Jožka Říhák plays the ELEKTRON - 83 drum machine / synth

Published on Jun 15, 2015 Peter Kirn

"From Brno, CZ - Synth Fest 2015, hosted by Bastl Instruments / Noise Kitchen. A one-of-a-kind instrument from Communist-era Czechoslovakia."

This is the ELEKTRON - 83 posted here. We now have some additional details on this unique system via CDM: "The Elektron-83 is the creation of Jožka Říhák, legendary in Moravia as a genius electronic instrument builder. His Syntezátor – 83 Unisono went into production, but the ELEKTRON – 83 is one of a kind. We got a live performance and demo/ explanation of the creation at Brno’s Synth Fest hosted by Bastl Instruments and their new Noise Kitchen shop in the Czech Republic.

And this thing is simply amazing.

First of all, it does so much that Jožka – now into his 70s and mostly retired from playing – was worried he wouldn’t remember everything he’d made it do. It’s really an early rendition of a workstation/arranger keyboard. It’s part organ, an analog synthesizer with loads of timbral variations. It’s also part drum machine, with a rich analog sound set that might be as at home accompanying techno as playing Czech folks songs. And it’s part effects box, with various additional processing onboard or accessible via a set of stompboxes he also designed.

It’s when you look closer at the design that you begin to realize how deep the rabbit hole goes. Some of the controls are obvious: okay, those are drawbars. But then the drawbars are augmented with switches, and knobs, and combinations of switches “unlock” other features, and then you find more knobs and more switches augmenting the other knobs and switches. If there was a spare bit of panel, he added a control. If he ran out of space for controls, he kept adding functionality anyway, by using combinations of additional switches and knobs..."

See the full post with additional pics on Create Digital Music.