RMS Custom Synth from the Boston School of Electronic Music - Demo

video upload by Phil Cirocco

"This one-of-a-kind custom made synth was designed and built for the Boston School of Electronic Music by Ron Rivera of ARP Instruments & Aries Synthesizers. We restored this machine to full functionality here at CMS/Discrete Synthesizers. This video has somewhat poor sound, so I was reticent to publish it and I apologize, however I thought it possibly significant that viewers could hear what this incredible machine sounds like. It's huge, one piece front panel is somewhat similar to the 2600 using .141" jacks. It is painted in Blue Marvin blue with a custom silk screen in black. All the circuitry is mounted on vector boards that plug into the back. The Poly-Soloist sits on top."

GODWIN MPS88 - The Final Boss That Does Whatever You Ask

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

Another first to be featured on the site, the GODWIN MPS88

00:00 Setting up and Plugging in
01:24 Specifications and Introduction
02:22 Auto Accompaniment Section
04:26 The Mystery Explained / Musical Interlude
05:27 Drum Machine
08:09 Upper Manual Sounds
10:40 Musical Interlude
11:29 Monophonic Synth
12:55 A Brief History of Godwin Auto Comp Machines
13:24 Lower Manual
16:25 Last Musical Interlude

After our videos on the predecessors Godwin CD1 and CD2 we felt we had to continue all the way to the finish line of Godwins output of amazing and rare, combination instruments.
The GODWIN MPS 88 was most likely the last instrument to come out of the factory and BOY is it something special!
It doesn't look like any other Italian instrument that we've laid eyes on, and the majority of the sounds are unique to this machine.

You'll find all the information we've managed to unearth in the video but a quick roundup would look like this.

The instrument consists of mainly 6 instrument sections with individual volumes divided between two manuals - all playable simultaneously.

1. DRUM MACHINE - sample based sounds
2. AUTO ACCOMPANIMENT section (bass, chords and arpeggiator)
3. 2 x PARAPHONIC PRESETS (upper / lower orchestra)
4. SOLO PRESETS (monophonic synth)
5. 2 X ORGAN FLUTES (organ footages)
6. 2 X STRINGS / CHOIR

There are only minor modulation possibilities available but the spring reverb is nice and deep and the Chorus and Leslie effects are great too, although they might deserve a closer look by our tech since we're not sure they function properly.

If you're into rare Italian synths and drum machines you can subscribe to our channel and please check out our other videos of rare gems, but you might also enjoy the V.A.I. website, an encyclopedia of Italian Vintage Synths and Drum Machines:

https://www.vintageaudioinstitute.com/"

Yamaha EMR-1 Digital Drummer Sound Demo

video upload by Runningonair

Note: this appears to be the first demo featuring the EMR-1 on the site. There was one previous post featuring the EMR-1 in Yamaha's half rack series here.

"In this video I demo patterns from the Yamaha EMR-1 Digital Drummer, released in 1988. The patterns vary in usefulness but the lofi digital sounds (8/12bit) could be good for sampling. The individual sounds can apparently be played via a midi utility, but I've not looked into that so far.

All patterns are at 120BPM, for those that would like to try them out."

Music/Support:

https://runningonair.bandcamp.com/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5fNUf...

https://paypal.me/runningonair?

Gem Genesys XP - Generative Journey Space Ambient - Woodpeaker 4 tracks seq & Ribn for CC controls

video upload by VSMI - Vintage Synths Made in Italy

Another first to be featured on the site from VSMI.

"Generative Journey Space Ambient for Gem Genesys XP
Woodpeaker 4 tracks sequencer for iPad plays generative 4 tracks & Variations in real time control.
Ribn for iPad controls ADSR, Cut Off & Resonance filter and Modulation in real time.
Lexicon Alex reverb
Washburn WD400 digital delay from '80

for more tracks
https://vsmi.bandcamp.com"

GODWIN CD2 - 1980s - The First Ever Demo Of Rare Apparatus

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

Note this appears to be the first post to feature the GODWIN CD2.

00:00 Setting Up
00:41 Introduction
01:28 UPPER MANUAL : organ tabs and polyphonic presets
04:13 Solo Synth
05:07 Debunking the Mystery
06:19 Drum Machine
08:26 Three Quick Improvisations
09:47 Lower Manual : organ tabs, solo synth routing and arpeggiator
11:18 Musical Interlude
12:42 Bonus Musical Interlude

"A fresh video entry in the category 'Rare as a unicorn on stilts' - this mystifying auto-accompaniment machine organ and synth from Italys' Godwin is the only one we've ever encountered.

These type of sound generators were controlled by foot pedals and electronic accordions, generally in the hands of one-man-bands providing light entertainment in places where people congregated, imbibed alcoholic liquids and sometimes even got up and danced.
Remember those?
Ski resorts, beach clubs, dance halls, restaurants and hotels, for drinks or dinner.

The CD2 (we're not sure what the abbreviation actually stands for but we're guessing Computer Drums) is actually more than sequenced bass lines and chords though.
It's equipped with 2 separate preset- and organ sections and even a monophonic preset synth and the whole Shebang, unlike on many keyboards at the time, can be engaged simultaneously for massively wide and deep soundscapes.
All those sounds need lots of circuitry safely housed in a military grade flight case.
The GODWIN CD2 is well chunky, clocking in at a whopping 24 kilos.

The video explains most its specifications and includes a bit of history too but a summarisation would go something like this :

1. Sample Based Drum Machine with 16 Rhythms and 16 Drum Fills
2. Auto-Comp section with bass, chords and arpeggiator with 2 sounds
3. 2 x Organ Sections with 15 tabs total
4. 7 Polyphonic Preset Sounds
5. 7 Monophonic Synth Sounds
6. Various Chorus and Reverb Effects

If you're into rare Italian synths and drum machines you can subscribe to our channel and please check out our other videos of rare gems, but you might also enjoy the V.A.I. website, a photo book and encyclopedia Italian Vintage Synths and Drum Machines:

https://www.vintageaudioinstitute.com/"

Fujiha F3000 by Viscount

video upload by VSMI - Vintage Synths Made in Italy

Note: this appears to be the first post to feature the Fujiha F3000 on the site.

"Home keyboard Made in Italy by Viscount - 1988 (Mondaino - Rimini)

61 keys - 16 polyphonic presets

Rhythm unit - programmable PCM

Memory - 8 programmable instruments through Record. Play, Clear Instruments, Clear all, Adjustable Tempo and Volume.

Effects: vibrato - Sustain - Computer Harmony

Enso Looper on iPad
Fac Alteza Reverb"

Electric Cow Sound Chip Synth (aka MiniMOO) for Atari STE/STFM/TT/Falcon - features and sound demo

video upload by ako

Also see the Electric Cow EC909

NOTE: this is the first demo to feature the MiniMOO on MATRIXSYNTH. The only other post to featuring the MiniMOO dates back to this screenshot in 2007. The site linked there, Church of the 16th bit, is still live!

"Quick look at the Electric Cow Sound Chip Synth (aka MiniMOO) for Atari STE/STFM/TT/Falcon - including it's features and sound demos. This programme lets you access and edit parametes of the Yamaha YM soundchip to create sounds and play them back via MIDI. It's fairly decent synth tbh - the oscillator has various detuning, sub osc / 'stacking' options, capable of some nice chorus-y sounds, a noise source, amplitude modulation and LFO for pitch modulation as well as an envelope that can either be used for pitch or amplitude. The latency is useable with MIDI data that does not have too many notes per bar, and you can play it in real time, but if you throw too many notes at it, it gets a bit latent and/or seems to buffer notes and play them back after a delay. Judging by the name, I guess it was meant to be a MiniMoog emulator if sorts - but that's dubious at best despite that it's a really solid bleep bloop machine!

Download the programme from Electric Cow's archive here: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/mi...

