The Steelphon Vintage Analog Synth

I previously put up a post on Vintage Synths Made In Italy. The Steelphon has recently been added to the list with a few more shots and a demo. Note the play button is right under this image when you get there.

ARP2600 filter 4072 modification?

David Hillel Wilson of the New England Synthesizer Museum has been sending tips and info to the AH list for some time now. These tips usually just come in as an informational email about every month or so. I noticed they are informative and not really meant to engage discussion although of course sometimes they do. They are written more like informational pieces. I asked David if he would be interested in having me put them up on Matrixsynth for others as well. He said yes. The following is the first of hopefully many more on Matrixsynth.

"To see if your ARP 2600 needs the filter mod, turn the frequency and resonance both all the way up. If the sound is still low enough in pitch for you to hear, then you need the mod. If your dog starts barking, you don't need the mod.

In order to modify the filter without unsoldering it, I solder 4 5K6 (Green-Blue-Red) resistors in parallel with the existing 4K7s, and on the foil side of the board. This gives a resistance near the value 2K7, which is what ARP used in the Solus, in which they had fixed the filter themselves, so it's still authentic ARP. Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure how to describe which foil traces to solder to (I've done so many of these I now just do it from memory). Try this: Look for the big chip in the middle (two rows of 7 pins each, spaced 1/10 inch apart, with the two rows 3/10 inch apart). Near the 4 corners of this chip (an LM3900/CA3401E), there are four ovals, each made out of two 3 pin transistors that are glued together. Thus, each oval will have 6 points around the edge. Two of these points (the Emitters) are connected together with a diagonal line that cris-crosses the oval. The only other place each foil trace goes is to a single connection - This is one end of the resistor for that oval. four ovals equals four resistors. The other end of each resistor is tied to a foil trace that encircles the whole circuit, but only makes 4 connections (one at each oval) plus one more in the expo converter. Solder a 5K6 resistor from each pair of emitters to the long outside circular trace, and you're done. (Or if you're near New Hampshire U.S.A. or are willing to send the board, I can do it for you).

David Hillel Wilson
Curator
New England Synthesizer Museum."

Image via this post.

new modular clips, plan b model 15 pwm + more

Via hefix93 of Velvet Acid Christ:

"I finally got my attenuator. Now i can use the PWM on the plan b model 15. So i made some basic growly pwm osc lead and bass pad patches and showed off the ssm filter i got as well and the frequenstiener.

this is the model 15 pwm into the ssm lowpass filter. basic sweeping of the filter. pretty big if you ask me. [link]

Same as above but with the frequenstiener in lp. but the lp on this is not as fat as the ssm, its more noisy and aggressive. notice my horrid bad live playing ouch. talk about slop. ehehehe [link]

I love this pwm in band pass. kind reminds me of my old juno 60 but with bandpass. nice.. [link]

This just sound viscous to me.. i mean it rips and is nasty in that growling good way. [link]

Warning, this will blow your ears loud heehehehe. model15 pw out into filter in on ssm filter with resonance all the way up in self osc. then mess with freq on the model 15, and the freq knob on ssm to get outer space ufo 60s sci fi sounds. this filter does it the best, much better than the frequensteiner. Let's hear and digital synth modular or not sound like this, not a chance in hell. never.. [link]

these are all recorded directly into my rme fireface 800... nothing else.."

Be sure to check out hefex93's previous review:
Eurorack Modular Review by Hefix93 of Velvet Acid Christ

the first session with the memorymoog

flickr by sushiluv.

I love sushi and I love synths.

Update: Shoot, I missed the cat!

AHMW 2007

YouTube via ahmwsynth. Title link takes you to 30 videos and counting. Buchla Music Easel.

Doepferator

via sequencer.de

Hot Hot Heat - Tourist In Your Own Town

YouTube via AllMappedOut. Another via Greg.

Roland Juno-6

Le Shok -122 Hours Of Fear

YouTube via 123jlp. Sent my way via Greg.

Cover of a tune by The Screamers. Guess the synth.

YMO - The End of Asia (Live)

YouTube via hardy2006us. Title link takes you to more.

Previous YMO Posts.

Analog Renaissance TS-303 MK2 ACID SCREAMER

"Distortion effect designed for the TB-303. Where the original TS-303 was a variant of the infamous TS-808, with some adaptations to match the signal levels of the TB-303 and a few soundwise alterations, this MK2 version is a complete new design with possibilities never seen anywhere. From electronic design and mechanical construction point of view it is lightyears ahead of the previous one.



Features:
-2 different operation modes: Distortion and overdrive
-Variable dynamics restoration: Every distortion effect has the same problem: Dynamics gets lost and everything sounds equally loud. Translated to the TB-303 this means that you lose accents. This dynamics restoration reconstructs the envelope of the original signal while maintaining the distorted sound.
-Frequency selective distortion: This gives the possibility to choose which part of the frequency spectrum gets the most distortion. Quite amazing how this enables to pick things out of the soup which were otherwise not audible."

Title link takes you to more info and samples. Via Analog Industries.