VAI 34 Wersimatic II / Farfisa Syntorchestra

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Analog auto-accompaniment machine produced by the German organ manufacturer Wersi sometime in the mid-70s. Originally part of a big, dual manual organ called Helios, this auto-comp section was probably removed from the organ and squeezed into a Teak cabinet, crammed with circuit boards, all beautifully snug inside - a very good job by whoever built it.

You control the harmony and key with the black 12 buttons on the front replacing the one octave that was probably at the bottom 12 keys of the organ.

The Wersimatic II has sections on board: Bass
Drum machine
Various chord sounds

Melody played on the Farfisa Syntorchestra String machine and Mono synth.

Big thanks to Organfairy who helped us find the right schematics to repair it.

Vintage Audio Institute Italia is a gear vendor and recording studio in the hills of Florence."

You can find additional posts featuring the Wersimatic II here, and additional Vintage Audio Institute Italia posts here.

ELGAM CAROUSEL

Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Vintage Audio Institute Italia is a music studio and gear vendor in the hills of Florence.
Whenever we have some spare time we hook up some gear and make videos.
We're not the best players or producers, we're doing this for fun."

You can find additional posts featuring the ELGAM CAROUSEL here.

Three Songs with the SOLTON DISCO 64

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Auto accompaniment unicorn galore!
Boy this thing is as rare as it is cool - the predecessor of the Solton Programmer 24.

Not really a disco machine per se - quite a few machines featured Disco in their names for no other reason than the hype and coolness of the genre at the time (late 70s / early 80s).
But this is a unique auto-accompaniment beast with a string machine, a monophonic bass synth with individual volumes for each section, mute options, 4 bass line variations, cut-off and resonance filter, different chord sounds and of course an analog drum machine with individual sound mute options.
You can play the string machine and bass synth like a keyboard, independently from the auto comp section so it's a monophonic and polyphonic synth as well as an auto accompaniment unit.
Apart from separate outputs for the drums and auto comp section, this one came modded with a separate output for the string machine, quite useful for running it through effects.

Vintage Audio Institute Italia is a music studio and gear vendor in Florence, Italy."

Additional SOLTON DISCO 64 posts.

VAI 39 : Solton Disco 64

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia


Not really a disco machine per se - a few machines featured Disco in their names for no other reason than the hype and coolness of the genre at the time.
But this is a unique auto-accompaniment beast with a string machine, a monophonic bass synth with filters, different chord sounds and of course an analog drum machine with individual sound mute options.
You can play the string machine and bass synth like a keyboard, independently from the auto comp section.
Apart from separate outputs for the drums and auto comp section, this one came modded with a separate output for the string machine, quite useful for running it through effects.


Vintage Audio Institute Italia is a music studio and gear vendor in Florence, Italy."

You can find an additional demo of the Solton Disco 64 here. One went for sale back in 2008.

VAI 51 Elka Wilgamat III / Elka Solist 505

video by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"More Elka Wilgamat III - this time with some external help from the Schulte Compact Phasing and Roland RE-301 for rooms.
We also like to use the Roland Space Echo as a tape machine : a round on tape, wet only echo with one bounce, does magic for drum compression."

Vintage Audio Institute Italia posts

A quickie with the Gerd Schulte Compact Phasing

video by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"We had this hooked up and made a quick spontaneous video.
It's not always easy to dial in the sound you're looking for - if that's your thing - but you can sure get a lot of different sounds out of this pedal.
The machine generating bass and chords is a special little animal, more videos of that to come."

EKO ekosynth below the mystery rhythm machine.

Vintage Audio Institute Italia posts

WERSI WERSIMATIC II / CRB OBERON

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"This is an analog auto-accompaniment machine produced by the German organ manufacturer Wersi sometime in the mid-70s. Originally part of a big, dual manual organ called Helios, this auto-comp section was probably removed from the organ and squeezed into a faux Teak cabinet - literally crammed with circuit boards - all beautifully snug inside - a very good job by whoever built it.
We used a ton of effects of this track - most noticeably the Davoli 2K disc echo - insanely rare unit with a Schaller disc unit mounted inside - the very mounted inside the Lombardi mixing desks.
The Digitech Synth Wah is also going strong - an envelope follower pedal on the cheap side.

We're pairing the Wersimatic II with the glorious CRB Oberon - a unicorn of a dual oscillator monophonic synth made in Italy in the late 70s - one of very few still existing.
Lots of fun features it can really sound huge - there's still lots more to explore here

The grey string machine in the video is also marked CRB - a simple, two sounds (violin and cello) string machine, unusually light weight for the oldie it is - the CRB 709.
It's sound is bright and lush - really not at all bad.

