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 (Note keyboardmuseum.org is no longer active, the link takes you to posts referencing the site).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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Site Maintenance: Blogger Follower Widget Removed Due to Not Being Able to Edit Site Template

Hi everyone. I had to remove the Follower widget towards the bottom right of the site. Apparently it was preventing me from editing the site's template in the HMTL editor I do daily in order to update the Featured Listings, For Sale and Music links above. I was going to add the widget back in but it appears it is no longer supported and has been replaced by a new Google+ Follower widget which would require me to change the site account to a Google+ account which I do not want to do at this point in time. I just wanted to let you all know why the widget is gone and if any of you are having a similar problem editing your template on Blogger, you now know why. Be sure to note how many followers you have before you remove the widget as you won't be able to get it back. I believe I was at 1021 blogger users. Not happy at the moment.

Update: BTW, people wonder why I continue to stick with Blogger. One reason: should something happen to me, the site will remain as it's hosted on Blogger's servers. The one thing that would need to happen though, is eventually the site would have to be set back to matrixsynth.blogspot.com so the site doesn't disappear if matrixsynth.com expires long after I'm gone. If you don't think it can happen, some great synths sites are no more including some linked here only within the last eight+ years. Drummachine.com, Analog Playground (formerly at http://www.keyboardmuseum.org), and most recently Korganalogue.net appear to be gone.  I had a list of sites I did track on the old MATRIXSYNTH site.   Might be worth a look to see who's left.  There's a MORE section after Yamaha in the MFG section, and a link to 404s at the very bottom where I put sites that died at the time.  That site went into hibernation after this version launched in 2005.

Jah Shaka Soundsystem - Babylon (1981) - Synare 3 Used for Effects

YouTube Uploaded by midimaster on Dec 16, 2007

"This is Jah Shaka Soundsystem in 1981 being shown in the movie "Bablyon" Jah Shaka is using a "Synare 3" to make the sound effects, check out the link for a pic of it: keyboardmuseum.org/ar/s/snar/syn3.html"


via eBay

"Vintage Star Instruments Synare 3 PS-3 Analog Synth Drum"

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ET3 Therevox

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

via eBay

"Therevox Electro-Theremin
Model ET-3

About the Electro Theremin / Tannerin: This is the Ultra-Rare Instrument heard on The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds", "Good Vibrations", and "Wild Honey". Never mass produced, it has the beautifully eerie sound of the theremin, but much easier to play! Similar to the Ondes Martenot and Analogue System's French Connection (but with the sound built-in).

Further reading:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-theremin
* http://www.electrotheremin.com/PTE-TPage.html
* http://www.keyboardmuseum.com/pre60/1950/electrot.html

About this Electro-Theremin:
Completely re-created by Therevox to have an evenly-spaced keyboard!!! This makes it much easier to play. The oscillator in this is incredibly stable and creates a pure sine wave. I tuned it and turned it off for a few days, only to turn it back on in perfect tune! I love it but I must pay some bills so it's my loss and your gain! Only 14 were built in the last year and Therevox says they will not build anymore for 3-5 years. The only thing I couldn't test is the skew voltage control, because I don't have a proper control for it. The skew knob works fine, though. I felt I should mention it so buy with that in mind. Otherwise everything is tested and guaranteed to work upon arrival. Includes manual and AC adapter.

Features:
* Evenly-spaced keyboard
* Volume control knob or gate button
* Ultra Stable Oscillator
* Sine, Triangle, Saw waves
* Sync in/out
* CV out
* Gate out
* Linear FM CV in and knob control
* Exp FM CV in and knob control
* Skew CV and knob control
* Light-weight

Sound clips (played on the ET-1)": http://www.therevox.com/

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Audio Playground Synth and Drum Machines For Sale

Peviously listed on eBay. pictured:

-Rare (Fricke) MFB-512 analog drum machine (more info on MFB)

