Steiner Parker Synthacon

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You can find a few demos of the Steiner-Parker Synthacon scattered throughout posts here and here.

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Exploration of Steiner-Connolly Synthacon synthesizer

video upload by Forest Jay

Steiner-Connolly Synthacon demo
video upload by Forest Jay

Steiner-Crumar Masters Touch Analog Synthesizer Breath Controller/Filter Module 00209

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You can find a demo of one here.

"This is an early breath controller/filter module originally made for the Crumar Stratus. It can be connected to almost any vintage analog synthesizer. It has two trigger outs, three transducer voltages out, touch modular pad, bite and breath attenuators, and sensitivity adjustments. It can make almost any analog synth breath controllable.

This filter module was originally sold from 1978 - 1980. This particular module shows signs of mild rust and paint blemishes. The breath tubes are yellowed and old. It has not been tested, however, since this is an old analog synthesizer module, the components can be easily replaced if necessary. Possibly only the capacitors would need to be replaced.

The last photo of the serial number plate still has the remnants of the plastic cover on it."

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EMEAPP SONIC TEST DRIVE: STEINER-PARKER SYNTHACON Feat. DON SLEPIAN

video upload by EMEAPP

"That filter! Need we say more. The fabled Steiner-Parker Synthacon is a three oscillator beast of a portable mono-synth capable of immensely fat tones, is highly regarded for its tuning stability and is chock full of awesome control and modulation options. However, the star of the show is the Synthacon's peerless multi-mode LP/BP/HP which has cultivated an identity of its own and has achieved legendary status. Its a fantastic bit of electronic engineering and it truly behaves in a unique manner as compared to its contemporaries. Join Don Slepian as he takes a dive into the Sytnthacon and puts the filter through its paces."

Steiner Crumar Electronic Valve Instrument EVI analog trumpet synthesizer (serviced) SN 00256

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"rare vintage Steiner Electronic Valve Instrument, manufactured by Crumar. It has just been serviced and tuned by a specialist. The service report is part of the sale.

The EVI is a monophonic analog synthesizer controlled by breath, and styled after a trumpet. If you have the skills to play this instrument you'll be impressed by the filter. It's sounding amazing!

Cosmetically it’s in very good condition. The ‘trumpet’ has very little signs of use, the hardcase has some rusty spots on the metal parts. Please check all the photos before you purchase this item.

It is an original 117v version and the serial number is: 00256"

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STEINER-PARKER SYNTHACON - Analog Synth Demo

video upload by synth4ever

"Steiner-Parker Synthacon vintage analog synthesizer demo. This demo of the rare Synthacon mono synth from Steiner-Parker features various sounds and tweaking. Filmed at the Vintage Synthesizer Museum in Los Angeles, CA.

The Steiner Parker Synthacon is a rare monophonic analog synthesizer produced in 1975-1979. It features 3 VCOs, white & pink noise generator, sample & hold, portamento, 2-pole resonant lowpass/bandpass/highpass filter, 2 ADSR envelopes, trigger generator, 49 keys, and a ton of signal routing via numerous switches.

Only a few hundred Synthacon synthesizers were produced, according to designer Nyle Steiner. It's capable of nice sounds of course, but it excels at chaotic and crazy modulations, squelches, ring mod tones, noises and has an extremely potent filter with resonance. The legacy of the Steiner-Parker Synthacon's filter design lives on today in some modular synth designs as well as some Arturia products.

It was a lot of fun to try the Synthacon and tweak it, as all the switches make it very interactive for quick signal routing. If you have the opportunity to try one, don't pass it up!"

Note a new SYNTHACON is in the works.

Nyle Steiner Wire Music and Rap Samples played by Larry Nybo

video upload by Mark Steiner

Update:

"I'm re uploading this one, as it was hard to hear Nyle's wire part in most areas. I uploaded a little rushed so mix was off. Gotta feature Nyle! The main event! :)"

Modular Per Note Sample Project #1 Mark Steiner

video upload by Mark Steiner

"Sampling every note across the range to bring some rare modular sounds to keyboard and wind synth.

