The Midwest Experimental Electronics Showcase

"The Midwest Experimental Electronics Showcase
Saturday, May 16th, 7 PM
Lizard's Liquid Lounge
3058 W Irving Park Rd., Chicago, 773-463-7599

~NO COVER~

Audio &visual artists and inventors from the Midwest gather to share their recent homemade experimental electronics projects, instruments, videos, and robots at this DIY convention/lab. Circuit Benders, Toy Hackers, Tech Pirates, and Recycling Junkies will have an opportunity to perform, demonstrate, and lecture about their recent work in the fast-growing art of Acquired Technology."

Line-up: Tim Kaiser,Talking Computron,Hey Coma, Thriftstore Boratorium,Créme DeMentia, Roth Mobot,Alex Inglizian,Mike Una,AutoShrimp,djswyll.
via brian c

PAiA synth analog ad sheet 1976 Gnome Oz

via this auction

Barely legible. If anyone has a decent scan of this one, feel free to send it in. That's the Flanger, not the Gnome or Oz. Maybe they are on the back. "This ad sheet went out with their catalogue (which we haven't located) with a few new items & updates. It's a folded 8.5" x 11" sheet, printed both sides."

Rare Technics SY-1010 analogue synthesizer (1979)

via this auction
Not the best shots, but you don't see these often.

"A light weight synthesizer manufactured by technics in 1979. It's all analogue, with no battery for memory or anything like that, so it's probably still quite clean inside, and has survived in good condition for nearly 30 years.

It is compact (roughly the same size as a technics SL-1200 turntable)

Typical Oscillator+Noise->Filter->VCA monosynth setup with LFO.

The LFO can go up to quite high frequencies (i'm guessing around 100hz or maybe higher), so it can be used as an FM effect.

There is also a tuning knob for the main oscillator, which has a range of less than 100hz, up to somewhere above 10000hz.

There are no inputs at all to this synth. But i guess someone with experience could add cv/gate inputs, and probably even midi too, if that was required."

Maestrovox tube synth

via this auction
"Up for sale is a rare Maestrovox tube synthesizer keyboard instrument, one of 17 known to exist, and a unique model. These first went on sale in 1952. Much information on these, including schematics, can be obtained by visiting the following website, which belongs to the granddaughter of the inventor of the Maestrovox:
http://www.debbiecurtis.co.uk/id99.html

This Maestrovox is a special instrument because the keyboard's facade (rocker switches, entirely black paneling, etc), is imitative of the Clavioline, while it still maintained the same speaker/ amp cabinet as the regular Maestrovox Consort model. It has mounting stand. I think the way this Maestrovox was supposed to work is that you place the speaker/ amp cabinet on the ground, which brings the keyboard to playing height if you are in the sitting position. Quite a unique, cool set-up.

This Maestrovox is cosmetically in very good condition. The keyboard itself is in excellent condition. The speaker/ amp cabinet is missing its original grillcloth (a green replacement grillcloth has been mounted to the front with thumbtacks), and the tolex if pealing in a few places.

This Maestrovox MIGHT be completely functional, but my power converter does not provide enough wattage to adequately test it. It runs off of 220V/240V, because it was invented in Australia, and the only converter I could find locally that would support that voltage was at Radioshack, and it only could provide 44W of power, which is only enough for a small appliance (I have included a picture of the converter I used to test it). So, because of that, the Maestrovox could not be properly tested. From my albeit insufficient testing, the upper two octaves definitely worked, and the lower octave did not work. That is likely a simple fix because the Maestrovox, like the Clavioline, used three-octave dividers to derive all the pitches from a single top-octave tone generator. The sound is somewhat weak, which is also likely due to the insufficient wattage. It could even just be a bad tube, or perhaps the lack of power resulted in only two of the octaves working during testing. Why did Maestrovoxes, Claviolines, Ondiolines, and Solovoxes have only 36 notes? Because adding a 37th note would have required a fourth divider. This Maestrovox has an octave switcher with three positions immediately to the left of the rocker switches, and two tuning knobs on the left and right side of the keyboard front. The same thing happens one each octave setting: the lower octave of the keyboard does not play anything. With the schematics, it should be very easy to bring this to perfect functional condition, if it is not functioning perfect already when properly powered (I'm not able to test it sufficiently, as described below).

Further information on the history and function of portable and mountable tube synthesizers (namely the Clavioline, but also the Maestrovox, Ondioline, and Solovox) can be found here
And another Maestrovox-related webpage"

Yamaha SK20

YouTube via abertronic. via these auctions
"A lovely sounding organ / strings / polysynth . Early yamaha Digital FM for the organ , strings and polysynth are analog. String sound is comparable to the Roland RS 202 and you can build up more complex sounds because of the 3 sections. PItch of the organ/string section can be detuned against the pitch of the polysynth. It contains an excellent ensemble effect in addition to vibrato and tremelo effect. Its a little heavy so best suited for studio use!
The analog section strings/polysynth sound , to me , is very beautiful ; grainy ., a very physical real sound .
One note ; the polysynth section contains a selection of wavetypes 4'saw down to 16'pulse . If you place the switch in between to wavetypes you get a mixture of those 2."

JX3P

YouTube via AnjelicasBaby

Ratcheting VCS and PLL

YouTube via boobtube356
"Doepfer A-196 PLL tracks a simple sequence. The output goes to a PlanB model 12 filter in bandpass mode, and then on to the MakeNoise QMMG in low pass gate mode. The QMMG is modulated by the Cwejman ADSR-VC2. The ADSR is triggered by the PLL Phase Comp. output, which is getting smoothed out by the Bananalogue VCS, then sent to the Doepfer A-156 quantizer. The quantizer generates triggers for the ADSR as the VCS output varies. The Phase Comp output from the PLL is very unstable, even with the VCS, so the ADSR fires rapidly. The VCS is receiving rise and fall modulation from the original pitch cv coming out of the sequencer. The sequencer is Doepfer A-160/1 to PlanB M14."

Hollow Earth DIY waveshaper LFO - demo 2

YouTube via muki123
"AVR-based waveshaper/tremolo/envelope. More info found here: http://soniccrayon.blogspot.com/"

x0xb0x - Best TB-303 Replica (xoxbox analog synth)

via this auction

"The x0xb0x is an analog replica of the legendary Roland TB-303 synthesizer. It uses the same components, in the same schematic, to match its sound — perfectly. The difference in sound between a well-made x0xb0x and a TB-303 is about the same as the difference between one TB-303 and another.

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Moog MF-104SD Delay vs Diamond Memory Lane

details and samples on cl516