Roland TR-808 with Protective Overlay Sheet

via this auction

Roland TR-909 w/ Modded Bass Drum

via this auction
"The bass drum has been modded with the Colin Fraser mods which include the following:

EXISTING CONTROLS:
Tune – Extended control over the decay time of the falling pitch envelope.
Decay – Extended control over the length of the bass drum allowing TR-808 like booming kicks.

NEW CONTROLS:
Pitch – Controls the frequency of the bass drum oscillator.
Drive – Allows waveform adjust from normal to square, for hard clipped sounds.
Tune Depth – Varies the amount of initial pitch sweep (decay set by Tune control)."

There's an audio demo at the auction while up.

Korg KPR-77 Programmable Rhythm drum machine

via this auction

"1982 Korg KPR-77 Programmable Rhythm drum machine."

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VINTAGE KORG MS-04 SYNTHESIZER PITCH/MODULATION PEDAL

via this auction
"The MS-04 was made to provide extra pitch bending and modulation sources to their MS line of synthesizers. You just patched the pedal into those synths and it greatly enhanced their options.

But you can use it on any CV controllable synthesizer (with attenuation.) It's main home was my Octave Cat SRM but I've used it with my Roland SH-09 as well. A cool thing too is that you can use the square wave to trigger events or as a clock for CV sequencers. Why would I do that? Well as I said at one point I didn't have the modular I do now. Waves on the LFO are square, triangle, random and the ultra-cool Glissando. Keep the glissando low for staircase effect, crank it up to thicken your sound and add some life to it.

You can send the signal to two options at once. Like your VCF and VCO. Using either the x1 or the x4 depending on the range. And you can select for each output LFO, BENDER or my fave LFO+BENDER."

You can find the manual here.

Roland SH-7

via this auction

"Roland SH-7 - Roland's flagship monosynth. Mid range serial number with first revision oscillators and keyboard circuitry. The original silver/black rotary controls have all been replaced with high quality collet knobs. Note the 'one note - two note' switch that allows the SH-7 to be used duophonically. The original rotary knobs were designed to fit 6mm knurled shafts and the new rotary switches I fitted have a much smaller 1/8" shaft so new knobs had to found. These new knobs are aesthetically pleasing and have a good grip. The original smaller white slider caps on the five footage sliders have also been replaced with new Technology Transplant clones of the wider caps used in the rest of the instrument. A close up of the twin VCO section showing the new knobs and the state of the front panel. Some paint has been chipped off in places. The rear panel of the SH-7 showing the ample CV/gate and audio I/O. Twin ADSRs and a good collection of filter modulation inputs make this an excellent monosynth."

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Rob Hordijk demonstrating his 5u modules

YouTube via jenamu6 — June 13, 2010 — "Dutch modular synth designer, Rob Hordijk is demonstrating some of his new modules in 5u format, at the mono-poly studio.

He's using one of his VCO's with builtin VCA and a envelope generator.

In front you can see de Benjolin"

Biscuit, Kaossilator Pro, Sleepdrone, Restyler, Filterbank...

via Zn'shñ where you'll find the details.

Julius Goldberg's RCA Theremin

YouTube via copperleaves — June 13, 2010 — "This is the unique 1929 RCA theremin that was once the property of Leon Theremin's assistant, Julius Goldberg. One of the things that makes this instrument so unusual, are the "lightning bolt" antennas that were created for it in the 1930's. For the purpose of this video, I have removed the cabinet doors in order to be able to show the inside of the instrument.

One of the problems that RCA theremins can develop over the years (this instrument is more than 80 years old) has to do with the degeneration of the "trimming condensers". These are the three little white cards that hang from the chassis. You will notice that each card has a trimming screw on it which allows the user to adjust the range of the instrument as well as the volume response. Turning the screw to the left or the right fine tunes capacitance by pushing two plates together on the inside of the card. Over the years, these plates naturally degenerate and lose their capacitance (causing the pitch range of the sound to fall lower and lower over the decades) so extra capacitance has to be added in order to maintain the integrity of the instrument. This can be done easily by adding a capacitor to the circuit. I have done this by connecting small alligator clips to the poles of the circuits and then inserting capacitors that will return the instrument to the original RCA specifications. By leaving the clips exposed (you can see them in the video) I can access them easily and adjust capacitance without having to disassemble the theremin.

The elaborate speaker stand that you see behind me, is an exact replica of the "sprite" speakers (there were originally three of them) that were created for the "Electrio" in 1931 by Vincente Minnelli when he was working as a set designer at Radio City Music Hall. Minnelli later went on to become one of Hollywood's most celebrated film directors of the 1940's and 50's. Unfortunately, the original stands disappeared long ago. They are very top heavy and they probably just fell apart.

It was felt at the time that the theremin, theremincello, and theremin keyboard (which formed the "Electrio") was not very interesting to look at from a distance, so these spectacular Art Deco speaker stands were created to look impressive from a distance. They were almost eight feet tall (this reproduction is about 7' 8" tall) and were very fragile. The stand you see in this video is equipped with a CLARATONE speaker specially designed for use with a theremin.

The piece I am playing is CHE FARO SENZA EURIDICE from C. W. Gluck's opera, ORFEO ED EURIDICE.

If you would like to know more about Julius Goldberg, and see some photos of the original sprite speakers, please visit my website:

http://www.peterpringle.com"

Click here for all posts featuring Peter Pringle featured here on MATRIXSYNTH. Don't miss this impressive cover of Cohen's Hallelujah.

VBlog 10 - Live Studio Improvisation

YouTube via kerikino — June 13, 2010 — "A live studio improvisational performance featuring drum beat made with mpc1000, patented telephone microphone running though Art tube pre amp, realistic/moog mg-1 synthesizer for bass and some lead, and the good old casiotone mt-100"
http://www.erikino.com/
http://www.myspace.com/kerikino

Oscobox

YouTube via thesilentguymusic — June 13, 2010 — "A synth that i am working with 2 4006 osc's and distorcion from a oppamp , it will also have a filter and midi control !"