Vintage Audio Institute Italia is a gear vendor and recording studio in the hills of Florence."

Additional CRB Oberon posts

Additional WERSIMATIC II posts

VAI 60 : Solina String Synthesizer / Elka Rhythm Machine

video by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Another video on the marvellous Solina String Synthesizer.
Here you can really hear the Solina String modified by the mono filters to basically create a polyphonic divide-down synthesizer.

The Elka Rhythm Machine is the model Elka released after Drummer One. The sound is a bit similar and the controls as well, although it lacks the lovely cowbell sound of the Drummer One.
This particular one has a transplanted chassi made from a Billy bookshelf from Ikea dressed in some Tolex-like material - not a bad job at all.
Normally the come in a blue metal case."

Vintage Audio Institute Italia posts

V.A.I. 75 : SOLTON PROJECT 100

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"The Solton Project 100 is a 6 voice DCO synthesizer with SSM filters.
In this video we're only using the Solton Project 100 - and especially its built-in sequencer that's easy to program - great - but oddly enough doesn't quantize whatsoever.
For effects were using two 80s grade B, rack units - the half rack format LEM FX 22 and the Vermona DEG 50. The LEM FX 22 is a multi-effect with a combo mode that lets you engage two effects at the same time.
The Vermona DEG 50 is actually part of our secret weapons arsenal - a pretty crappy and noisy Digital Delay rack unit but the chorus modulation has that magic wonk."

Update: one more demo by Vintage Audio Institute Italia here and a few others here. There was a black edition as well. You can find additional posts mentioning the SOLTON PROJECT 100 including ad scans and pics here.

the Good, the Bad and the WELSON RITMO

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

00:00 video begins
00:30 introduction and specs
01:48 more examples of auto accompaniment sections
03:07 fast orchestral arpeggios
04:29 more orchestral arpeggios
04:49 waltz ending

"WELSON RITMO - 1980?

The successor to the Welson Band is a colorful device with great analog sounds albeit slightly minimal variety or modulation offerings.

The video probably has the information you need so please watch the whole thing - we can't provide better answers than you find in the video itself.

Let's do a basic rundown here :

The thumbnail shows you the siblings together : The Welson Ritmo and The Welson Band - both machines made by Italian instrument maker Welson.

The Ritmo offers 4 instrument sections with individual volume controls and mute buttons :

CLICK FOR MORE »

WELSON BAND : Analog, Hexagonal and Spectacular

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Chapters
..................
00:00 intro
00:19 features
01:12 demonstration 1
03:01 auto accompaniment demonstration
06:41 organ mode and arrivederci

WELSON BAND (1976?)

There are quite a few cool machines we've managed to track down after searching for years, but very few have fallen into our laps.
But the Welson Band did just that.
We hadn't even heard of this stunningly beautiful machine at all when we bought it on a Google Alert whim - considering our obsession with auto accompaniment units - that's a rare first.

Acquired for next to nothing we managed to locate a PDF of its schematics - the only trace of this machine on the web - and swiftly failed to understand how one was supposed to control the harmonies of the accompaniments, meaning the bass, chords and arpeggiator.

The back does sport a connector, to hook up a potential bass pedal, accordion or controller keyboard to, but it's marked "Switch Board".
Remember, this was about 10 years before MIDI was invented so this machines for sure needed an external something to decide the key and harmonies.

We had our dear tech Andrea bash together a controller keyboard and it works and looks pretty well apart from being a bit crooked and not triggering all the time.

The video explains everything well so please read the text if you have any questions - in short the machine is fully analog, great drum sounds and the arpeggiator is to die for.

The VINTAGE AUDIO INSTITUTE ITALIA website is pretty much a catalouge of photos and descriptions of cool Italian synths and drum machines so head there : https://www.vintageaudioinstitute.com/"

Steelphon S900 2 Oscillator Monophonic Synthesizer SN 0905027

Note: links to listings are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Published on Mar 14, 2020 Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Vintage Audio Institute - Italia
is a music studio and gear vendor in the hills of Florence.

