Frank Zappa's E-mu Modular

via the Mediatheque Museum. In Googlish here.

"The copy of the Music Museum was donated in 1993 by the musician Frank Zappa, one of the most famous users of modular and one of the few to be used on stage.

Patrick Gleeson has also used the modular EMU in an impressive system comprising more than 90 oscillators (Rainbow Rising). S'ajoutent à la liste de ses prestigieux utilisateurs Herbie Hancock, John Mac Laughlin, John Adams, Vince Clarke, et le groupe Tangerine Dream. In addition to the prestigious list of its users Herbie Hancock, John Mac Laughlin, John Adams, Vince Clarke, and the group Tangerine Dream."

LATIN ROLL

via brian c:
"this is a simple PAIA 9700 patch, one oscillator sine wave that runs into a EH Bi-filter and then through a Mood delay, that big recurring pitch/timbre shift is the Bi-filter kicking in and out on the LFO

drums are SCI TOM -

'nuff said , I liked the PAIA Patch the most, but most of the character is off the Bi-filter and Moog MF104z"

Crumar Toccata happy ending

Remember this Crumar Toccata?

Jeremy wrote in with the following:

"Karl Schmeer told me how to fix it, and so I stopped the continuous key (right blue X) and re-wired the dead key (left blue X). Now I've got a working organ which sounds good, and I'll be making use of it on my new tracks. Enclosed is the blue keys, rubbed out... All the best, Jeremy"

EMS VCS3 & Casiotone MT-30

flickr by asmo23

full size

Apparently this is in the Science Museum in South Kensington, London. I recently stayed in Sound Kensington and had no idea this was there. Oh well... Next time.

Thomas Henry Keyboard

via antman49443 on this electro-music.com thread. "State Machine is doing a lot of background work prior to releasing. It's documented up the ying yang from basic assy to advanced background. You can read until your eyes glaze over..but it will be very newbie friendly. Also, he's preparing quite a few add-on boards to make things easier for newbies to assemble this thing. I don't want to give away too much at this point, but here's a spoiler for you"

Bluesynths Images I 2008 - Die ersten Bilder

You can find more images of the event on sequencer.de. That would be the Yamaha DX1 pictured below. There are some nice shots in this set. Remember, you can find previous posts by doing a smart search on the top left corner search box on this site. Try a search on Bluesynths for more shots of this event and prior years.

Sound demos of the YUSYNTH modular system

You can find a new demo section on YuSynth here. Two tracks are currently featured as of this post:

"Mocking Aqua
This is an attempt to recreate the sound of murmuring water, it's all done with yusynth modules and was recorded in two takes. It was meant as a kind of tribute to "Aqua" by edgar Froese.

Mesmerizing Bounces
This a short demo of the system driven by an external sequencer. It was recorded in one take (no overdubbing), only an external echo effect was added to the raw sound. MP3 compression altered the sound of the cymbal making it sound crushier than it was... Too bad!"

Pro-One Dub - Audio Demo

"The sounds are effects for a dub track at 73 beats per minute. I ran them through a couple of tempo delays and reverb to create some atmosphere. Even after using this instrument for more than ten years I still manage to get new sounds out of it."

You'll find the demo on Audio Cookbook.

STEINER PARKER SYNTHACON

images via this auction
"Here is a very scarce Steiner-Parker Synthacon silver face analog synthesizer from the mid-1970’s... Actually claimed to be more versatile than the MiniMoog, it can produce literally billions of sounds with its 3 VCO’s and dual envelope generator."

AKAI VX600

images via this auction

note the dual level knobs.

"AKAI VX600 is 12VCO (2VCO per VOICE – 6 VOICE) 6 note polyphonic programmable analog synthesizer. It was one of the last Japanese pure analog synthesizers in '80s. Few quantities were built, so very hard to find. This modular matrix analog synthesizer is very similar to OBERHEIM EXPANDER synthesizer and older ARP Odyssey. AKAI adopted basic schematics made by OBERHEIM, so actually the VX600 and OBERHEIM EXPANDER uses the same voice chip, so basically VX600's sound the same as the OBERHEIM EXPANDER MODULE - very fat and warm! But in my opinion, the VX600 is fatter than the OBERHEIM EXPANDER - especially brass, strings, and lead sounds are really great You can use 12VCO for 6 voice polyphonic or unison all 12VCO to a monophonic lead sound (CAUTION! it's very BIG & FAT!) Also it can be used as a multi timbre synth. (6 different voices). It's very flexible. VX600 has a variety of modulation source and destinations to program sound including MIDI control change, so you can use a MIDI controller to tweak cut off etc, and very cool feature is external audio in jack so you can synthesize external sounds using analog filter and other parameters AKAI VX600 is used but in great working condition."

As always, take auction descriptions with a grain of salt. If anyone out has had extensive time with one, feel free to comment.