Track from sound demo 1: 𝖜𝖍𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗 𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖕𝖊𝖓𝖘, 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍 𝖎𝖘 𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖊𝖓𝖉 [video below]



Track from sound demo 2: Deepforest [video below]



00:00 - intro
00:39 - overview of the parameters basic fucntions
01:53 - using with midi: lag, latency and other quirks
03:34 - the oscillator
05:39 - VCA (mixer)
06:16 - noise generator
07:36 - Amplitude modulation
08:42 - LFO
09:59 - Envelope Generator
13:19 - saving and loading patches
14:52 - portamento
15:10 - setting MIDI chanel
15:30 - what do I like using it for
16:07 - sound demo 1: bass sound (link to the track in description)
17:26 - sound demo 1: all synth sounds made with the soundchip synth (link to the track in description)

ako - 𝖜𝖍𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗 𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖕𝖊𝖓𝖘, 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍 𝖎𝖘 𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖊𝖓𝖉 [vaporwave / hardvapor / horrorvapor / dungeon'n'bass]
video upload by ako

MIDIeval - Deepforest ( ako 16bit remix) [ dungeon synth / chiptune]

video upload by ako

Polysynthi Loops

video upload by Memetune Studio

"Here's a happy/sad tune on the ultra rare and quite exquisite EMS Polysynthi. Maybe only about 30 of these synthesisers were ever made, and probably just a handful are left in the wild. It came out in 1978 to rave reviews (https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/em...) but then disappeared in spectacular fashion when other polysynths came to market around the same time (Prophet 5, Korg PS3100, Yamaha CS80, Polymoog, Roland Jupiter 4), most of which had huge corporate advertising budgets behind them. But the EMS had a number of unique things going for it, such as 49 note polyphony (albeit sharing one filter / VCA -- it is essentially paraphonic, like the Polymoog), 2 LFOs with a clever routing system, pressure sensitive keyboard, and a voltage controlled analogue delay section. But above all, it has a totally "of-its-time" sound like no other synth I know - it creates instant late-70s happy/sad tones like nothing else in my studio. And the other thing - JUST LOOK AT IT

This is a live performance using the Polysynthi and the Concrete Box (stereo loopers) to layer up multiple passes of melodies

As always, thanks for watching, and enjoy the tones"

Electric Cow EC909 - TR-909 drum machine / TB-303 synth for Atari STE/TT/Falcon

- demo & sample pack video upload by ako

Note this is the first post to feature the EC909.

"Quick look at the Electric Cow EC909 drum machine / soft synth for Atari ST/TT/ Falcon and a sample pack made from it's TR-909 sounds. It's a combined TR-909 and TB-303 emulator in one programme (a lot like Steinberg / Propellerheads's ReBirth) which is neat and features PCM samples from a TR909 for the drums (also neat) which can be edited in terms of pitch and attack. My understanding is their wares were more aimed at the falcon but will run on STEs and TTs given that this was released in 1998. EC909 can create single‑bar patterns (in real time on the Falcon), and then export them as AIFF or AVR (Both 8‑ or 16‑bit formats, mono or stereo). The program can also generate a MIDI File from your pattern. MIDI triggering for drums is also possible. The manual, which is still online, contains instructions for loading your own samples into to replace the stock 909 samples using the included CandiKit program, very cool! this lags noticeably on the STE, but still works well enough to play back the drum sounds for sampling.

EC909 sample pack (both raw and processed with noise reduction):
https://drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Download the programme from Electric Cow's archive here: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/mi...

EC909 manual here:
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/mi...

Chapters:
00:00 - background info, compatability, bundled software
01:29 - quick look at the TB-303 emulator (surprisingly ok!)
01:54 - latency
01:59 - TR-909 drum machine overview and basic features and verisons
04:25 - All basic sounds
05:15 - tuning / pitching samples
06:03 - editing the attack of the sound
08:17 - what's in the smaple kit
09:13 - triggering via MIDI, issues with voiving, latency etc.
13:31 - 1 min sound demo using the drums sampled into ableton"

