Museum of Techno Halloween Video

Title link takes you to the video on the Novation Xio Synth site, or watch it teeny tiny here.

flickr by djvartan

Gleeman Pentaphonic - Clear


Gergo Palatinszky Synth


Ginos Buchla

Title link takes you to the set.

PNW06: John Bowen Compares Prophets

John and Stephen play with a Creamware ASB Pro-12 and Prophet 5 at this year's Pacific Northwest Synthesizer Meeting.

PNW06: Stephen Talks About his Custom Wood Cased Pro One

Stephen Talks About his Doepfer Ribbon Controller


Two more via this year's Pacific Northwest Synthesizer Meeting. You can see the Prophet T8 minus keys that Stephen refers to here. You can find Stephen's custom woodwork on Synthwood.

PNW06: David Skinner Demos his Synthesizers.com Modular

Two more of David Skinner and his Synthesizers.com modular at this year's Pacific Nortwhest Synthesizer Meeting. Click here for two previous posts.

Ondioline

Click here for shots pulled via this auction.

via Dave.

More on the Ondioline on 120 Years.

Via wikipedia: "The Ondioline was a vacuum tube-powered keyboard instrument, invented by Georges Jenny, which was a forerunner of today's synthesizers.

The Ondioline was capable of creating a wide variety of sounds. Its keyboard had a unique feature: it was suspended on special springs which made it possible to introduce a natural vibrato if the player moved the keyboard from side to side with their playing hand. The result was an almost human-like vibrato that lent a wide range of expression to the Ondioline. The keyboard was also pressure-sensitive, and the instrument had a knee volume lever.

Jean-Jacques Perrey first acquired an Ondioline in the mid-1950s [1], and used it on all his older albums from the late 1960's."

You might recognize the name Jean-Jacques Perrey from these posts (you can see him playing it in the first post). I saw him play live with Dana Countryman and he had the Ondioline with him. It sounded just like a theremin. Jean-Jacques Perrey stated that the Ondioline was his favorite instrument.

Stupid Trivia

So in the comments of this post on Synrise, dan s. calls out that Synrise has had the same site design since 1999. It occured to me that I might actually hold the record for the synth site with the oldest original design! I know, exciting stuff. The original Matrixsynth, which is still up, btw, has had the same exact crappy design since Oct. 1997, when I originally put it up. If anyone knows of another synth site with an older design that is still up, feel free to comment. And yes, the blog link is new, but the overall site really has been the same since day one minus adding and updating links. Appropriate title, huh?

tower

flickr by saftpackerl. Title link takes you to more.

EMS Synthi Sequencer 256

Click here for shots pulled via eBay

Details:
"You are bidding monstrous EMS Synthi Sequencer 256 (formerly known as Synthi Moog Sequencer), very rare separate version of the Synthi 100 sequencer . Very few of them were produced back in the very early 70's. Designed by David Cockerell. Features the following options:

-Layers with 2 Control Voltages plus Key Parameters
-Fourth Key only Layer
-Five Octave Velocity Sensistive Keyboard
-256 Event x 42 bit Memory
-Each event comprises 2 x 6-bit Control Voltages and 13-bit Start & Stop times
-Internal (0.1 - 200 Hz) or External Clock
-Plays Forwards and Backwards
-Editing

Classic piece of electronic music history, it was surely the most sophisticated sequencer of the early synth years. List price in 1974 was $6500 in the States or 2500 pounds in UK. Looking incredibly cool. Every picnic would need a Synthi like that. The world would be different. I would not sell it I have not to. Cosmetic condition is very good (some traces of being used in the studio during the years, see the pictures; never on the road), working condition should be very good either , however sold as is because of the age. It was originally part of the one of the few modern electronic music studios fully based on EMS equipment founded in 1973. Serial number 6023, what means it is probably 23-rd unit ever produced. I guess not many more than 50 units were produced in general. Power plug included. To be picked up from Hayes, London or I will ship everywhere, however it might be expensive as the unit is quite big and heavy (more than 40 lbs)."

More info:
http://www.ems-synthi.demon.co.uk/emsprods.html#seq256
http://members.tripod.com/werdav/vosyn100.htm
http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/ems/index.html


Sent my way via Johan.

The Davolisint

This image popped up on AH today. The synth in the center is the Davolisint. Title link takes you to a page dedicated to the synth with specs, samples and more shots. Anyone know what the synth below it is?