Rare CRUMAR DS-1 // Less than 200 made in 1978 SN 28

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There was also a Crumar DS-2.

"One of the very few remaining Crumar DS-1 on the planet, serial number 28. Recently serviced and recapped, this impressive monosynth works like a charm and looks great - far better than any other DS-1 / DS-2 available nowaday.

Released in 1978 to compete against the Minimoog, the Crumar DS-1 implemented one of the earliest digitally controlled oscillators (DCO) - if not THE first. In those days this was enough to mark a synth as "Digital Synthesizer" but actually the DS-1 is a fully analog monosynth with analog controlled digital oscillators. A rocksolid synth that can easily genetare fat basses, expressive lead sounds and an unexpected range of percussive/FX sounds.

So Crumar released the DS-1 (their first full-fledged synthesizer) in 1978, more than four years after Korg and Roland began their domination of the low-cost arena. Consequently, and despite its cool sound and features, everybody overlooked the DS-1 and less than 200 units were sold.

The Crumar DS-1 is a dual-oscillator monosynth with a 24dB/octave resonant low-pass filter (inspired by the Minimoog Ladder), one LFO (assignable to oscillators, VCA, VCF and PW), Glide FX, two selectable noise generators and a useful Gate/IN. The front panel has a lot of well organized (and sturdy) knobs and sliders that make the DS-1 a very intuitive machine.

Specifications :

OSC Waveforms : Saw, Tri, Squ, PW (only OSC1)
OSC Parameters : Volume, Pitch, Octave, Manual PW Modulation
Noise : White / Pink + Volume control
LFO Assign : OSC1, OSC2, VCF, VCA, PW (OSC1)
LFO Waveforms : Saw Down, Tri, Squ, Saw Up, S&H, Scaled
LFO Parameters : LFO Delay
VCF : Cutoff, Resonance, ADSR, ADSR Amount
VCA : ADSR, ADSR Amount
Other : Pitch Bend, Glide with Speed Glide / Speed Range
Connections : Out Hi, Out Low, Gate/IN & Gate/OUT (+/-5 Volts)"