In Memoriam of Kevin Kelley of The Audio Playground

Amy Kelly, wife of Kevin Kelley, wrote in to let me know of her husband Kevin Kelley's passing in 2024. You might remember Kevin Kelley mentioned directly in numerous posts here on MATRIXSYNTH going all the way back to 2007. Kevin ran the Audio Playground aka keyboardmuseum.org which was created back in 2000. (Note keyboardmuseum.org is no longer active, the link takes you to posts referencing the site).

The Audio Playground was a synth museum in Winter Park, Florida. One of the great things I loved about the site was that Kevin hosted samples of the synths featured, including virtual sound sheets, so you could get an idea of what they sounded like. Back then that was actually quite rare.

Kevin was also an owner of the uber rare Technos Acxel synthesizer. You can see it pictured below as well as in previous posts featuring Kevin.

Included below are some pics of Kevin with his daughters and his cats sent in by his wife Amy.


"He was a wonderful and brilliant man as well as a great dad and husband. His three daughters and I miss him tremendously." - Amy

Amy still has his Technos Acxel and is working on bringing it back to life. I've sent her a few leads, but if anyone out there can help with the following, please feel free to reach out (matrixsynth@gmail.com).

"The system successfully powers on and initializes the Grapher console, but it is currently hanging at the initial splash screen ('Forget Technology, think music'). I suspect the data sectors on the original 3.5" boot floppy have degraded over time. I am looking to write a fresh sector-by-sector image to a healthy 720KB DD disk to isolate the issue.

My hope is that someone out there might have a raw disk image (.img or .hfe format) compatible with this era of the hardware."

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The Technos Acxel Resynthesizer Overview Videos

Published on Mar 5, 2014 Kevin Kelley·2 videos

"This is the full length video demonstration for the Technos Acxel re-synthesizer from around 1988. There are two parts to this video"

Technos Acxel part 2


This one is in via Kevin Kelley who let me know he will be uploading some user demos in the future as well. Can't wait! The Acxell Resynthesizer has only been featured on the site a handful of times. It is a rare synthesizer sold between 1987 and 1990 according to Wikipedia. Their is a new Axcel2. You can find information on the main Axcel2 website here.

On the original Axcel via Wikipedia:
"The word Acxel is short for 'acoustical element' (as pixel is short for "picture element".)
The Acxel consists on 2 components: The "Grapher" (graphic console) and the "Solitary" (Rackmount containing the Synthesis and Analysis hardware). Standard - 256 Oscillators (8 voices), up to 1024 Oscillators (32 voices).
Instead of having an LCD or CRT screen, the Axcel has a bank of 2114 LEDs mounted behind finger-sized conductive sensors (a smaller number were also used on the Technos 16\pi synthesizer main panel). All data readouts, and a lot of data input, are processed using this innovative method.
The 16\pi is the Acxel ancestor (1984 - never in production, 4 unit delivered at that time), introducing the concept but limited to 64 Oscillators, including a keyboard.

The Acxel never found mainstream favour and was never a commercial success, due to its high cost, and relative difficulty of use. As a result of this, Acxels today are very rare (about 35 were sold from 1987 to 1990), obscure and expensive, and they never did replace traditional sampler as was their intention. Their legacy, however, lives on in modern-day resynthesizers such as VirSyn's Cube, Camel Audio's Cameleon 5000, and Image-Line's Harmor."

Be sure to see the Technos channel link below for previous posts.

Jane Child's Fairlight Series III

Title link takes you to shots pulled from this auction. Some details saved below. Via Kevin Kelley of Audio Playground.



Includes:

Monitor
Keyboard
Fairlight Unit
CPU/Processor for Fairlight Unit
Stylus
Replacement Stylus & Stylus Pad
Optical Drive
Tape drive
SCSI CDRW Drive
32MB RAM
4GB Internal HD
3 Cables for Fairlight (as pictured below)
Custom fit Road Cases for EVERYTHING!!!!!!

2 User Manual Boxes that include the following:
•Reference Manual
•Tutorial Manual
•Fairlight Service Manual Binder (with blueprints)
•Command Summary
•CAPS - Midi Sequencer For Series III
•Cue List Timecode Sequencer For SoundFX
•Software Revision 5.4 Command Summary
•Series 111 STUDIO (Describes a lot of history behind the Fairlight)
•Rhythm Sequencer for Series III

Libraries:
Master Sampler Collection Rev 1.2 Strings
Prosonus Mono Library
Brass Reeds & Strings
Prosonus
EBN Sounds 2
Prosonus Disk Two
Fairlight EBN
Fairlight Sound Library
Fairlight Sound Library
MS Co Rev 1.2 Composite Strings & Drums/Percussion
Prosonus Disk One


Software Disquettes Include:

Electric Sound & Picture Revision Keydisk
Fairlight CMI Revision 9.34R Software SYS K2
Fairlight CMI Revision 9.34R Software USER K1
Fairlight CMI Revision 9.34R Software 0S9 K0
Fairlight Revision 8.30R Software SYS K2
Fairlight Revision 8.30R Software USER K1
Fairlight Revision 8.30R Software OS9 K0

Update via the comments: "Not that anyone cares, but I doubt that's Jane Child's Fairlight - the cases say M.S.P. (Maximum Sequential Potential) on them, which was Ned Liben's studio in NYC. Liben was "EBN" of the 80's synth duo EBN/OZN. Also, some of his sounds are listed as included with the auction."

Fairlight IIx and Fostex Foundation

Two shots via Kevin Kelley of the Audio Playground. The Fostex Foundation are the grey pieces in the shot. I wasn't familiar with it before this. According to this site, it's a direct to disk recorder that came from the former NED Synclavier engineers. The Synclavier was a high end synth featuring sampling and FM in the late 70s. Before you get too excited about the Fostex Foundation, note that it's not a synth and was basically a $30k recorder when it came out. Coupled with the Fairlight and the Kurzweil Midiboard, you had quite an impressive set up indeed. The box on top of the Midiboard is the Roland MSQ-700 sequencer.