"NOS PIF Soviet Analog Synthesizer. 24 mini-key piano. Internal speaker. 3 octave range. One volume knob, one low-pass filter knob. Produces video game-like sounds. It reminds me of early Nintendo games like Castlevania. A great buy for anyone looking for a rare, russian-made analog synth."
"EM-25 is an interesting Soviet string-synth that looks and feels like a curious cross between Moog Opus 3, Yamaha SK15 and ARP Solina. Like other Soviet synths, has got a distinct sound of its own and can easily compete with synths that have grown to become classics.
Organ has great vibe - I like its etheral and gentle vibe in upper register. It has one percussive drawbar (again a plus for total tonal variety).
EM-25's organ is quite interesting, potent and woody with full registers, almost acoustic sounding. With a touch of LXP-1 reverb, a single drawbar turns into real Cathedral organ!
Synth section (called brass on EM-25) is VCO fixed preset on both, with full filter section - but only one filter for all voices.
All said, EM-25 is unique and rare and a real stringer."
This is not click bait, I swear! ;) For those looking for new Elektron products though, this is not it. That said, this might be just as interesting. Well, for those that find vintage-synths-long-lost-in-the-annals-of-history interesting, at least.
To the left you will find a ROCK STAR vintage ad for the Digitone DS1000. Below you will find a video for the Digitone Teclado 44RT. How did we come across these gems?
This is actually a follow-up to this post from back in 2011 for a different ad. The description that went with that post stated it was a DS1000 Giannini Programmable polyphonic synthesizer. Turns out it wasn't. According to a new comment from wmoecke in the comments section of the post, "This synth was created and sold exclusively by DIGITONE, a company owned and operated by Mr. Christóvão Batista da Silva. It never had anything at all to do with Gianinni." Gianinni was another Brazilian brand that re-packaged Siel synths as you can see in these previous posts.
I did a quick image search for DIGITONE DS1000 and found this new, old advert for it. See the previous post for the other ad, and some details. I'm guessing the details are correct minus the mislabel for Gianinni of course.
I then did a quick search for Digitone -elektron for other products and found the 44RT video below. Note the logo is the same cursive style Digitone with the ® on the e as on the DS1000.
If anyone knows more about the Digitone brand and any other products they manufactured, synths or other, let us know!
As I did not know the brand was Digitone prior to this post, I created a new label for them below. I'm also giving this post the New Old labels.
It looks like there was a DIGITONE before Elektron.
Teclado Digitone 44RT Published on Jun 4, 2019
This one appears more preset organ synth with rhythm section than synth. What's BLUMP?
Update via Marcelo Self in the comments:
"As far as I know, yes, Giannini had the license from italian companies. They made a Siel DK60 synth, renamed as GS7010 and Crumar string machine. Digitone was a division of Blump ( or vice versa) which made some preset organs, this synthesizer, DS1000, also comparable to the Poly800 ( or Siel DK60, Giannini GS7010) or Suzuki SX, but without the sequencer, and finally, a hybrid of splitable organ with autothythms and synthesizer section, the Poly SS61. They even thought about relese a system to compete with MIDI, based on paralel port, not serial. Specifically the SS61 sounded really good, rhythms , presets and poly synth part, but according to a local seller, were really not durable. Company stopped to make keyboadrs soon and I never heard about them after. Another Brazilian company which made organ with (solo) synthesizer section ( good) was Gambitt. And Gamasonic produced for a while a small 2 and 1/2 octave mono one with really few parameters, something more like a Prosoloist."
And via vito_mf:
Some years ago I bought a beat-up analog preset drum machine from digitone/blump. It need some heavy cleaning and whatnot so I took it to be serviced. The technician got really exited and he saw it. Turns out he worked at Digitone in the 80's. Last week I took it for some maintenance to another technician who ALSO worked at digitone. He told me they used to make robot pool cleaners in the 80's. But stopped because of poor sealing material. He said digitone instruments were not clones, he designed them himself and kept the schematics in a vault. About 5 years ago, by coincidence, I've met Mr. Batista's daughter. She told me some amazing stories: When he learned that R2D2 was operated by an actor with dwarfism he wrote George Lucas proposing to build a actually working robot. George Lucas wrote him back! (declining). He also built the robot who helped removed and discard the radioactive material in Gioânia in the 90's in what was one of the worst atomic incidents in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident). He did it on his own (no commission etc). When he asked for some compensation the government gave him a pat on the back. He went bankrupt soon after.
"Originally released in 1982, the CS-01 has become a classic choice for thick monophonic bass lines. The simple interface with limited controls makes this a very user friendly unit and features the following specifications:
12db resonant voltage-controlled filter
Triangle, saw, square, pulse, and PWM wave forms
ADSR envelope generator
Glissando & portamento LFO controls"
"In the beginning of the 80's Kawai began manufacturing synthesizers under the company name of Teisco. Their early designs resulted in synths like the S110F above. The Synthesizer 110F is an upgraded S60-F, with dual analog VCO's and an updated look. It has a small but usable 37 note keyboard. Classic analog sawtooth, square, and triangle waveforms plus noise are on-board and can be mixed with external sounds run through the 110F's filters and envelopes. The oscillators can be de-tuned for duophonic textures or phatter leads and bass sounds.
There's plenty of modulation ability and classic analog effects in the 110F to really liven up the sound. There's an LFO which can modulate the VCO and VCF and can trigger the EGs. The VCF resonant low pass filter is great too. There's also a VCA section with Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release controls and finally there's a Hi-Pass filter. There is also a portamento effect, a ring modulator, vibrato and sample-and-hold for those classic analog synth effects and tricks! Lots of pretty blinking lights, a sleek and straight-forward layout and very nice analog bass, lead and synth sounds are all a part of the Synthesizer 110F experience."
"This is a tutorial demonstrating the experience of morphing through the wavetable map of the 1979 Dual Algorithmic Oscillator. This modular synthesis module is an adaptation based directly off of the brilliantly designed Braids module by Émilie Gillet of Mutable Instruments.
Here I am scrolling the X and Y axis separately and then together to give a sense of the 256 wavetable timbres achievable with just this one algorithm. The five note sequence is being generated from the Sequential Voltage Source of a 208e BEMI Music Easel. The occasional octave shifts are generated from the 218e Touch Activated Voltage Source. The reverb is the spring reverb from the Easel and the module is using its built-in VCA and Attack/Decay Envelope Generator."
