Realton Variophon Spot with Seven Cards

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via this VEMIA auction

"Variophons are simply the best wind synthesisers ever produced. This one is a reluctant sale, because although I have another one it is such a unique instrument I would be devastated if that one broke. There is simply nothing else I know of which can make a non-wind player able to play with expression, and, unlike with sampled or digital sounds, sound like a wind player too. The designers need more recognition for making a.) a great controller and b.) the most amazingly realistic impersonations of wind instruments you ever heard. This version was checked over by Lucid recently (May 2014), and is in excellent working order. It comes with seven cartridges - Panflute, Horn, Trombone, Clarinet, Saxophone, Trumpet, Tuba. They are all wonderful. With the glissando control (left hand operated) and the attack, volume and timbre variations you get with breath, this really is astonishingly organic and musical. It comes with a useful info sheet from a previous owner. The wind controller looks like it was silver-painted at some stage, but otherwise the whole thing is in excellent cosmetic condition. It comes with a new unused mouthpiece. (You may need to put it in hot water first to make it easy to attach.) The one design fault is that it seems impossible to close the main unit case safely with the existing Euro plug on the mains lead, so for transit we will cut the lead ready for you to get your own UK or Euro plug fitted to it. Packing 5GBP."

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Realton Variophon Gig wind synth

via this auction

"Made in West Germany early eighties, 1980/1982. Comes with the Martinetta wind blower and 6 voice cards: sax, tuba, oboe, panflote, trompet, horn."

Talk Talk and the Realton Variophon

via Rick: "Two Talk Talk songs with multiple variphons:"

Talk Talk - APRIL 5TH - 1986

YouTube via ColourOfSpring | November 16, 2007 |
lyrics on YouTube
"Album : The colour of spring
Piste : 4
Année : 03.1986"

Talk Talk - CHAMELEON DAY - 1986

ColourOfSpring | November 16, 2007
lyrics
"Album : The colour of spring
Piste : 7
Année : 03.1986"

You can find more info on the Variophone in this post, this post, and the Realton label below.

Realton Variophon

via this VEMIA auction
click the image for the full size shot
"I'm a dedicated Variophonist and have therefor collected quite a few over the last years. Since I have other priorities in life than repairing gear I've decided to clear out my stash of non-working units. Before you look at the picture I want to point out that all of the now auctioned units come with a full set of voice cards of your choice out of my supply of tested and working voice cards (circa 20 units) but does not include windcontroller. This unit is a Variophon Gig, and I've done some testing and came to the conclusion that everything seems to work except that it only plays sound cards inserted in slot 6 (out of 6). Otherwise it's as great as can be expected. A fair guess is a faulty IC but I cannot verify this without further testing. The case and panel are in great cosmetical condition with only minor scratch marks around edges and on the top of the unit. And, _if the final price exceeds 1000 GBP_ I'll include: A Variophon keyboard controller with mouth piece to go with it. The keyboard is in great shape and is fully working. The mouth piece looks great but has a history of somewhat erratic behaviour (i e sometimes it works flawlessly, sometimes it stops working in the middle of a song and after a short power off/on it's back online again). It is common with Variophons that the wind-to-voltage functions needs both adjustment and some tender love and care. But, as you know if you read this (or have checked out Peter's praise in 'A-Z'), the Variophon is a great instrument when working. Trust me - I have two work horses in the studio. :)"

Rhapsody for the Variophon

YouTube via taskent99
"Realton Variophon:
Very rare german windsynthesizer. I have own this wonderful instrument nearly 30 years.
Haven´t played Variphon for a long time...I had forgotten how lovely&expressive it`s sound is...
Other instrument´s on this little sketch are Cigar Box Synth, Digitech Vocalist VHM-5 & AdrenaLinn.
http://www.variophon.de/"

Variophon and Martinetta Enthusiasts' Page

via Steamy Vicks in the comments of this post.

click here for the website in both German and English.

Realton Variophon

via the VEMIA auction.

REALTON SSAP-ZERO Digital Synth from 1983

Just a shot of the brochure via this auction. According to the auction the brochure has 4 pages.

This one via swissdoc who mentioned "As of synrise it was only a prototype. Realton is the company which made the VARIOPHON." You can read more about the Variophon in this post.

If you know more about the SSAP-ZERO feel free to comment or shoot me an email.

Realton Variophon

Title link takes you to the rest of the shots pulled via this auction. Details: "very rare Realton Variophon gig. 19inch 3u rack analogue wind instrument synth made in the early 80s with 6 different instrument expansion cards that slot into the back of the rack. the cards that are included with this unit are tuba, trumpet, clarinet, alto saxaphone, soprano saxaphone, trombone. the sounds can be played individually or you can choose to play any combination (including all of them) at the same time. this is not multi timbral so you can't play a bass line with the tuba a lead line with the trumpet etc. the rack unit has 4 knobs for editing each individual sound
* Upper Partials: for changing the amplitude of the high partials, (Sharpness of the sound),
* Lower Partials: for changing the amplitude of the low partials and the fundamental
* Formant Frequency: for selecting a spectral band which could be attenuated or amplified with the formant level knob.
* Formant Level: for attenuating or amplifiing the choosen spectral band (formant frequency).
includes flightcased 32 note keyboard with cable to connect to the rack unit breath controller with 7 spare mouthpieces and the cable to connect to the keyboard mono and stereo output every instrument card works,the breath controller works,all of the knobs have a nice smooth action and the keyboard plays great. this synth doesn't produce moog type analogue sounds it only makes wind instrument sounds,so if you need a synth to make bonkers noises look elsewhere. there is an enthusiasts website that you can look at to find extensive information about this synth and play a virtual version.the address is www.variophon.de"