MATRIXSYNTH

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Ryuichi Sakamoto & his Fairlight 1984

Ryuichi Sakamoto of YMO. Be sure to check out the YMO videos in these posts as well. Via DVDBORN, where you will also find this interesting Japanese clip featuring the Fairlight CMI Series 2..

360 Systems SEMs?

Title link takes you to a post on sequencer.de which alludes to this 360 Systems Spectre module as being an Oberheim SEM in disguise. If you know anything about this unit, feel free to comment.

BTW, check out sequencer.de for a few other tasty synth posts including the Akai AX60 and Roland S330 editing interface.

Update via retrosynth in the comments:
"It's an SEM along with some really poor pitch to CV tracking and an envelope follower thrown in. There's normally a cable for a hex pickup on the far left but on this unit the cable had been cut. This unit had the CV/gate output jacks switched to CV/gate inputs. Unfortunately the amplitude envelope is modified for input from the envelope follower so it only has an attack control, no decay or sustain. It could easily be fixed though. Pictures of the internals here.

Update via Sequenberheim in the comments:
"I worked there.
It tracked even worse than you say.
It was the SEM module. They had a deal with Oberheim to buy and use them.

They didn't have much for gear archives but they did have the very rare 6 SEM guitar synth there too. It was 6 separate SEM modules with 6 of the pitch glitchers as I called them.

They also made a programable parametric EQ that is very rare. The 360 frequency shifter is a rare one too."

Phelios / Stephen Parsick @ Wuppertal 24.11.2006

flickr via Moogulator.

This was previously posted on Moogulator's sequencer.de, but I skipped it at the time. It just keeps coming back so I think it's some sign that I must post it. I just love the color in the shot and the Technics WSA1 always intrigued me. The Prophet VS isn't too shabby either.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Mammal - These are the Salad Days of the Future

YouTube via channelbenjie. Sent my way via frederic.

Original Synth Docs, Books and Mags

Looks like minime123 is auctioning off a motherload of synthesizer docs, books and magazines. Title link takes you to the shots pulled via the auctions for future reference.

Update: minime informed me that these are all originals and not just scans. I updated the title to reflect this as well.

Casio CZ-2000S

I knew about the CZ-1000, CZ-3000, and CZ-5000 Phase Distortion synths from Casio, but not the CZ-2000S. Check out the built in speakers. It looks like the home keyboard version of the CZ series. Title link takes you to some more shots pulled from this Chinese auction sent my way via Sonicbrat. Sonicbrat was on the hunt for Chinese synths and found a few including this one. The majority of what he did find on Chinese auctions were home keyboards and arranger style workstations. If he puts a post up I'll be sure to link to it. BTW, if you know of any Chinese synths please feel free to comment.