Exploring the Cosmic Beauty of the Elgam Carousel

video upload by HAINBACH

"Form changes function - the Elgam Carousel first appeared as part of a big organ. Elgam quickly realized that they could a make a standalone product out of this, for the more mobile musicians entertaining crowds at business and family functions. They set a trend - CRB and Elka followed with the Computerband 2000 and Wilgamat. These standalone keyboards can be called the first groove boxes. In this video I demo this cosmic sounding wonder and show real world applications in scoring.

Music, Soundpack and thanks:
https://www.patreon.com/hainbach

LISTEN TO My Music: https://hainbach.bandcamp.com"

You can find additional posts featuring the Elgam Carousel here.

CRB Voco Strings and CRB Computerband 2000

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"CRB Elettronica was one of many organ manufacturers in the Marche region in Italy in the 1970s.
They did however branch out to produce a very limited number of synthesizers and drum machines for a domestic market where, due to a weak lira and high import taxes, synths manufactured in Japan and America were rare treats.
Speaking of rare - these CRB machines are today incredibly so - having already been manufactured in numbers in the low hundreds - very few survive today.

The CRB Computer Band 2000 is an analog auto-accompaniment unit with a range of chord and arpeggiator sounds.

1. Analog Drum Machine Section with individually mutable sounds
2. Bass section with three sounds and two modes
3. Two separate chord sections with a total of seven sounds, decay and volume controls.
4. And at last the arpeggiator section with four different sounds and decay control.

These sections were originally made for big home-organs, they're incorporated into the CRB 910 organs and a few Solton branded ones as well.

The CRB Voco Strings is an Italian take on the Roland VP-330 - a string and vocoder machine. It has a great sounding string section as a carrier - maybe one of the very sweetest sounding string machines that came out of Italy?
Change my mind in the comment section :)

In this video we're letting the CRB Voco strings process the CRB Computer Band 2000 via the audio input. During the first two compositions, a third player, the Siel Cruise - a lovely Mono / Poly machine, is connected as an external carrier signal instead of the Voco-Strings String Sounds, via the external instrument input in the back.

This video is a compilation of previously released videos on our channel - there are lots more videos of the Computerband 2000 unit as well.

The CRB Computerband unit is currently for sale on Reberb."

See the CRB label below for more.

CRB Computerband 2000

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Introducing the wonderful CRB Computer Band 2000 - a mainly analog auto-accompaniment machine from the the late 70s and early 80s with four sections:

1.Drums with individually mutable sounds and fill-in and variation options
2.Bass section with three sounds, decay controls and two modes
3.Two chord sections with a total of seven sounds, decay and volume controls.
4. And an arpeggiator with four different sounds and decay control.

A great song writing tool when you're stuck and simply a very inspiring instrument, the sounds on these are really cool.

The Computerband 2000 was originally made for big home-organs, they're incorporated into the CRB 910 organs and a few Solton branded ones as well.
These stand-alone units are very rare."

Addtiional CRB Computerband 2000 posts

"Introducing" the DR BÖHM DIGITAL DRUMS

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

You can find additional posts featuring the Bohm Digital Drums here.

"Dr. Böhm Digital Drums in action - that's HERR DOCTOR to you thank you very much.

We love these when they work - we hate these when they don't work.
They're notoriously hard to service - this one was no exception.
It could be the most advanced auto accompaniment unit out there - change my mind in the comment section.

We thought Dr. Böhm Digital Drums could use an in-depth video of the auto accompaniment section alone.
The videos out there present this device as a "Italo Disco Machine" - when it's actually so much more.
It has 180 different auto accompaniment arrangements, and the 4 instrument voices have more than 60 individual preset sounds at your disposal.
The variety and range of stuff that comes out of this thing is really not bad - comparing it to other machines of the same era, the Solton Programmer 24 and the CRB Computerband 2000 - Dr. B comes out ridiculously more versatile.

