MATRIXSYNTH

Yamaha SY35

You can find a full review with more images and a sample on Khoral's Cafe 80 (direct link).

"The SY35 is sixteen voices polyphonic and multimbral (eight parts). There are 128 sounds. 64 are factory presets that you can’t erase, mostly acoustic (most notably, some good electric pianos, excellent vintage strings and a lovely choir patch). The other 64 are user presets, for storing your own creations.

Sounds are built around no less than four oscillators, two FM and two AWM (that is, basically acoustic samples). Each FM oscillator has its dedicated low-pass filter [there actually isn't a filter - see comments below]. Add four LFOs and sixteen (decent but not great) effects, and that’s pretty much it."

Exercising the Fifty and Music Room Revision

flickr by zonkout

Exercising the Fifty full size
Music Room Revision full size

cs80 galaxiesmerge

YouTube via galaxiesmerge
"My Yamaha CS80 synthesizer. The string sounds on this are amazing. Look at Blade Runner that was scored with a CS80 keyboard by Vangelis. This is recorded using my home video camera and its built in microphone. In the future I intend to post a much better video. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what the CS80 sounds like."

Neurotica

via David Kronemyer where you will find a link to the track.

"Here is a song I recorded at a colleague’s studio entitled “Neurotica.” It showcases the fabulous Resonator Neuronium designed by Jürgen Michaelis. It was all sequenced in real time except the bass part which I overdubbed later. The Neuronium comes in at bar 13 after the synth intro. Length is 1:50 so it won’t take that long to become intrigued by the possibilities presented by this unique device."

Synth Pics via Pighood

You can find more shots at
Pighood's Music flickr set.

Pictured here:
Bob Moog ....and his legacy.
Lamp Doepfer
The Pigsty

A Devil Between Mirrors

"A spontaneous attempt at psychospiritual affirmation and adoration, and the ritualistic use of the synthesizer to manifest subconscious potentialities.

All songs created/recorded spontaneously in one take on the night of November 22, 2008 by Richard Michael Willoughby and Greg Miner, except track #1, created/recorded November 23, 2008. All songs feature on the Rhodes (ARP) Chroma and the Alesis Andromeda, with very little use of effects, and using patch presets as starting points." You can find the tracks by Richard Willoughby on the excellent Rhodes Chroma site here.

Cwejman's Bubbling Woodpecker Computer

YouTube via bigcitymusic
"Here's a little test patch we made while trying to figure out our NAMM setup. The Cwejman modules sound great!

We're using the VCO-2RM, VM-1, PH-4. MMF-1, NS-4, AP-1, and the MX-4S modules, all temporarily racked in an Analogue Systems rs15 case."

ROLAND SH-5

via this auction. More images here while they are up. You can read the back panel input and outputs in the shot below. Note see the comments of this post regarding contact spray.

"Sound is very unique and recognizable early Roland. The closest I can think of is System 100, which still doesn't have all the functions of SH-5. Later Rolands definately sound more sophisticated, like SH-7 or JP-4. The sound could be described as raw, aggressive and alive. It's not meant to replace your MOOG for basses but it's greatness lies in different areas. Like modular type of pads, sequenced percussive sounds, arpeggios, fuzzy solos.. it does that really well."

Roland Jupiter-8

via this auction
"The Roland Jupiter 8 is one of the best sounding and most playable analog polyphonic synthesizers from the 1980's. When it came time for me to purchase my first poly synth I played them all: Prophet 5 and Prophet 10, Rhodes Chroma, Yamaha CS70M, Memorymoog, Oberheim OBXa, everything I could get my hands on. I kept going back to the JP8. It has a great fat sound, live performance playability, relatively stable tuning (after she warms up any drifting is musically realistic and adds to it's warmth), and a voice architecture that lets your creativity stretch beyond it's contemporaries.

Being an avid programmer I found it more flexible than the others with such things as: continuously variable oscillator mixing (unlike the Oberheim), cross modulation, envelope inverting, dual mode filter plus a high pass filter, full featured oscillator modulation, and a very musical arpeggiator. This unit is one of the early ones, purchased in 1983 and well taken care of. It is pre midi and the only modification done to it was to install a detachable power cable. I would assume it to be a 12 bit model due to it's age, which I understand is desireable and reputed to have a thicker sound. The serial number is 141263"