
Thursday, October 18, 2007
9090 Analog Drum Synthesizer
images via this auction
"serial No. 001 t page 2002
The 9090 is an analogue drum machine based upon the legendary Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer. Many people consider this machine to be the life and soul of house music and it's modern derivatives. Trance, techno, whatever. In some moment of insanity back in '99 I decided it would be a fun challenge to build an entire clone of this classic analogue drum box (having no appreciation of how such a project can take over your life) and, bored with using sampled beats, I wanted a real, tweakable analogue box. Just like the 909.
I chose to make my 9090 just a MIDI controlled unit without an integral sequencer. All original drums are in there, together with power supply and a new PIC-based MIDI interface. The complete project is built across two separate printed circuit boards, designed to fit within a 2U height 19" rack enclosure. I didn't develop a sequencer to go with this, but I'll do it if I get the time.
The voice circuits used within the clone remain faithful to those of the original machine. In other words they remain mostly unchanged, except where I've added controls for extra tweakage. Most semiconductors have been substituted for modern equivalents that are more easily available. Most of the TR-909 sounds are completely analogue and hence some pretty intricate discrete circuitry is involved. Only the hi-hat and cymbal are 'digital' since the TR-909 used samples contained within three 32K ROMs for these.
Roland Vocoder Plus VP-330

"Oscillators - 3 VCO's
Effects - Ensemble (chorus)
LFO - Vibrato w/ depth, delay and rate
VCA - separate Mix Levels for Vocoder, String and Voice sections; 20 envelope followers
Filter - 18 VCFs: 54db/oct bandpass; 1 VCF: 54db/oct lowpass and highpass filters; 20 VCFs: 18db/oct lowpass filters w/ dynamic range of 60db
Memory - None
Keyboard - 49 Keys
Control - CV/Gate
Date Produced - 1979"
EML 200
"The EML consists of the following components:
-Master Oscillator (LFO that goes well into the audio range). 6 outputs, 2 for each waveform.
-Noise (2 outputs)
-2 VCO’s. (2 outputs each)
-Spring reverb. (2 outputs)
-Electronic switch (2 outputs)
-Low Pass Filter (2 outputs)
-High Pass Filter (2 outputs)
-Waveshaper (2 outputs)
-envelope (2 outputs)
-2 ring modulators (2 outputs each)
-Preamp (3 inputs and 2 outputs)
- 6 channel mixer (with 6 outputs)
Here is a sound clip of the 200 in action. It's sorta long and noisy:
EML 200
I also have a copy of the user manual and schematics. If you have an EML 101 this makes an excellent compliment and is useful even on its own."
Flame Midi Talking Synth

click here for the full size shot.
Update via JSRocket in the comments:
"I made a noisy demo too: link "
Don't miss the demo. It's pretty amazing. I'm curious if the Yamaha FS1R could do the same with it's formant synthesis.
PNW Synth Gathering 07 Pics

click here for more shots of the event via brett.seattle.
click here for the full size shot.
Mattson Mini Modular pictured.
MFB Synth Lite II

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© Matrixsynth - All posts are presented here for informative, historical and educative purposes as applicable within fair use.
MATRIXSYNTH is supported by affiliate links that use cookies to track clickthroughs and sales. See the privacy policy for details.
MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH