The Con Brio Rises! - Update

I just updated this post with some interesting info from Brian in the comments. Be sure to check it out. Scroll down to the red Update at the bottom.

Brian Kehew of The MOOG Cookbook Looking for a Website Designer

Via Brian Kehew of The MOOG Cookbook.

"I have some good info collected on old Minimoog, lots of details of the variations/changes over the years. It was intended for a website that never happened. Also have good info on the 360 Systems keyboard - which is a constant mystery to people who own one. I have spent some years doing research on it. Finally, the Con Brio restoration/documentation is going on - and also need a good website. I want simple stuff, nothing tricky, but would like it to look good. This is nothing "for pay" as these sites would be just to disseminate good information to people who need it. I want help from someone who is quick at website work. Just text and photos, maybe hosting and playing a few soundfiles?"

You can reach Brian at briankehew at gmail.com

Vintage Computer Festival: The rare, historic, and bizarre

Click here for a video on CNet covering this year's Vintage Computer Festival. The Con Brio makes an appearance at about 2:09 left.

via James Grahame of the excellent Retro Thing.

Con Brio ADS 200R Vintage Synthesizer

YouTube via therealretrosynth.

"Brian Kehew demoing the only Con Brio ADS 200R in existence at the Vintage Computer Festival at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View California."

Update: if you remember in this prior post I noted that someone mentioned the Con Brio was not producing sounds on its own. Devo just left the following comment:
"Just wanted to clarify... The sound that was heard of the Con Brio at the VCFX this weekend WAS indeed coming from the synth itself. It is true that the synth isn't 100% functional (yet), but the parts that need to be made "whole" still, are the connection from the keyboards to the "brain" (mostly), which will be sorted out soon, hopefully. The sounds that were heard consisted of existing sequences on the original 8" floppys, coupled with existing sound-patches from the same orig. disks (of which, the OS is derived). BTW: the Con Brio sounds as good (or, dare I say, BETTER) than it looks. Awesome! I hope this info helps. Much kudos to all (past and present) involved! "

ConBrio ADS200 lightshow

ConBrio ADS200 lightshow II

YouTubes via bdufdiskc. via Brandon Daniel in the comments of this post.

"Control panel lightshow on a ConBrio ADS200 digital FM/Additive synthesizer, taken at the 10th Vintage Computer Festival" Listen closely and you will hear that it has 64 notes of polyphony with 16 oscillators per note. This means you could have up to 1024 oscillators at once back in 1978 or shortly after. :)

For those that want real audio, word from an anonymous reader is that it is not 100% yet, so there was no audio actually coming from the synth - just recordings playing in the background.

Update via Devo in the comments:
"Just wanted to clarify... The sound that was heard of the Con Brio at the VCFX this weekend WAS indeed coming from the synth itself. It is true that the synth isn't 100% functional (yet), but the parts that need to be made "whole" still, are the connection from the keyboards to the "brain" (mostly), which will be sorted out soon, hopefully. The sounds that were heard consisted of existing sequences on the original 8" floppys, coupled with existing sound-patches from the same orig. disks (of which, the OS is derived). BTW: the Con Brio sounds as good (or, dare I say, BETTER) than it looks. Awesome! I hope this info helps. Much kudos to all (past and present) involved! "

Con Brio Desktop

Nice wallpaper created from the shot of the previous post. It was posted in the comments via Dave. I just liked the way it looks with Roland's The Synthesizer next to it.

Con Brio Pics

click here for more pics via Stephen Jones. Follow up to this post.

Con Brio ADS200... in a van... down by the river...

A little humor in the title for any fans of Chris Farley and his classic Van Down by The River skit on SNL (Saturday Night Live).

Humor aside, Brian Kehew of The Moog Cookbook sent me some exclusive shots of his Con Brio ADS200. You can check them out here. More will follow after the show mentioned below. If you remember from this previous post, only two of these were made and this one has just been resuscitated. If you are in the area you can see and hear it at "The FAIR and the MUSEUM: Sat/Sun 10-6 pm!! Exhibits from 2-6pm!"

More info on this shots from Brian:
You will see -
1) Con Brio ADS200 - the one I've had for over almost 15 years. This was me driving it up to a "vintage computer warehouse" in Silicon Valley - hoping we could get it running again.
2) Con Brio ADS200-R, which was picked up on the way, where it had been stored in a garage! Or the main part of it - minus the keyboards, which are already taken out. It hadn't worked when it was put away either - and no discs or manual, alas...
3) One of the main boards inside (forget which one), there are about 10 inside, various functions.
4) The wiring BEHIND that very board - now you can see why this stuff was so expensive to make - this is called "wire wrap" construction, and VERY time intensive - and you can't make a mistake!"