Winds, pads, Nyle Steiner String Filter instruments, experimental, and soon on to tube modular per-note samples.

Performed on the Berglund Instruments NuRAD (Johan Berglund's version of Nyle Steiner's Rad EWI)."

Blip! & Shell Demo. 2nd Modular Per Note Sample Project - Mark Steiner

video upload by

"Seahorses & Shells - Spiral Fibonacci Math Sounds within Analog Modular Synthesis.

Demo of the Blip! and Shell: incredible, genius analog modules made by Fricko.

Slowing building a collection of sample instruments made by sampling every note in a range to bring the beautiful tones of exotic modules and patching methods to others.

At first doing these for the Logic Pro Sampler but will expand to others. In a way that is reachable to have these as they unfold.

This demo starts with a sample instrument using the Blip! module and some Steiner modules, and then explores these modules with direct playing into the modular system. See fricko.home.blog for info about Fricko modules. They are brilliant."

Nyle Steiner plays & talks, P-2 Demo of many Time Travel New Wind Sounds - Mark Steiner

video upload by Mark Steiner

"For the Holiday season I'm offering my Time Travel Collection (license to all my sound collections future and past). And this will include the new Nyle Steiner Historical Sound Collection. Sounds he sampled himself and used in Hollywood movie sessions and more.

The first 10 orders will also get a sound named after them. Cool or silly but fun for sure!

Cost during the holidays starting now is $250.

I'll very soon have a full list up. But it includes 100 or more sounds for EVI-NER, Lyricon 1 and 2, Arturia SEM V plugin, Moog Model D for iPad, and more...

Also around 30 to 50 sounds for Anyma Phi, Moog Sirin, Arturia MatrixBrute and Respiro (both for plugin and iPad/iPhone app)... A few of my Respiro sounds will also be free to anyone. I may do up to 100 of those but at least 50.

I am also preparing and will ongoing make new sample sounds for Logic and MainStage ($30 application for Mac). These include per-note sample instrument made from analog synths, rare and exotic modules/modular synths, tube synthesis, samples from vintage EVI and EWI modules and all kinds of things.

I would note, the Anyma Phi just had an update and added more oscillator types including multi-dimensionally morphing wave table oscillators that are frosty and glassy and sound unreal. This is one of the most amazing and diverse sounding instruments and made for wind synths. I'm dying over the sounds I continue to discover within. So 100% something to get if you have a chance. Analog in it sounds soooooo good, and then so much unreal digital and physical modeling... all mixable to 3 independently expressive layers. It's a technology creature of wonder. ---fully unpaid testimonial/bought my own unit :)

Anyone who has already bought any of my sounds can upgrade to this bundle during the holidays for $150.

More info coming soon. More videos of new sounds including the Nyle samples (including his Rapping from the EVI Concerto, his own trumpet playing sample instrument, and his own exotic flute sound he carved.)

Most of these are all ready now, the rest will electronically ship by Thanksgiving.

A few parts of this seem a bit odd. At times I like to keep unexpected things from sessions in the videos as they are unusual, interesting, funny, or whatever. This one had a few things rarely caught organically... some gibberish Tourette's that I don't understand a few times (from my brain injury I'm still climbing back from). I thought I'd never share that but it felt right tonight. So it's just a little something that is organic and personal. I was also just pretty out of it in some ways from being up so late, I'm usually this... um... gone lol. Anyway, an interesting little journal entry in a way.

Thank you so much, sincerely,

Mark"

Steiner-Connolly Synthacon In the Works

Spotted this one over at Synthtopia.

Here's what Steiner-Connolly had to say about it:

“For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, the Synthacon is back!

This is an authentic, discrete, through hole recreation of this iconic 70’s synthesizer under the direction of Nyle Steiner himself.

We have added midi via a FATAR keybed, and a couple new features, but this unit has been tediously recreated right down to the original circuit board design and vintage components.”

The Steiner-Connolly Synthacon is available now to pre-order for $3,000 USD. Contact the company at support@steiner-connolly.com for details."