There are a few good Steelphon S900 videos on here already, but we thought there was need for yet another one.
Here we explain how this for its time rather unique synthesizer has programmable preset sounds and has individual CV gate inputs for each oscillator.
A few of the photos are borrowed."

via this auction

"The Italian Beast Steelphon S900 up for sale, one of a very limited production run, the less than 100, all expertly hand-made in Turin, Italy in 1973.
Includes 2 pedals: Filter Expression Pedal
Sustain On/Off Pedal

and the Original Steelphon Club monitor.

The S900 Condition is Very Good, going on Excellent, it does have a few dings, please see photos, and the black panel with the logo some slight miscoloration. The filter-expression pedal has some slight wear.

Unusually good build-quality over-all, this is a reliable instrument, but can be a little sensitive to fluctuations in current and during warm-up, quite common for old synths.

It has been refurbished and recapped earlier this year in March.

The Steelphon S900 does stand up well to the Mini Moog, the Moog Ladder Filter is on board and it can produce earth shattering basses and piercing or haunting leads.

The Steelphon S900 has some great, rare features for the time:

1. Programmable Presets (first synth with programmable pre-sets to our knowledge, various parameters are easily accessible and adjustable with a mini screwdriver under the black panel with logo, an individual circuit board for each preset, six in total with a hidden preset as well :)

2. CV Gate inputs (works very well, individual CV input for each oscillator so you can have 2 arpeggios going at the same time (!).

Please check out the Youtube link, we made this video, it was partly made with this machine here for sale, and explains the various features.

220 Volt with European plug.

Ships from Italy with BRT/DPD/Fedex to the US and other continets, insured trackable shipping to Europe depending on which country, 5 day delivery, but please allow for more time due to customs and Covid19 issues."

CLICK FOR MORE »

Vintage Audio Institute - Italia 1.

Published on Mar 14, 2020 Vintage Audio Institute Italia

Farfisa Soundmaker
Eko Rhythm Maker
Steelphon S900
Binson Echorec 2

Exploring the Wersimatic WM 24

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"We thought there wasn't really anything decent info out there on this rarity so here's a video that sheds some light on the Wersi Wersimatic 24 A & B units.

Wersimatic 24 is an analog drum machine, bass / chord arpeggiator generator similar to the Elgam Carousel, Elka Wilgamat, Godwin Drummaker 45 and Böhm Solist units, The Wersimatic 24 was manufactured in Germany in the early 1970s.
These were also part of various model Wersi organs of the era, such as the Helios that featured the "Wersimatic II" auto-comp section and they seem to be identical in controls and sounds.
The Wersimatic 24 is a bit different than your regular auto-accompaniment machine since the keyboard is a separate instrument: it holds the circuit boards and sound generators for the melodic section and sports its own volume slider and audio jack output.
The keyboard is powered by the drum machine unit via a DIN cable though, and the tempo is regulated on the drum machine as well.

24 drum patterns with 8 mutable sounds
12 rhythmic chord/bass/arpeggiator patterns
Bass section with one sound
3 chord sounds
2 arpeggiator sounds (the second arpeggiator sound is not functioning at the moment)

The bass covers two octaves, which is rare for this type of machine (the Elgam Carousel, Elka Wilgamat has a one octave bass section only) and can generate almost synth like arpeggiator patterns.

We like this machine a lot, especially the bass section and the drum sounds are really raw and industrial sounding.

Sorry for dirty fingernails, it's black paint residue - not dirt - promise.

Vintage Audio Institute is a gear vendor and studio in the hills of Florence."

Wersimatic posts

VAI 24 : Farfisa Syntorchestra 4 / EKO Rhythmaker

video by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Another sad space ballad - this time performed on the poly/mono machine Farfisa Syntorchestra 4 (what happened to 2 and 3?!) and analog drum machine Eko Rhythmaker - simple but lovely machines - both extremely Italian :)

Vintage Audio Institute is a studio and vintage gear shop, we make these videos just for fun in between tasks, we're not professional keyboard players so please have patience with the sloppy finger work."

V.A.I. 77 : CRB VOCO STRINGS / CRB COMPUTERBAND 2000 / SIEL CRUISE

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Combining two very rare oddballs - both manufactured by CRB Elettronica in the late 1970s : The CRB Computer Band 2000 and the CRB Voco Strings.

The Computer Band 2000 is an analog auto-accompaniment machine with a range of chord and arpeggiator sounds with decay controls, as well as a bass section and a drum machine with individually mutable sounds.

The Voco Strings is CRBs take on the Roland VP-330 - a string and vocoder machine. Were there any other commercially produced vocoders in Europe apart from this one and the Sennheiser VSM-201? Let us know in the comment section.