The Con Brio Rises!

via Brian Kehew of The MOOG Cookbook. Only two Conbrio ADS 200s were ever made. See the links in Brian's message below for more info on this rare digital synth from the past.

"Hi guys - this is a quickie announcement - we're rushing to prepare an exhibit for this year's annual (and final) "VINTAGE COMPUTER FAIR"!

Why? This Con Brio synthesizer I've had for a decade is finally going to make noise in public again. Just this week we heard it for the first time - maybe the first one of these has been used in 20+ years...

http://www.synthmuseum.com/conbrio/conads20001.html

http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/10/my-favorite-retro-synth-conbrio-ads.html

It's been a legendary beast - mostly because of how it looks (of course). But until this week, we didn't know it was really GOOD. As a slightly outside observer, it was truly amazing - the design and interface are superb - you can fly on this thing and work very quickly. They implemented the synthesis with some REALLY tricky methods, as well as writing their own disc drive code, things like that. It sounds like other digital synths of the era - but with much better fidelity, its basic tone is pretty great. I am now gonna try and reunite the designers (one of them is coming along for the show and may give a talk). I will probably soon do a detailed web page showing some of the clever ideas and history. ANd my goal is to lend it out to some people, who can take it for a month and do ONE piece on it - so I can make some kind of "ALL Con Brio" CD so people can finally hear it. I don't think it's ever been on a commercial record release...

The FAIR and the MUSEUM: Sat/Sun 10-6 pm!! Exhibits from 2-6pm!

http://www.vintage.org/2007/main/

So - if you're interested in coming by (Mountain View, CA) I'll be there with it. PLEASE pass on the info to your techie-geek friends who may also appreciate this or a roomfull (museum nearby) of vintage computers; Altair, Digital Equipment Corp., Timex, Commodore, early Apple, etc."

Update via Brian in the comments:
"Well, I would think so too, but that's not true exactly. The three guys who did the Con Brio are serious computer experts; the one seen at the show makes his living manufacturing THE fastest RAM you can buy today. He says the way the Con Brio works (which is not a microprocessor counting to create "oscillators") would still be hard on a typical modern computer. If it were done by a microprocessor running numbers, yes, a modern computer would have it beat, but the speed of the Com Brio lies in the "dumb logic" way the waveforms are done, which allows it to be driven a light-speed type rates - "doing the math" with a microprocessor is harder and takes more power. They were far ahead of their time and finding unique solutions to the problems they had.

You mention the comparison between the 16 oscillators and Bill's 136 - actually the Con Brio does run 16 oscillators on each voice/key; TIMES its sixteen voices, so this is actually 256 simultaneous "oscillators" running.

On the 6 different configurations on a DX7 being adequate for what sounds are needed; to do the simple Hammond organ patch with "all drawbars out" is impossible with that limited set - and that's just 8 sine waves, no overtones per harmonic: the 6-operator setup won't do it. There is capability there with so many configurations - and how it's used is up to the user. Same for the Minimoog - Moog engineers felt that more than 3 oscillators made very little difference in the sound. Serious modular synthesists would disagree.

Not to mention - analog hardware. ALL digi synths have it for output - and the choices made there by designers can drastically affect the tone of the output - otherwise all CD players would sound the same playing the same Pink Floyd record, and we know they don't! Yet another reason a Nord Modular doesn't sound like a Doepfer or Buchla... You "can do it" in software, but it will not sound the same."

Brian Kehew's Studio and The Con Brio ADS

Brian Kehew of The Moog Cookbook sent me this shot. Note the Con Brio ADS 200. Only two of these were ever made. Brian has the first of two that was made from parts of the first Con Brio, the ADS 100. You are looking at the first ADS 200 in that shot. Simply amazing.

Synths:
(close) Con Brio
(middle) Alesis Fusion, Andromeda, CONN Electric Band, ARP String Ensemble, 360 Systems Keyboard, Chroma
(next) OB-Mx, Akai 612 sampler, Chamberlin 200
(last) Moog Voyager, Chamberlin M1

Thanks Brian!

The Moog Cookbook

J-chot is on a mission to spread The Moog Cookbook goodness. He sent me a few good links below. If you haven't heard of them, and you are a synth fan, they are definitely worth checking out. They did a number of covers including modern and classic rock all with classic analogs and a couple of classic digitals including the DKS Synergy and... The Con Brio ADS200! To give perspective on this, according to the New England Synthesizer Museum there were only three Con Brio ADS200s manufactured and only one sold. Think about that... Move over GX1.