You can find tons of posts mentioning the Synthacon and various adaptations including individual modules and systems in previous posts here. One of my favorites though, is this demo by Todd Barton aka vgermuse. That sucker sounded brutal.

COSMIC LIGHT (nuits des étoiles) [Live session #5]

video upload by KurtzMindfields

"This is the last live session of the 'Summer of Synth 2022', for the 'nuits des étoiles'. I assume a little homage to Chris Franke & Johannes Schmoelling "Exit period". The album is now available at my Bandcamp : https://kurtzmindfields.bandcamp.com/...
Instruments : Big Ancestor NRSynth (Moog & Steiner Parker) : Melody lead & arpegiator 3th sound ( + Line 6 Chorus & DD2 Delay), SynthR3 ARP 4012 & S.E.M : master stéréo arpegiator (with TC M300 & SPX90 reverb/delay), Moog sub37 : 2th arpegiator, S.E Electronic : bass, A90 split mode : phased Strings, voices, ARP Pro Soloist : french Horn solo, Mister M Hansy : Mellotron strings & pad.
Recorded live at Nuage7 Studio, Domaine de Sourzy (05/08/2022)
'Cosmic Light' composed by jean-Luc Briançon (Aka Kurtz Mindfields)
Thanks to NRSynth (Stephen) & Rémy (SynthR).
https://kurtzmindfields.bandcamp.com/"

SWITCHED ON - BOB MOOG AND THE SYNTHESIZER REVOLUTION - Forward by Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola is into synths? Both the Moog Modular and Steiner EVI were used in the soundtrack for Apocalypse Now. See here for a couple of mentioning the story.

As for the book, detail via The Bob Moogfoundation, where you can pre-order it, follow:

SWITCHED ON - BOB MOOG AND THE SYNTHESIZER REVOLUTION PRE-ORDER

BY ALBERT GLINSKY

PUBLISHED BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

FOREWORD BY FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA

The Moog synthesizer "bent the course of music forever" Rolling Stone declared.

Bob Moog, the man who did that bending, was a lovable geek with Einstein hair and pocket protectors. He walked into history in 1964 when his homemade contraption unexpectedly became a sensation---suddenly everyone wanted a Moog. The Beatles, The Doors, The Byrds, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Yes, Stevie Wonder, and many more discovered his synthesizer, and it came to be featured in seminal film scores including A Clockwork Orange and Apocalypse Now . The Moog's game-changing sounds saturated 60's counterculture and burst into the disco party scene in the 70's to set off the electronic dance music movement. Bob had single-handedly founded the synth industry and become a star in the process.

Vintage Original Steiner Parker Synthacon

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"Steiner Parker Synthacon original, recently totally overhauled/serviced. I think this synth sounds more interesting than most vintage synths like the minimoog/2600/synthi, it has a real wild 70’s sound with raw oscillators and juicy filter, it’s unpredictable sounding in the best way possible. Local pickup in San Francisco, please contact me prior to purchasing to arrange payment and pickup."

You can find a few good demos of the original Steiner Parker Synthacon from Todd Barton in previous posts here, and additiona demos thoughout posts here.

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Neutral Labs Scrat customizable Steiner-Parker VCF Eurorack module demo

video upload by nyppy

"Available in July 2022 as DIY kit or prebuilt module. See https://neutral-labs.com/scrat

00:00 Intro
00:38 Resonance modes
01:02 Customization (LED)
01:42 Customization (LDR)
01:58 LDR madness
02:33 Preset cards"

Scrat is an aggressive sounding multimode Steiner-Parker filter with a twist: You can change the resonance flavour by plugging in components like diodes, capacitors or resistors (even LEDs and/or light-dependent resistors) directly to the front panel. A set of preset cartridges is also available, which gives you instant access to a variety of filter sounds. You could even make your own. Or go all in and connect some jumper wires to a breadboard for pretty much endless possibilities.

The 2-pole filter (12 dB/octave) supports both high-pass and low-pass mode. Even without external components or cartridges, the resonance behaviour can be changed in various ways via switches on the front panel. Both resonance and cutoff can be fully CV controlled, and the cutoff CV sensitivity can be adjusted as well.

