Anvil UNIQUE 80sPercussion Synth NW

via this VEMIA listing

Click the auction link on top when you get there for additional listings.

VEMIA is Peter Forrest's auction house. He is the author of The A-Z of Analogue Synthesizer Books.

Pics of the inside below.

"The rarest drum machine in the world – the Anvil Percussion Synthesiser prototype. As featured in a major (four-page!) Electronics & Music Maker article in the magazine’s June 1985 edition. The Anvil prototype drum machine was intended to offer user-sampling and programmable rhythm sequencing as well as a drum synthesizer section that could be triggered by pads. However the project was perhaps too ambitious and the development money ran out in mid-October 1985 before it could be completed, leaving the Anvil residing in its flight-case in a London basement for 33 years before being tracked down. The Anvil prototype is not currently functional. A final update provided by engineer Roy Gwinn indicated the top board (control panel etc.) had been operational for a year (to October 1985) and was reasonably reliable. The bottom board (sample/synth) software had been able to sample into memory, replay from memory and save/load to floppy disk. The synth section was seemingly nowhere near completion, and some software had not yet been written. This was late-1985, and the Anvil has probably not worked since then. The Anvil has been powered up recently but the 40-character display was non-functioning. The 3.5 inch disk drive appears to be non-functioning. There are various builds of software/firmware on 12 EPROMs, some of which are populated on the two boards (PR for top board, BB for bottom board), along with two BIOS EPROMs. One early build EPROM (BB) has had a pin repair, and the other has a missing pin altogether. Some EPROMs have been confirmed as having data on them, and two have been copied in a limited (unsuccessful) attempt to get some life out of the Anvil’s top board. The internal battery has recently been removed from the unit. The auction includes the Anvil, the now-external/separate XLR-XLR input 240V mains power supply (with original UK plug), original Bulldog flight-case, the EPROMs, the schematics it came with (which in some cases differ from the current internal layout), a faded computer printout of the menu commands and final summary of work outstanding (16/OCT/85), and a unique (copy 1 of 1) professionally printed Preliminary User Manual written by the current owner collating all the paperwork, user guide, scans of schematics and his own personal full-colour photographs. CAUTION: PROTOTYPE – Should only be powered up by a suitably qualified electrical technician under close monitoring. The Anvil will require significant work to be restored. Weight: 22.3kg in flight-case. Dimensions 68cm wide by 43cm deep by 21cm high (in flight-case)."

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Rhythm Machines 2: The 1980s Drum Computers

This one is in via the comments of this post on the unreleased Anvil drum synthesizer. According to the comments, "The story of the Anvil Percussion Synth is in RHYTHM MACHINES 2: The 1980s Drum Computers - By Alex Graham. It's available on Amazon (the book, not the Anvil)." [on Amazon here]

According to the description on Amazon: "The 1980s saw the emergence of the Synthesizer, the promo video, and the programmable Drum Machine in the music industry. Rhythm Machines 2 - The 1980s Drum Computers - features over 100 programmable drum machines from the decade, instruments that are heard on countless records from the era and are still used in the present day. The all-colour book has the Classic 1980s drum machines from the likes of the USA (E-mu, Linn, Oberheim, MXR, Sequential Circuits), the Japanese industry (Korg, Roland, Sound Master and Yamaha), as well as the more obscure drum machine models made from all over the world."

Anvil Synthesizers "The Anvil" Digital Percussion Synthesizer Ad

This one is via @mu_zines

"The Anvil" was featured in this post from 2014. Muzines, an online repository of music magazines, posted an article on The Anvil here. The question though, is did any of these ever get produced? If you know, feel free to leave a comment. The advert to the left implies they were taking orders at some point they were selling off their IP. Interesting bit of synth history. One of those mystery synths no one knows what happened to...

Update: note the address in the print is 29 Chowmley Gardens, Aldred Road, London NW6. Someone mentioned it could be Cholmley Gardens, pictured. A search on Chowmley gets redirected to Cholmley, so this is likely. Interesting to see where it could have all happened. I used to walk by Serge's shop in Hollywood, none the wiser, when I was a kid. I do remember the wig shop. :)

Update2: interesting side note from Rob Walker: "Reading the in depth article linked to, one of the designers was Roy Gwinn who is known for his Guitar Effects pedal design which Chris Carter adapted into the Gristleizer. I sold Roy a Doepfer Euro case a couple of years back, I’ve asked if he can shed any light."

Update3: via the comments below: "The story of the Anvil Percussion Synth is in RHYTHM MACHINES 2: The 1980s Drum Computers - By Alex Graham. It's available on Amazon (the book, not the Anvil)." [on Amazon here]

Update4: From Roy Gwinn: 'No, the Anvil was never finished. I underestimated the time to do the software, and the hardware was a bit iffy when it got hot. All fixable, but we ran out of money.'

Anvil Synthesizers "The Anvil" Digital Percussion Synthesizer Circa 1985

1985 E&MM article scan in via noyzelab. You can find additional scans of Electronics & Music Maker at noyzelab's site here.

"You probably don’t need me to tell you that it takes a good deal of nerve to enter into the commercial arena of hi-tech musical instruments, especially if you’re an unknown name and attempting R&D on a shoestring budget. Yet that’s exactly what a new British company, Anvil Synthesisers, have tried to achieve with their advanced digital drum machine, the Anvil."

Note this is the first Anvil post on MATRIXSYNTH.

Side note: I was curious what happened to Electronics & Music Maker and did a lookup on Wikipedia. There isn't an article on the magazine however it was mentioned in a number of other articles including one on Mark Jenkins who has been featured here on MATRIXSYNTH a few times. Mark was the Music Editor for the magazine.

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