According to the last news (2000) posted on Moog Cookbook site (title link), the duo have been keeping busy doing some remixes for others, working with Beck and playing with AIR. Apparently they are in bits of a documentary titled, "Eating Sleeping Waiting Playing" featuring AIR. Pay attention folks, lots of nuggets worth checking out in this post and these sites.

J-chot's favorite shot of them (yep, that is one cool shot).


J-chot:
"can't BELIEVE you guys haven't done a piece on my favorite electronic band the moog cookbook! They were a two piece keyboard group band that did covers of songs in the late 90's with nothing but an array of beautiful vintage synthesizers. They made two AMAZING albums and then disappeared without a trace. Inside the cover booklet of each album was a list of all the synths they used on each song! I SUPER reccomend that you buy these albums. their live shows were supposed to be amazing as each of them were supposedly keyboard wizards. and guess what else? they were big in japan! I'm not surprised at all... It's sad that they disapeared though... they do an AMAZING cover/remix of Air's "Kelly watch the stars" if you can find it.. (oh trust me it's worth the search)

My fav pic of them: http://members.aol.com/mellot/pic2.jpg

Home page: http://hometown.aol.com/mellot/mcb.html

ALbums: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/artist/glance/-/82307/102-5163645-7448110

some of their GEAR: http://hometown.aol.com/mellot/brikeys.html

more gearand band pics: http://hometown.aol.com/mellot/photos.html

here's a little piece by the synth museum: http://www.synthmuseum.com/mc/

here's a music video: http://www.musicvideocodes.com/?artist=6559

there's other little bits and pieces floating around.... but you NEED to educate the world about The Moog Cookbook! [consider it done!] : )


J-chot"

My Favorite Retro Synth - The ConBrio ADS 200

"THE ADS (Advanced Digital Synthesizer) 100 was a high end (there was no given price when the 100 system was introduced) analogue synthesiser, probably most well known for providing the sound effects for 'Star Trek' TV series. The first model 100 system was a dual manual splittable keyboard (microtonally tuneable) ,a video display for envelopes, 'control cube' disk drive with computer hardware, and a multi-coloured buttoned front panel for 64-oscillator additive synthesis and real-time sequencing."

Title link takes you to more on the ADS 200 on Synthmuseum.com. Both the ADS 100 and ADS 200 were digital. Only two of the ADS 200 were ever made and one sold for $30,000.

Update: I remember hearing how the ConBrio ADS 200 would look home on the original Star Trek series. Well, according to 120 Years, it's bigger predecessor, the 1978 ADS 100 was actually used in Star Trek the TV series.

Update: I should change the tagline of this blog to "The Snopes of the synth world, debunking Urban Synth Legend." See the comments for much more. The ADS 100 was not around when Star Trek the TV series was aired. I'm going to shoot 120 years an email on this to see if they know something we don't. Thanks all.

Update: Looks like Retro Synth found the answer to our little mystery. The ADS 100 was used in Star Trek, The Motion Picture. Now that sounds more familiar to me, but who knows, it's all a blur. Too many synths, too little time... : ) As for my favorite digital synth, why it would also be the Wave... But, it would be the Crimson Wave with matte finish. The ConBrio is my favorite Retro Synth, focus on Retro. I had a TV that looked just like it when I was a kid. Warm memories... : ) image via wikipedia.

The Crimson Waldorf Wave

Update on the original Star Trek via the comments: ""Star Trek burst upon T.V. screens in the summer of 1966. The guiding genius behind this massive effort was Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry recruited a hand-picked technical crew to create the incredible series which became a legen in its own time. The challenge of finding and creating the multitude of sound effects was of particular interest since no television series of this magnitude had ever been attempted before. Virtually all the sound effects were created exclusively for the television series, i.e.: the pneumatic doors of the Enterprise were actually the sound of an airgun played in reverse. Spock's viewing machine was in reality the thump of a torpedo firing pin played backwards.

The final result is a unique library of brilliantly futuristic sound effects that were created principally by Jack Finlay, Douglas Grindstaff and Joseph Sorokin. Grindstaff is one of Hollywood's finest sound editors and the recipient of many awards and is currently the department head of Lorimar Post-Production. Sorokin also works at Lorimar and is the sound editor of "Knots Landing." Jack is now retired.

Just imagine what they could have created for Star Trek if they had access to today's high-tech electronic equipment!""