We used almost no effects used in this video, the compositions are improvised one-takes that we came up with on the spot without preparation.

This specific machine was modified - it had six mysterious, extra potentiometers in place already when we bought it - but they weren't hooked up to anything internally - probably a botched project from the previous owner.
So we asked one of our techs to wire them up to modify the Bass, Mono 1 and 2 sections with individual volumes and the internal, on-board cut-off filter.

The result is not bad - for all types of Electro and Electronica obviously, Pop or Ambient textures for sure, even Musique Concrete-leaning experimentations.

Big thanks to Ludus Pinski here in Florence for wiring this up for us, and to Ondrej Pavelka in Prague Czechoslovakia, for sorting out the rest."

V.A.I. 78 : CRB VOCO STRINGS / CRB COMPUTERBAND 2000 / SIEL CRUISE

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"CRB Elettronica was one of many organ manufacturers in the Marche region in Italy. Starting in the mid 70s they did however branch out to produce a very limited number of synthesizers and drum machines for a domestic market where, due to a weak lira and high import taxes, Japanese or American manufactured synths were rare treats.

The CRB Computer Band 2000 is an analog auto-accompaniment machine with a range of chord and arpeggiator sounds with decay controls, as well as a bass section and a drum machine with individually mutable sounds.

The CRB Voco Strings is an Italian take on the Roland VP-330 - a string and vocoder machine.

In this video we're letting the CRB Voco strings process the CRB Computer Band 2000 via the regular audio input, while a third player, the Siel Cruise, a lovely Mono / Poly machine, is connected as an external carrier signal, via the instrument input."

V.A.I. 77 : CRB VOCO STRINGS / CRB COMPUTERBAND 2000 / SIEL CRUISE

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Combining two very rare oddballs - both manufactured by CRB Elettronica in the late 1970s : The CRB Computer Band 2000 and the CRB Voco Strings.

The Computer Band 2000 is an analog auto-accompaniment machine with a range of chord and arpeggiator sounds with decay controls, as well as a bass section and a drum machine with individually mutable sounds.

The Voco Strings is CRBs take on the Roland VP-330 - a string and vocoder machine. Were there any other commercially produced vocoders in Europe apart from this one and the Sennheiser VSM-201? Let us know in the comment section.

We're letting the CRB Voco strings process the Computer Band, via the regular audio input, while a third player, the Siel Cruise, a lovely Mono / Poly machine, is connected as an external carrier signal, via the instrument input.

More videos of this lovely combination will be going up soon.

Vintage Audio Institute is a gear vendor and recording facility in Florence Italy."

V.A.I. 67 CRB Computerband 2000 / CRB Oberon

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Another little track we threw together with these rare oddballs.
The CRB Computerband 2000 is a four section auto-accompaniment stand-alone unit usually built in to big, furniture style home organs.
The CRB Oberon is a monophonic synthesizer made in a very limited run by the same company around the same time. It has two oscillators plus an added 3rd more limited and with 4 footages it can get quite big, but this time around we wanted a more delicate lead sound out of it."

V.A.I. 65 : CRB Computerband 2000 / EKOSynth

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Another demonstration of the marvellous CRB Computerband 2000 - an auto-accompaniment machine with 4 sections made by organ manufacturer CRB in the Marche region of Italy.
This time we paired it with the EkoSynth, a quite rare monophonic preset synth from the mid 1970s made by Italian guitar and amp manufacturer EKO. This is a unique sounding synth compared to many other Italian monophonics of the era, the filter is special, really not bad, so you can get a lot of different sounds out of this machine."

V.A.I. 64 - CRB Oberon / CRB Computerband 2000

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Another little video with some neat CRB equipment, the CRB Oberon is a two oscillator monophonic synth from the late 70s.
The CRB Computerband 2000 came out a few years later and is a classic auto accompaniment machine with 4 sections"

Note it's branded Computer Band 2000.