First Demo Ever Posted of the Synsonics Model 5300 Analog Drums

Published on Dec 1, 2015 Owen D RhythmDial

This one is in directly via Owen. The video description is below with some pics, but first I want to call out that I believe this is the first and only demo of the Synsonics Model 5300 not only posted here on MATRIXSYNTH, but also on YouTube. There have only been a handful of previous posts featuring images the Model 5300 from various auctions. You are likely hearing the Synsonics Model 5300 for the first time ever in this post. Huge thanks goes out to Owen for making this demo available to us! Thank you Owen!

Video description and some pics:

"Synsonics Model 5300 analog drum brain / machine / synth. Vintage electronic drum set module, made in Japan. Initial test run and everything is working well, minor static on mid-tom volume knob.

The sounds are wonderful and wide ranging. The knobs play a lot with each other as far as sound generation, so it can be complicated to recall a sound precisely if you alter more than one knob during a performance. Some weird sonic emotions out of this box, haunting bends or noise-heavy deep and long bass. Also the drums can be slow-attacking slow-rising with certain bend vs decay settings. Very deep bass drum can be solid or soft and the snare has a wonderful noise to it. For this demo I used the hi-tom as a snare and the snare as a hi-hat of sorts. The snare (hihat) did have a little trouble keeping 1/16th notes - it almost added a shuffle maybe for the voice to reach full power it needs a certain time. Overall it is definitely a beautiful analog drum box and capable of some very wide ranging sounds! I will explore the possibilities of it as a synth voice and more bleepy bloop electro synth drum hits at different tempos. The voice boards are almost identical, but there is a different resistor in one location for each voice that I could see on the underside of the board.

Triggered from DinSync DrumDokta2 eurorack modular drum machine, clocked from Korg SQ-1 step sequencer. Some effects added from Ensoniq DP/4 and I think I left the bass drum dry. ModeMachines x0x-Rack analog synth enters towards the end, receiving MIDI notes from the SQ-1."