Bob Moog 2003 NAMM Interview – Hosted by Frank Serafine

video upload by moogfoundation

matrix note: note what Bob Moog says after 5:18. Many of you might know that Herb Deutsch suggested the keyboard as the main interface for the Moog synthesizer, while Morton Subotnic had an influence on Don Buchla in the development of the synthesizer as a repacement for working with tape for new sound creation and manipulation. Don Buchla did not want to limit the interface to a 12 note keyboard. Buchla has become synonymous with atonal music, and not viewing the purpose of a synthesizer as an instrument meant to synthesize known instruments, but rather as a sonic easel, hence the Buchla Music Easel. Moog in general is credited with the direction of keyboard based synthesis. It's fascinating hearing Bob Moog essentially say otherwise. This interview is from 2003, before internet discussions between East and West coast synthesis took off.

Video description:

"Please donate to the Bob Moog Foundation to help make presentations like this possible: https://bit.ly/ContributeBMF

We are excited to share this never-before-seen 2003 interview with Bob Moog! Here, Bob shares his original inspirations and insightful speculation on the future of electronic music. He also gives a brief demonstration of the then-newly released Minimoog Voyager.

The interview was hosted by Frank Serafine (April 6th, 1953 – September 12th, 2018), a lauded American motion picture sound designer, sound editor, and composer.

Many thanks to Harold LaRue of haroldlaruemastering.com for editing the audio for us. He did a masterful job of editing out so much background noise from NAMM including vacuuming, someone playing a keyboard in the background, and so much more.

We lost Bob Moog on August 21st, 2005, and are proud to commemorate him and his legacy today on the 20th anniversary of the Bob Moog Foundation.

Help us carry Bob's legacy forward, inspiring future generations at the intersection of science, music, history, and innovation. Support our work by doing one (or all) of the following:

🌐 Visit the Bob Moog Foundation: https://www.moogfoundation.org
📨 Sign up for our eNewsletter: https://bit.ly/BobMoogFoundationNewsl...
💖 Donate to the Foundation: https://bit.ly/ContributeBMF
🎟️ Become a Member: https://bit.ly/BMFMembership
🛍️ Shop Our Online Store: https://bit.ly/shopbmf

#bobmoog #frankserafine #moogvoyager #minimoogvoyager #moogsynthesizers #synthlegend #synthesizers #moog #mooginterview #nammshow"

Wavemaker 4 Vintage Synthesizer For Sale or Trade Meticulously Refurbished

video upload by tonetweakers

"Here’s a video of one of the two rare Wavemaker 4 vintage analog modular synthesizers we have been refurbishing. Let us know in the comments if youd like us to post some more videos. These restorations have been very challenging due to the lack of schematics and technical documentation. So far, we have spent over 200 hours on the pair. One appears to be working exactly as it should, but the second isn’t quite done. Once it is, we may consider selling or trading one of them. We would like to connect with others who own Wavemakers and KB Electronic Music Instrumentation devices and are interested in purchasing other instruments and documentation - please get in touch via our website.

Buy vintage gear that works like new at tonetweakers.com

We buy sell trade refurbish vintage synths and electronic musical instruments.

Tone Tweakers Inc.
http://www.tonetweakers.com"

Vintage Vocoder w/ Bigfoot Music Sticker on Back

Note: links to listings are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

This one was spotted and sent in via
M Me.

via this eBay listing

"Superb vintage Vocoder unit.

Unable to find out much information online about this to be honest - there's a 'Bigfoot Music' sticker on the back, but I'm pretty certain that was probably a shop rather than the maker.

I have tested the 'Speech' side and it was all working fine, sounds great!

I couldn't get a sound from the right side (ex.) but I'm no expert on these so maybe it's just a case of flipping the correct switch.

I also haven't tested the rear inputs/(outputs?) as I'm not sure what they're for.

Great chance to own a rare piece of vintage music gear!"

If anyone has any additional information on this one, feel free to leave a comment below. It almost looks DIY.

CLICK FOR MORE »

ART FXR Multi-Effect + Serdaco QWave Wavetable card

video upload by General Midi Guy ⚡

This appears to be the first post to feature the Serdaco QWave. There was one previous post from 2012 to feature the ART FXR.