The module contains an adjustable pre-filter drive circuit, which pairs very well with the Steiner-Parker design.

Scrat is available from July 2022 as a full DIY kit from retailers. It's a relatively easy build to complete, with a low component count and no SMD or other tricky parts. A set of 4 preset cards called Nuts (Acorn, Almond, Cashew and Pecan) is also available.

Prologue 16 Pianoish - Bellish - Heavy Key Sounds using built-in Analog Compression & Drive

video upload by Mark Steiner

"Well worth hearing in good headphones alert!

Exploring heavy weighted approached keyboard sounds I created for the Korg Prologue 16.

This synth has some great, unique strengths that are nice for this direction of sound.

These sounds use only the 2 analog VCO's and often only one of them. The only effects used are the standard ones that come with the instrument.

I love the digital engine, but here I'm exploring some things that can be done fully with the analog VCO's.

Velocity sensitivity driving volume more than filter and taking advantage at subtle levels the Drive (analog distortion) and the analog compressor on this synth.

Many of the built in effects are amazing on this synth... cinematic mastering quality. Rare in even the most expensive synths.

Having dialed in drive, compression and effects saved in a patch at subtle sweet spots is so valuable!

16 note polyphony makes it great for this too. And the high pass filter switch can push things the groovy clav direction.

Some of these also explore some bell/clangal tone types heard where a secondary VCO has a changing, non-static pitch in many variations of speed, range, and lowness/height of start point.

All sounds & effects are directly from the Prologue.

The Monologue XD's and the Prologue 8 can do this stuff quite well but the compression of the 16 really is worth having and is just great! It provides some really special tonal/response across the velocity range. So great to jam with and to be emotionally expressive with in slower passages.

The NuEVI wind synth here is also playing sounds in the Prologue. They are very different than what I usually play as they also are tone colored by a little drive and analog compression... giving them some of that speaker cabinet smudged tone these also can give the key sounds here.

Thanks for listening!"

Steiner Crumar EVI Electronic Wind Analog Synthesizer SN 00256

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"Original Steiner Crumar EVI from the 70s

Includes ribbon wire modifications and cool rainbow sticker on the case!

It’s in great playing condition I have played on this synth myself and it works great."

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Trove of Nyle Steiner Documentation and Images Available via Analogue Realities

Analogue Realities wrote in to let us know they have made a trove of Nyle Steiner documentation and images available on dropbox via his site.

"Nyle has given me permission to share this with the general public. Please, please give credit to Nyle whenever you use this information. If you make money off of his genius and work, please consider sharing something with Nyle. He is one of the truly nice, gentle, humble, and generous people in this world.

The organization is not the greatest, but I’m sure you’ll have many happy hours trying to figure out why I put things where they are :) The archive is very big, more than 4.6 Gbytes so be sure you have room."

P.S. Analogue Realities remade the Steiner Synthasystem. See the Analogue Realites label for more.


Pictured left is Nyle Steiner holding his Steiner EVI. The image was also featured back in 2015 from Analogue Realities, on a documentary being made on Nyle Steiner (see this post for the completed film). I thought this would be a great image for a new post on a trove of his historical works.

The 1979 Steiner filter.

The filter was used by YuSynth (featured posts here) and made its way into Arturia synths starting with the Minibrute designed by Yvves Usson of YuSynth.

1975 Steiner-Parker SynthaSystem Controller Keyboard

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Clouds-Two DIY analog String Machines

video upload by Andreas Remshagen

A Live-Performance with my two DIY String-Synths
I used the Strings-Synth and the Strings-Choir-Synth 2.0
The Melody comes from the Elektor-Formant and the Drums are from my analog DS7-Clone Drumbox.
All Synthesizers are driven from my Flowstone Sequencer-Software and two Polyend Poly Modules
The effects are from the Elektor Formants Noise routed through a Steiner-Parker Filterclone and Ray Wilsons Noisebox (Musicfromouterspace.com)
All String-Machines are also based one Ray Wilsons cirquits
The Solo-Synth plays the YuSynth-VCO. The ADSR is connected with
the VCO`s CV in and gives the character of a Japanese Flute

Teenage Engineering Eurorack, POM-400 Matrix Kits & Talking to Aliens with a Steiner Masters Touch

Talking to Aliens video upload by Dave Vondle

This is a bit of a triple post. Dave Vondle of http://matrix.vondle.com wrote in to let me know the final 9 units of the Ghielmetti Pin Matrix Kit for the Teenage Engineering POM-400, previously posted here, have been completed. It's featured in the video above and in a post by Teenage Engineering on converting their Pocket Operator Modules (POM) to eurorack.