-Rare Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 rev. 1 

"There where only 183 ever made of the Revision one. It used the SSM chip set not the CEM chip set that the Revision 2 went to. It also used a now rare Koa-wood case (gorgeous) that also change with the revision 2 . The power switch is on the front panel also not like the later rev. 2 & 3."

http://www.keyboardmuseum.org/

The Virtual Rheem Kee Bass

This is actually a follow-up to the previous post. I took a look at the online virtual instruments on keyboardmuseum.org's (Audio Playground Synthesizer Museum) Virtual Playground and saw the Rheem Kee Bass. I hadn't played with it before, so I thought I'd take a look. What I was presented with is the image on the left with functional keys. The switches in the image do not work, however there is a switch above the image that lets you chose between Mellow and Fuzz mode. It should give you an idea of what the Rheem Kee Bass can sound like. Be sure to check out the rest of the Virtual Playground while there. You will find a ton of classic drum machines and more.

The Sounds of EML Synthesizers

Click here for the Virtual EML Sound Sheet. You can find more Sound Sheets on the Audio Playground Synthesizer Museum. Below are some direct links to the interactive content on keyboardmuseum.org.

Virtual Sound Sheets
Virtual Teaching Tools
Virtual Drum Machines and Keyboards (includes the Rheem Kee Bass and more)

Keyboardmuseum.org Sale

Click for a list of gear currently for sale via

The Audio Playground Synthesizer Museum.

SMS 2000 - New Flickr Shots

Update: Be sure to read the updates below and do not miss the links. Looks like we finally have a contendor to the Bahn Sage. Elhardt, you have some competiton. Is it or isn't the SMS 2000 real?

flickr set by synthfanKH.

Looks like we are on a "dream synth" roll this week.

Update: Click images for much larger shots.
Update: Looks like these shots got traction on AH. Word is that it's a fake which I guessed as well. Via Mike Fiction on AH: "As a photographer I can tell you the second photo is 100% a fake. The depth of field is way too great. It's an indoor shot, light would have been low so even with a fast iso it would have been impossible to get such great depth of field with a fast enough shutter speed to have frozen things like the womans hair. There would have been motion blur. The A in alesis is just as in focus as the black pole at the far side of the tent."

Update: Some still think it could be real. If you blow up the second shot you will see the name tag reads, Mr. Kirikax (click for more info).

Via Nick on AH:
"I'm still of the opinion that it's some new prototype synth by Seekers, the Japanese company (formerly Sky Soundlab) who made the Voice Spectra vocoder (seen on the left in the photo with mics attached). They were trying to build a full featured and pricey monosynth about 6 years ago.

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The Oberheim OB12

Update: A funny via the comments (White Synths are Better!): http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2004/12/are-white-synthesizers-cooler-than.html

Yeah, I wish they kept the OB12 white, but then... People would go off on it not only because it had the Oberheim moniker but also because they tried to rip off the original OB white. Still... I think they should have done it.

BTW, there have been a few updates on the main thread since I posted this (click on the title link to get there).

Update: Two Sound on Sound articles on the OB12. One before and one after an OS update.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep00/articles/oberheim.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Apr02/articles/oberheimob12.asp

Great post up on Vintage Synth Explorer regarding the Oberheim OB12. Title link takes you to it. I shared why I think it failed in this post - the Oberheim branding. There is no way it could live up to it.

A shot of the rare white OB12 prototype


The following in an interesting nugget from the post that I was unnaware of from CTB:

"I might have told the story about the curator of the synth museum in Florida (Audio Playground, http://www.keyboardmuseum.org/play.html). He was actually involved in the development of the OB-12. The Viscount guys asked him about features, and he gave them a bit laundry list. Months/year later, they plopped a proto in front of him and asked what he thought. The features he told me about sounded really great, and I wondered at the time why the synth wasn't more popular. Viscount actually gave him the prototype - it is the only white one ever made (kinda like the color of x-voice synths), and it is on display at the museum. I have a picture of it. He sometimes posts over on AH - Joe Rivers is his name.

Mr Rich makes me curious to hear one now."