Starkey Hearing Laboratory Analog Modular Synthesizer

Title link takes you to more shots via this auction. Be sure to check them out. There are some great shots including a drawing of one, and a University of Illinois face plate.

Details:
"This machine was manufactured in 1972. The HSL-II has 3 sine wave generators, a square and saw wave fuzz generator (awesome!), and a pink and white noise generator. These can be seen clearly on the far left of the HSL-II. The signal path flows from left to right and is patchable with mini-banana cables (included in the auction). There are 3 filters which allow patching through hi/lo/mid pass sections. There is a phase inverter, limiter, frequency counter (with a classic red LED display) , 4 attenuators (volume), 2 mixer sections, a VU meter, and a few mystery functions that affect the sound but that I am not qualified to describe. there is also a gate sequencer, so you can basically set two different lengths of tones to trigger as you desire. The sequencer is weird and rudimentary, but functions perfectly.

Below are some long recordings of the HSL-II into a Deltalab Effectron Jr. digital delay. I ran this into a decent DJ mixer and into apple's Garageband. I clipped up the audio to make it a little shorter and give you an idea of a portion of the range that you can achieve with the HSL-II.

HSL-II sample one

Sound plays at beginning and towards the end - dead air in the middle

HSL-II sample two - plays fine

You cannot control the pitch from an external controller as of now. They were not designed for that. You can control the frequency manually, which in turn affects the perceived pitch, and believe me, with all 4 or 5 sound sources going through some delay and reverb, you have a wicked modular synth, sample source, drone machine....Silver Apples meets Aphex meets Eno.

I spoke with a synthe technologiste who thought that there would likely be a way to add c/v control to the sound source circuits...I have included a close up of a single sine sound source...it is the one circuit photo that has had the color altered and sharpened to give someone some idea what they are dealing with if they are so inclined to pursue the c/v route. Alas, there are no schematics and I have searched high and low on the internets.

The cabinet is absolutely VCS3-esque. There are a few areas of flaky veneer about the edges, as can be seen in the photos.

Also...you can run audio through the filters and even do some sort of weird sonic destruction by patching the fuzz output into the same input as the audio source. There are many many routing capabilities. These machines have provided me with plenty of inspiration. I will be moving soon, so please look out for all sorts of audio related stuff."

MP3s backed up here.

The one via Must! who is the seller.

IMG_0156

flickr by pzlonvent.

Effector 13 - Meow

One more on sendling.

Sound Lab Modifications by Pehr

SoundLab mod by Pehr.

1. Fine tuners for the oscillators.
2. Frequency modulation amount.
3. FM on/off.
4. FM AC/DC.
5. Connects the incoming CV to OSC1 to the CV in of OSC2 (so I can play with my MCV4 that only has one note CV output).
6. Aaron Crams' ring modulator (without buffer amps), made from only the extra OTA and a few other components.
7. Attenuations towards ground or -9V for the EG, LFO and FM outputs.
8. LFO COF-range HI/LO, sets the value of R31 to 100k (HI) or 200k (LO, original).
9. COF-CV input for modulation wheel CV from my MCV4. Do not use the 9V zener mod on this one or you'll not be able to turn the COF low enough anymore.
10. Extra CV inputs with the 9V zener protection mod. The other CV-inputs and the gate inputs also has the protection mod. And of course I use the 1V/Oct mod.
11. Audio input to filter.

via electro-music.com. via sendling.

Buchla B-Sides via Chris Muir

As most of you know, I've been putting up Chris Muir's new Buchla 200e tracks as they come in. Each track get's added to Chris's 200e Noodles page. Well, it turns out Chris has more that's he's put on a B-sides page for the time being, while he thinks about what he wants to do with them. Until then, I say enjoy. Title link takes you to them.

MOOG Station

via Voltage Controlled

"Just picked up a Frostwave Resonator - what an awesome filter. It really gives the Voyager a unique sound. Basically I have things connected (most of the time) as follows: Voyager right out loops back into its mix-in for distortion effect. Voyager left out to ZVex Fuzz Factory to MF-102 Ring Mod to Frostwave Resonator to Deluxe Memory Man to mixer. It's all in mono but even so there is something really special about the sound this setup produces. I also have a Moog pedal plugged into the Voyager filter input. I tend to use the LFO on the MF-102 to manipulate the LPF frequency on the Resonator which gives it some nice movement - this is attenuated via the VX-351 for more control. I optionally use the same LFO or the one from the Voyager (via the VX-351) to control the HPF frequency on the Resonator - also attenuated. The Resonator also allows you to control (via CV) the LPF and HPF resonance which makes it a great addition to any analog setup. So anyway...there it is...note the empty space to the left of the Memory Man...hmmm... :-)"

Update: "MP3

The bass sound is the frostwave HPF frequency being modulated by the LFO on the MF-102 with the Resonance set just right.

The "distorted nuclear alarm" sound is the Voyager (Um...either Funk It or Chick's ROM Warrior...I forget...slightly tweaked) running through the Frostwave at the same time as the bass sound is being generated.

Drums are a loop from Ableton Live. Rhodes is the Nord Electro 2. Whole thing run through a quick and dirty Izotope Ozone preset."

Akai AX80

Click here for shots via this auction. "This is a vintage AKAI AX80 programmable polyphonic (analog) synthesizer, the first keyboard manufactured by AKAI (1984-87). It has a 5-octave, 61 note velocity- sensitive keyboard; 8 voice with 2 DCO per voice, 96 memory locations (32 pre-set, 64 user-writable). Other features include pitch bend, modulation, hold and chord memory."

Check out the OSC graph. Click the image for a bigger shot.

Sound Destruction Unit Videos

first sample


second sample

YouTubes via farnea. Via maxfarnea in the comments of this post.

Modular synth PCBs

flickr by Equaliser.

"Oakley PSU and Dizzy, a couple of Ray Wilson VCOs, a VC-LFO, a ADSR, the Dual-VCA, and Marc Bareille's Polivoks filter clone."

Cirocco Modular Synthesizers

Modular system by Phil Cirocco. Title link takes you there. These are available now. Be sure to check out these previous CMS posts. CMS specializes in ARP repair and restoration and Phil fully restored a Hammond Novachord, a polyphonic synthesizer by Hammond from 1939. There are samples on the Novachord Restoration Project site.