That said, first the description for the video above:

"Figured out how to communicate to extraterrestrial organisms.

The Calmset 3 connected to my brain is generating the frequencies - and the Masters Touch is taking breath, bite, and touch into the Teenage Engineering POM-400 (with my matrix kit attached). Breath controls the amplitude and bite/touch modify filter parameters. This all runs through the VOCU tape echo."

See here for some additional posts featuring the Masters Touch including pics. You can also find some info on Patchman Music here.

Second, info on the final batch of Matrix Kits from http://matrix.vondle.com:

"Over a year ago I created a bolt-on kit to turn a Teenage Engineering Pocket Modular 400 into a matrix synth like the EMS Synthi. Instead of using cables to patch outputs from one module into inputs of another, you use the supplied pins to connect a row (output) to the corresponding column (input).

I have completed the final batch of 9 kits, as the manufacturer of the matrices recently went out of business. Teenage engineering just wrote a blog post featuring the kit, so I figured it would be a good time to get these last kits out there.

More info about the kit:

The matrix itself was made in Switzerland by the established patchbay company, Ghielmetti, and the kit simply bolts onto the back of the POM-400 modules with the supplied hardware - there is no soldering required. Once bolted on, it enables you to make 100% of all the patches you could otherwise make using cables, with the added benefit of having virtually no restrictions on the number of available outputs and inputs for each module. Patch cables can still be used in conjunction with the matrix for interfacing the system with external modules and running sound out from the device.

I thought you folks might be interested! For more details and to place an order go to matrix.vondle.com

Bonus Video - Here’s me when I patched a Steiner Master’s Voice into the POM-400, with the kit installed:" [above]

Third: eurorack conversions for Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operator Modules (and euro racking Pocket Operators):

via Teenage Engineering: eurorack is a very common system format when it comes to modular synths. there are tons of modules and manufacturers on the market and the pocket operator modular series is eurorack compatible. this means any POM system can be used together with any other module, from any other brand. while the pocket rack format is slightly smaller than eurorack, you only need some minor tweaks to fit your pocket operator modules in your eurorack system.

here are a few ways to 'eurorackify' your pocket operator modulars and pocket operators, plus a bonus mod to really expand the capabilities of your POM-400.

eurorack front panels for POM
the two companies malm.audio and jklmnt have joined forces and created custom eurorack front panels for the complete range of modules available in the pocket operator modular POM-400 and POM-170. pick your favorite module and mount that in your existing eurorack system, or create a complete replica of an entire system. the various panels range from 6 hp width, up to 18 hp.

power adapters
they've also made a convenient power adapter that easily converts the power connector from pocket rack to eurorack. no soldering is required and everything above is available through the oddvolt webstore.

pokit for POM-16 by grayscale
the company grayscale makes modules and stylish eurorack front panels for a lot of products. their pokit is a eurorack conversion kit for the POM-16 keyboard. the front panel has a matte black finish and is 42 hp wide. the kit even comes with matching gray official knobs. this is a great option for enabling your system with the 4-channel sequencer, arpeggiator and keyboard that is the POM-16.

pocket operators and eurorack
the usually hand-held regular pocket operators can also be used in a eurorack system. this could for instance be a great way to create a portable and powerful grab-and-go live performance instrument, or to have pocket operators tightly and neatly integrated into your studio setup. here are two examples of how to mount pocket operators in a eurorack case.

EURORACK ADAPTER BY LPZW:

POKIT - EURORACK CONVERSION KIT FOR POM-16: