MATRIXSYNTH

FARFISA POLYCHROME - vintage synthesizer / string machine HQ sound demo

YouTube via AnalogAudio1

"This video shows the Farfisa Polychrome played with a Roland DEP-5 FX processor for delay effects.

The Farfisa Polychrome from 1979 is one of the rarest Farfisa keyboards. It is a flexible string synthesizer / string ensemble with a very characterful, musical sound.

It has a PERCUSSIVE section, a STRING section, a ENSEMBLE section and a VOCAL CHORUS section. The most sections have VCF cutoff / resonance controls. It has a great phaser (with SPEED, EMPHASIS and TREMOLO controls), a noise generator, single outputs, an external input jack (for external signals, which can be treated with the Polychrome's chorus and phaser) and a lot more... It even has aftertouch! And it's fully polyphonic, too..."

Oberheim OB 1 + Roland TR 808 + Pearl Syncussion + Korg Z1

YouTube via djessay101
"Korg Z1 for Pad-Sound, TR 808 for Hihat + Roland DC-20, Pearl Syncussion for Kick, Oberheim OB1 with LFO Filter"

Oberheim DX demonstration, making beats

YouTube via frostedminipete
"Awesome vintage drum machine. Commonly used in early hip hop...also, bass drum easily recognized from "Blue Monday" by New Order (they used a DMX, slightly more advanced version of the DX). This guy is currently for sale on eBay."

Mini Synth Jam 1.0

YouTube via br0therl0c0
"Just a sketch. Mostly analog, and all live. Andromeda arpeggio, Prophet 08 bass through Moog delay w/ expression pedal hooked into delay time. Electribe drums."

How to program a Roland TB 303 and TR 909

YouTube via klausito1970
"Another howto, this time for a Roland TB-303 Bassline and a TR-909 Rhythm Composer. For the 303 I used the pattern from Fatboy Slim's song: "Everybody needs a 303". The 909 pattern is a quite simple Kick, Snare and Hihat pattern.
Future Retro Mobius sequencer is master midi clock and the 303/909 follow as slaves. The 303 is connected via a Doepfer MSY2 converter.
Thanks for watching and have fun with your Roland stuff."

Moog The Source

via this auction

Korg Vintage Analog Synth MaxiKorg 800dv

via this auction
"he wonderful Korg MAxiKorg or 800dv is one of a kind. A unique analog synth from the pre-chips era. 4 VCO capable of producing FAT 4VCO monophonic leads or Dual 2-VCO duophonic chords or sequences. Upper VCO has coarse tuning, fine tuning, Octave 64-32-16-8-4-2, Waveforms Triangle-Square-Saw-Pulse-PWM (chorus)-Pink Noise. Plus Mixer with Ring-modulated 32-16-8-4-2 Sub-Oscillator.

Add to that PWM, Vibrato Speed and Depth with Delay, Pitch Bender Delay and Time and Portamento.

The lower VCO has about the same functions, but with White Noise instead of Pink noise (also has a Ringmodulated Saw with Octave Select). On top of that, you get Two VCA with selectable range Mod Source, and Hold, AR or ADS mode, one for each VCO pair.

Add also the famous 4 VCF filters sliders controlling 2 Highpass and 2 Lowpass cutoffs, with 3 steps selectable resonance and VCA mod. On top of that, you have a Pulse LFO allowing to repeat triggers in 5 different modes, like two voices at the time, voices alternating for pulsing leads, ajustable speed and Decay.

You also have two switches for controlling the playing mode, choosing which voice plays when one key pressed, or two key pressed.

You have access to individual voice volume control and independent audio outputs.

The keyboard is extremely stable, without drifting over time, and easy to tune."

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Yamaha CS5 analog monophonic synth

YouTube via abertronic.

via this auction

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Airböurne Synthesizer System

flickr set by Brättli Airböurne
(click for more)

You might remember the Airböurne from this post on my visit to Synthorama. Be sure to click on the Airböurne and Synthorama labels below for more.

Update you can see a video of the Airböurne modular here minus the sequencer. You can actually see the blank panel case of the sequencer at the start of the video.

New to the system is the Airböurne Sequencer AMS-496.

Update: Martin from Synthorama wrote in with more details. The Airböurne Synthesizer System will be shown at the Musikmesse at the Ghielmetti booth in hall 8, row H, booth 14. Martin will be there throughout the show. The following is some more detail on the sequencer:

"The sequencer has 4 independent tracks with up to 96 notes. You can place plugs in four different colours, corresponding to the four tracks. It is possible to place notes over 5 octaves. Every track you can also transpose 2 octaves down and 2 octaves up, so you have 9 octaves in total.

In the brown rows you can place white plugs if you want a gliding effect between the notes. You can choose every note of every track.

The red rows for Skip and Stop are not implemented yet. The red Repeat row allows to set an end of a melody, from where the sequencer repeats the melody.

The green Duration rows allow calibrated note lengths for every column. If you wish to have different note length at the same column for the tracks you must use the green Gate Hold rows for combining the note lengths.

The blue Volume rows allow to change the volume of every note of every track in 9 different levels. The blue Pan rows allow to define on which channel the notes will sound. You have the possibility to choose left, right, mono and random pan, for every note and every track. There are built in four independent pseudo random generators.

The white pitch rows are splittable in up to three independent sections. Here you can place up to three melodies. For every section you can define how many repeats (1 to 64) they have to run. So you can create small songs with three sections.

The internal beat generator counts from 20 bpm up to 300 bpm and the frequency you can alter with an external control voltage. With an externel quarter note clock the sequencer synchronizes in the limits between 10 bpm and 400 bpm. Later it will be possible to synchronize it via Midi clock (not implemented yet).

At rear you have the possibility to use the Pitch-CV, the Gate and the Trigger Outputs for every analogue synthesizer which uses 1 V/octave. The volume and pan signals are not available for analog synths because they are digital coded for the Airböurne Synth AVS-04 only.

On the exhibited model not all ist working perfectly.

Actually these malfunctions are known:
The bottom row (lowest C) of the pitch panel reacts not in the same column at the other rows.
The functions skip + and skip - are not working properly.
Sometimes some notes disappear or have the wrong pitch or note length. This is a timing error in one of the FPGAs.
The number of pitch plugs you can place on one row is limited, dependent of track, to 3 to 12 plugs.
The LSB digit of the internal beat generator will be only updated if the sequencer is in Repeat Mode :-) This is a real nice software bug in one of the micro controllers."