Synth Books

See the Synth Books label for more.
Also see the scans label for more synth documentation.


The A-X of Analogue Synthesizers by Peter Forest


Vintage Synthesizers by Mark Vail


Essential Retro by James Grahame

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Roland SH-5

Title link takes you to shots pulled via this auction.

EMS VC3 Musical Demo and EMS Resources

RMC posted the following to the AH list. I asked him if it would be ok to post this and he gave me the all clear.
"All the MP3s or YouTube clips that I have found show the VCS3/A(KS) to be a brilliant sound effects device but not much in the way of musical demos.
Here's something like a bass line (257kB size) showing that you can get musical tones (albeit hampered by my hopeless playing, the KS keyboard and a bit of poor MP3 encoding): link

You'd best right-click the link and save it or go to the directory and save it from there; I don't think it will "stream" (3 VCOs as audio sources, some via the filter being swept by the env shaper, and then the reverb added too). I plan to do some more - maybe some leads if I can actually think to play anything.

Cheers
RMC, England"

Very cool. Thanks RMC! BTW, do check out RMC's EMS resources for schematics, images and more.

Update via RMC in the comments:
"also check out the sequencer demo, which is here"

Pochi Crafts DIY DKI Synergy

Remember the DKI Synergy? Title link takes you to Pochi Crafts' DIY Synergy page. Make sure to check out the rest of the site while there.

"SynclonOne is the DKI SYNERGY II+ compatible DIY digital synthesizer. SynclonOne main PCB is very small(140mm x 95mm), but it contains almost all SYNERGY II+ circuit, include Z80 CPU, 32 digital oscillators, panel scan processor, MIDI and serial interface port, DA converter interface. They are integrated into single Altera Cyclone FPGA chip on the SynclonOne PCB." [Previous posts on FPGA]

This one via Mikael.

IBK 10 CONTROL

The IBK 10 CONTROL was a MIDI knob box that allowed you to write custom text to be displayed for each knob. I remember seeing this years ago, well before anyone else was doing this and well before this blog. Title link takes you to a page with more info in German. Here's a link to a Google translated version in English.

"The special to the 10Control, which differentiates this product from others at the market, is to be steered the possibility jump-free many parameters of a hard or a Softwaresynthesizers and a like over MIDI. Clearly more expensive CONTROLLERs reach this only by use of Motorfadern. Instead the 10Control uses continuous automatic controllers and makes thus the same functionality available for much a favourable price."

Update via dheidebrecht in the comments:
"I have one of these. They also made the "4 Control" which was sold by Native Instruments a few years ago. I believe these are still available. There's an english page for the 10 Control on their website"

Rhodes Chroma Edit Panel for Cubase SX3

Title link takes you to the mapping in xml format. Via Åke on the Rhodes Chroma list. If you have the CC+ update for the Rhodes Chroma, this allows you to edit paramaters dynamically via Cubase SX.

Update: This is currently on the Rhodes Chroma site along with other editors.

MIDI Controllers on Sendling

The Diddler

Stephband website

MIDI Controller buy Feena - FMDJ9303

Feena website

what the... ?

flickr by polaranta.

Celebrity Signed Fairlight CMI up for Auction

Remember this? Looks like it's up for auction. starting at $100k. Apparently it was the keyboard played in this video.

Via the auction:
Featuring signatures from 44 celebrity musicians, composers & producers Bono, Mark Knopfler, Kate Bush, Stevie Wonder, Thomas Dolby, Todd Rundgren, Sir George Martin, Steve Winwood, Barry Gibb, Brian Wilson, Herbie Hancock, Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello, David Bowie ... & many more"

Korg EMX-1

Not the rarest of synths, however these are some pretty nice shots. Title link takes you to the set pulled via this auction.