We're letting the CRB Voco strings process the Computer Band, via the regular audio input, while a third player, the Siel Cruise, a lovely Mono / Poly machine, is connected as an external carrier signal, via the instrument input.

More videos of this lovely combination will be going up soon.

Vintage Audio Institute is a gear vendor and recording facility in Florence Italy."

V.A.I. 56 Elka Wilgamat / Multivox MX-3000

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"With a little help from external effects, the Wilgamat auto accompaniment machine really shines brighter than a lot of the other Tanz-nite units out there.
It's a good match with the rare Multivox MX-3000 in our opinion, lots of wonky tones you really don't get out of your standard Roland / Korg gear.

The Multivox synthesizer is really a 4 section divide down string machine and poly synth with an added Monophonic synth section.
It's a little reminiscent of the Crumar Composer but the polyphonic section really has more going on - with a great filter, slide and glide modulation, two different choruses and on and on.
We're still exploring the complete set of possibilities of this beast of a string machine / mono combo. It might even make a great cappuccino.

Vintage Audio Institute is a gear vendor and recording facility in Florence Italy - we make these videos for fun in our spare time."

SOLTON PROJECT 100

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Frankly we're not that well versed in 80s Digital or hybrid synths - MIDI sync, sub menus accessible by pressing three buttons simultaneously while peering into unsexy tiny screens trying to figure out what parameter you're actually tweaking...

It can be demoralising.

But we like the Solton Project 100 a lot - maybe because it looks like the Solton Programmer 24 - and they match up very nicely sound wise as well - more of that to come.

It's a 6 voice DCO synthesizer with SSM filters and came out around the same time as the Roland Juno 106. In this video we're only using the Solton Project 100 - and especially its built-in sequencer - basically just recording patterns and then flipping through the presets to create something.

The sequencer doesn't quantize at all from what we can tell - which is a bit odd - but also kind of cool.

It definitely grants you textures and phrases that you might not have settled for were they perfectly in grid.

Jason Basson made a ton of impulsive videos of the Solton Project 100 a while back - does anyone know what happened to him? [He's still around. You can find some of his Solton videos in previous posts here]

Vintage Audio Institute is a gear vendor and recording facility in Florence Italy.
Follow us on Instagram for gear sales and other fun updates:
https://www.instagram.com/vintage_aud..."

V.A.I. 15 Korg Polyphonic Ensemble / Hohner Rhythm

Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"V.A.I. 15 : Korg Polyphonic Ensemble / Hohner Rhythm / Telefunken Echomixer
The drum machine output signal is doubled: one is filtered with the Schaller Pedal and the other goes into the Telefunken Echo Mixer.
Vintage Audio Institute is a studio and gear vendor in the hills outside of Florence."

Korg Polyphonic Ensemble / Hohner Rhythm / Telefunken Echomixer


"V.A.I. 15 : Korg Polyphonic Ensemble / Hohner Rhythm / Telefunken Echomixer
The drum machine output signal is doubled: one is filtered with the Schaller Pedal and the other goes into the Telefunken Echo Mixer."

V.A.I. 17 : Korg Polyphonic Ensemble / Hohner Rhythm / Telefunken Echomixer


"V.A.I. 17 : Korg Polyphonic Ensemble / Hohner Rhythm / Telefunken Echomixer
The drum machine output signal is doubled: one is filtered with the Schaller Pedal and the other goes into the Telefunken Echo Mixer."

FIVE SONGS ON THE SOLTON PROGRAMMER 24

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"We compiled all our Solton Programmer 24 and Solton Project 100 songs in one convenient video. Italo Disco Machines?
Not false - but these two hotties offer a bit more than that.
Launched around the same time in the mid-80s, none of them caused much stir but at least the Programmer 24 was exported widely and they pop up on the market even in the US.
Overrun by sleeker Japanese machines, most Solton units probably seemed a bit dated at the moment of their release but re-adjusting the rearview mirror a bit we think they sound pretty great.
The Solton Programmer 24 is the obvious song writing tool:
It's a drum machine, bass line generator, chord generator and arpeggiator with an added string and organ section and a filter for the arpeggiator.
A very simple thing, almost a toy, but it's fun as hell and adding some effects to the sounds it gets interesting. For effects we're using the Schulte Compact Phasing, the low-budget, digital delay unit Vermona DEG-50 and the oddball, even lower-budget, mini-rack, multi-effect LEM FX22.

Vintage Audio Institute is a gear vendor and recording facility in Florence Italy."