The Synclap electronic handclap

video upload by akestromer

"From Electronics & Music Maker September 1983.
Designed by Kenneth McAlpine. Finished by Strömer Mutroniks in 2022.
PCB made by JLCPCB."

Another intersting bit of synth history. You can find only two previous posts mentioning the Synclap here. It appears the design was used by other manufactureres.

Vintage 80's E & MM / Maplin Analogue Drum Synth

via this auction

Syntom II, Synbal & Synclap
"80s modular analogue drum synth with 5 x Syntom II modules for toms, bass drum and snares and 2 x Synbal module for cymbal and gong and generally metallic noises. Also comes with a Synclap module ( for clap sounds presumably), this is not installed but there is an empty panel on the unit that is drilled out and marked up for it.

These modules were offered as a kit by Maplin in the mid 80s and build instructions were featured in Maplin's magazine Electronics & Music Maker. Supplied with print outs of the magazine articles which explain how they work, have circuit diagrams, PCB layouts and suggested settings...

Synbal modules have controls for volume, resonance, sweep, frequency, noise metallic, tone and decay. As well as a 3 way switch that selects lowpass, bandpass or highpass filters. It produces a huge variety of metallic sounds - crash and ride cymbals, gongs, cowbell and lot of strange noises too...

Each unit has 2 1/4" jack sockets on the front panel. One for a trigger input that should work with any type of piezo drum pad etc and the other to connect a pedal. With the Syntom II modules pressing the pedal produces a drum roll at a speed set by the roll rate control. With the Synbal modules, pressing the pedal shortens the decay so you can produce open and closed hi hat sounds etc. Outputs are via individual 1/4" jacks on the back panel.

There is a mains power supply built in to the aluminium case. The case has no top or bottom panels. It looks like it never had."

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More Scans by Synth Ollie

This set includes the Amdek Handclapper and Boss PC-2, both previously posted, the Casio VL1, Noise mod for the PC-2, clap_schemo is a better scan of the boss/amdek handclapper schemo, synbal, synclap, and syntom2 are construction articles from e&mm (british synth mag from early -80´s) on how to make your own diy drumsynth modules.

Update: One more via Peter Ullrich via Synth Ollie: drumbox_layout_pack.zip.

"SynTom II and Cymbal II: PCB scanned from the Austrian magazine ITM Praktiker ("Drumbox")"

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