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this auction
SN 00180
"Crumar Composer - italian analog paraphonic synth. Less than 500 of these were produced! Serial number is U1/00108. It is very rare and unique synthesizer. It sounds thick and combining all instruments (solo synth, poly synth, organ and strings) gives a unique sound.
In solo synth section you have 5 waveforms to chose!!! and you can mix it with poly synth to create thick 3 oscilator synthesizer! Leslie emulation souds great and strings will take you to 80's :)
Interestingly Composer uses the same CEM chip to VCA, filters and envelope at such giants as Memorymoog, Oberheim OBX, OBXa/OB8, SCI Prophet 5! This is no joke, check for yourself!
This is a description made by sounddoctorin and a comparasion and
list of chips used in the Crumar.
Used chips:
- oscilators: (same used in: Crumar Stratus, Trilogy, Performer, Multiman)
- envelopes: Curtis CEM3310 (same used in: Crumar Stratus, Trilogy, Memorymoog, Oberheim OBX, OBXa/OB8, SCI Prophet 5)
- filter: Curtis CEM3320 (same used in: Crumar Stratus, Trilogy, Memorymoog, Oberheim OBXa/OB8, SCI Prophet 5)
- VCA: Curtis CEM3330 (same used in: Crumar Stratus, Trilogy).
Here's a review of sounds/features per section:
There is a mixer for the 4 sections and bender for monosynth only ,mod for all other sections' vibrato (with speed knob right there by the wheel) and 'touch dynamics' knob for touch vibrato. Also it has a breath input (tubing goes directly in) which can be switched to give volume control for either poly or mono synth section.
1) Monosynth is one fat oscillator. But you have 5 waveform types - pulses and triangle added and also you can vary footage from 32' to 4'. PORTAMENTO amount is very useful for creating sounds where the lead lage the other parts. This thing can sound very phat.
2) Polysynth is at least as nice as the ARP omni's I think overall. I dunno that ARP filter is awful cool sounding I think. But the curtis CEM3320 is ok too in it's own way and there is one of them shared again with eg retrigger when all notes are lifted. CEM3310EG, and CEM3330vca. These same three chips are in the mono section also. But on the poly section there are three presets...a nice piano enveloped sound and a more brassy sound and a more tweaky synth sound... and then you can select 'free' which means you program it with the knobs for ADSR, amount (invertable like Korg Delta etc.) and cutoff/resonance. Anyway in the oscillator control section there are two oscillators and both can be dropped an octave with a switch and one can be detuned up or down a fifth or like that. Also second oscillator can be muted. You can select between square and saw for both independently.
3) 4 great preset organ tones plus percussion stops with master volume and decay knobs. Overall organ 'sustain', a release envelope. It's all paraphonic with retrig on all notes off but wow. Great BBD leslie emulator that speeds up and slows down like the real thing. And nice tone selection.
4) Performer sounding strings pretty much save the cool eq of the performer of course. But at least the same kind of quality for the tones it does have and a decent eq sweep and 8' 16' 'stops'.
Other funtions: keybord split, mixer for all sections, ADSR, positive/negative envelope amount, cutoff, resonance, independent outputs for all parts, breath controller.
Check more info:
link 1
link 2
link 3
link 4
link 5
Other demos of a Crumar Composer in action:" [videos posted
here]
via this auction
Preset styles: Bossanova, Samba 1-2, Cha-Cha 1-2, Kazachok 1-2, Swing 1-2, Waltz 1-2, Big band 1-2, Tango 1-2, Rock 1-2, Beat 1-2, Disco 1-2, Reggae 1-2, Lezginka 1-2, March 1-2, Heavy Metal 1-2, Slow Rock 1-2.
Back panel: midi input/output, audio output right/left, input for a tape recoder, headphones.