"Serdaco QWave Waveblaster Daughterboard (QS1000 chipset, 4Mbit ROM) insida a Korg NX5r sound expander module going through an ART FXR Stereo Multi-Effects Processor.

So open your ears and dance to these magical general midi sounds all night, if you want the same sounds u can buy the Qwave from the Serdaco webshop 😎

Many of the sounds is very similar to the Windows 98 midi soundfont (Roland) so that's also an option.

#generalmidi #waveblaster #wavetable"

Dutch STEIM Zwarte Dozen Systeem - Sound Demo with Novanex Delay.

video upload by Acid Solder Club

"Short jam of patching with the rare Dutch modular synth system that started out around 1974 within the STEIM Studio for Electro-Instrumental music.

Since 2022 Veerle (Elektortek) got her hands one this system, in total consisting out of 4 rows of "cassettes"/modules (34 total modules, 4x patch matrices). It needs quite some servicing and repair, but als a lot of cassettes survived the forces of time.

Since last year the system is based at Acid Solder Club Utrecht, Veerle's creative electronics/ DIY and synth workshop and experimental sound studio based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Together with a small team (herself, Rob vd Poel and Sybren Danz) we are searching for documentation, video materials, schematics and all kinds of doodled and sketched info, that most unfortunately, is lost in time.

We are currently also working on a digital archive with stories, patch ideas, a new service manual and repair blog.The process is slow, since a lot of information is lost and we are looking at similar circuits at the time, and digital and book references to help the build.

Follow Acid Solder Club insta and socials for quick updates!
@acidsolderclub
/ acidsolderclub

No post processing anything, and also no filter (yet, in service) or envelopes so it was quite challenging and not really all volume levelled out and such but meh, that's not the point of this video :)

Casettes used in this patch:
V.C Quadrature Oscillator
3x VCO/LFO
ProductModulator
Dual amplifier divider
Inverter
Dual VCA
2x Matrix patchpanels
NOVANEX Sound Shifter SS12000.
that was in the workspace for servicing for the Re:vive Studio, based inside the Instituut of Image and Sound in Hilversum.

https://revivethis.org
https://www.beeldengeluid.nl"

Money, power and ... synths? - what synthesizers can tell us about geopolitics

video upload by Floyd Steinberg

Missed in South America: GS Music - Argentina, EMW - Brazil, and AtomoSynth - Peru. AnalogFX in Netherlands. Meng Qi is worth a DIY stand out mention for China as well as Aforack in Uganda, Africa. There's no way to list every manufacturer, but if he missed a country/region feel free to comment (feel free to comment regardless of course). It's an interesting video and a useful reminder of where manufacturers are based.

"If a country can support one or even more synthesizer manufacturers, that tells us a lot about its place in the world. I have some numbers to back this up, look at some of those synthesizer-producing countries and then make some predictions on their future trajectory.

Table of contents:

00:00 introduction
00:50 the idea (explained with the UK)
02:43 the synthesizer world map walkthrough (west to east)
03:01 United States of America
04:21 France
04:56 United Kingdom
06:27 Germany
07:50 Italy
09:08 Scandinavia (i.e. Sweden)
10:07 Eastern Europe
11:18 Ukraine
12:18 Russia
13:19 China
15:11 Australia and New Zealand
16:37 Japan
18:40 The DIY scene
19:34 conclusion - where are the countries headed to?
20:32 my personal thoughts
21:29 bye - please subscribe (and if you like this style of video, please tell me in the comments)

B-Roll footage from pexels.com

HÄLP ZIS CHANNEL
https://www.patreon.com/floyd_steinberg
https://floydsteinberg.gumroad.com/
https://floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/"

Ultrarare Soviet synthesizer Unost" 33 PSMIDI | ЮНОСТЬ 33 PSMIDI

video upload by Futulyric

"Manufactured at the Murom plant in the early 1990s, it was released in a small run of about 200 units. It contains 128 standard MIDI instruments."

You might recall the Roland Juno-106 inspired Unost' 21. This is the first post to feature the 33.

