit for the LFO where the flexible modulations can be made to GRADUALLY arise after the strike of a note, rather than abruptly like on polysix and some other common analog synths. So this is a fairly powerful analog beast in other words that has oscillators that stay stable. I acquired a DS2 which adds a poly section into the mix and extra lfo so decided to let this one go since... they are otherwise extremely similar.

FOR THE COLLECTOR though..they built a few thousand DS-2's it appears. THey built probably (from the serials we've seen) less than 200 of the DS--1. So it is one of the most collectable 'landmark' synths in history.

THis one as you can see is in really awesome shape for it's age. I'll put lots of end padding in the box so that corners dont' get smashed and the innards don't get trashed. Will final check it before shipment. The tune pots were a little iffy as I recall last I played it so I'll clean those. Otherwise it was working awesome! I got this from a guy in Hawaii! Serial number A72 as I remember. I think we've seen serials up to A 144 or like that.."

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