via Pal of the Hungarian
Oscillator blog:
"In the early eighties I saw a monosynth with an upright control panel like the MS-20 and I am 99% sure it was called METZ, because I even found it on the map (it is a town in France). I understand there is a company manufacturing electronic stuff with that name but I have not found anything, NOT A TRACE of that synth on the web. Have you heard about it?"
If anyone knows feel free to comment or shoot me an email. My contact info is on the bottom right of the site.
Update via Dirk:
"i've just found some Informations for the Metz Synthesizer on synrise.de
http://synrise.de/docs/types/m/metz.htm
Unfortunatley all the Informations are german but i've just did an translation:
(Feel free to modify it)
There are also 2 Companys called Metz, the first one is from germany which is building tv's and satelitte receivers the second one is from france and building heater / radiator stuff
Best wishes
Dirk
METZ
The US American Mike METZ has developed an analogue synth for his own purpose
ANALOGSYNTH / mon syn exp kmi ?
Metz combined parts and construction units from various companies and putted it all together in an wooden case.
For example he used the oscillator bank and mixer (as used in the minimoog). All the parts were modificated. So the oscillator banks had PWM and the possibility for seperate pitch modulation
Also he had several outputs for each waveform. For each oscillator in the oscillator bank (there are in total 3 banks) there is the possibility of coarse- an finetuning. The vca and vcf are built from parts of the sequential circuits - prophet 5
There are also two envelope generators with cv controlls , an cv controlled lfo, an inverter, an attennuator, an gate delay and cv/gate interface."
I should have thought of looking at synrise! Someone once challenged me to find a synth not listed there. I thought I did, but apparently not. I forget what it was though. :)
Update via the maker himself, Mike Metz of
Thesis Audio Service: "Here is all the info for the "Metz Synth", just before too much urban legend misinformation starts. This synth appeared in the Keyboard Magazine May 1998 issue as "Keyboard of the Month". I am amazed that someone remebers that.
It is a one-off synth that I built for my personal use out of "leftover" parts from my repair shop. The OSC section is made from an original Minimoog OSC board that I had in stock from repair parts. It has been built in a modular fashion with several options that the Mini never had. Each of the 3 OSCs has mixable waveforms, PWM, coarse and fine tune controls, and individual modulation inputs much like a modular synth. Thats the OSC section on the left.
The right half contains circuitry designed around the SCI Pro-1, not the Prophet 5, but the same thing. It contains a modular VCF with voltaged controlled Co and Rez. There are 2 voltage controlled envelope generators, a voltage controlled LFO, a VCA/envelope generator module, two attenuator / inverter modules, a gate delay module, and the master CV I/O module. All designed around the Curtis CEM circuits."
Side note: per above Mike Metz now runs
Thesis Audio Service. It looks like we have a new (old) synth tech.
"Since 1976, THESIS AUDIO SERVICE has provided the midwest with quality, afforable repairs, maintenance, and restoration services on all types of equipment for musicians, sound companies and dealers."
The maker of the METZ synth, Mike Metz, wrote in with more info on his unique creation. You can find more images and what he had to say in the original post. Scroll down to the Update that begins with the image pictured here.