Schober Dynabeat 1968 Transistor-Based Drum Machine

Note: links to listings are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
video uploads by Adrian Täckman

Found the above searching for a demo after seeing the listing below. This is the first post to feature the Schober Dynabeat.

via this Reverb listing

This appears to be the first one featured on the site. Moby had a Portable Dynabeat you can see in this post (do a find for Schober when you get there).

"Here’s a rare Schober Dynabeat (1968). It’s a vintage, transistor-based electronic drum machine designed as a DIY kit to accompany Schober organs. It produced percussion sounds (bass drum, tom-tom, cymbals, bongos) using phase-shift oscillators, allowing players to trigger sounds via small pads or by connecting it to the organ’s lower keyboard and pedals."

CLICK FOR MORE »

COMPUTALKER SPEECH SYNTHESIZER

You can find a demo of COMPUTALKER in this previous post from back in 2008.

Here are some pics and additional info on the COMPUTALKER via this reddit thread where you'll find a dropbox link to additional docs including some source code. Note the poster on reddit is looking for help on gettig it going. If you can help, reach out there.

This one was spotted and sent in via
M Me who also found some addtional info here.

From the reddit thread:

"The Computalker CT-1 was one of the earliest commercially available speech synthesizers for personal computers. Introduced in late 1976 and shipped beginning in 1977, it was developed by D. Lloyd Rice and Jim Cooper in Santa Monica, California through their company, Computalker Consultants.

Unlike simpler speech devices that played back recorded sounds, the CT-1 was a 9-parameter formant speech synthesizer. A host computer generated control data describing pitch, formant frequencies, fricatives, aspiration, and other speech characteristics, while the CT-1 generated the actual voice waveform in hardware."

"My goal, (which I do think may end up being completely impossible) is to get this up and running and hear it speak. Among the photos, there are some shots of the inside. I understand that this was originally designed for the S-100 bus going as far back as the Altair 8800. Serial number inside and out is 7001 and I can see that a previous owner likely replaced the older capacitors already.

This variant however, In all my searching I cannot seem to find a single reference to anywhere. My best guess with the information I have is that this could be a prototype version that was meant for later computers and perhaps it's missing some type of interface card for maybe an Apple II or TRS-80?

Here is a dropbox link to all of the information I have collected so far. I have found the manual, the software manual (With source code?!) and all sorts of little information. Also there's a lot more photos....

https://www.dropbox.com...

Maybe someone out there has seen this before? I am super excited to keep collecting information on this! Thank you for checking this out!"

Some pics of the inside below.

CLICK FOR MORE »

1977 E-Mu Systems Modular Synthesizer - Original VCA - 2000 Blueprint

Note: links to listings are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via these Reverb listings

See the seller's other listings for more.

"For sale is a vintage original Blueprint for the modular E-Mu Systems - VCA - 2000 Voltage Controlled Amplifier Submodule dated 12/05/1977. DOC.#2000 - 011-002

Don't miss out on this historic piece of history.

I accept offers for this original E-Mu Modular Blueprint.

This is a must-have for any vintage synthesizer/E-MU collector as these are getting very hard/impossible to find these days.

This Blueprint is in very good condition, see the picture's for more detail.

I'm shipping worldwide. The actual shipping-cost must be paid by the winning bidder of this auction. All sales are final. No returns accepted. Selling as is, don't hesitate to contact me for more information and/or picture's.

Please check my other auction's as well, I can combine shipping to reduce shipping-costs . Thank you for your interest."

Exelvision Exeldrums

This one was spotted and sent in via Ivan Trajkovic aka deejayiwan. This is the first post to feature Exelvision.

via the Rare & Old Computers blog

"As I said in another blog post I find the computers of the 1980s French company Exelvision interesting and under-appreciated. Not only featured these computers (French) speech synthesis, but it had also one of the most interesting and quirky add-ons of the 80s: a digital drum computer (well, sort of)! Fitting into the naming scheme of Exelvisions products, it was called the “Exeldrums”. It was first sold in 1985 for 1200 French Francs (about 400 USD today)."

See Rare & Old Computers for the full post.