class of 1982

flickr by nakedintruder.


"identifying information redacted - full announcement on thursday or friday"

The Harvestman mystery module.

John Bowen Solaris Test Drive by Carbon111

via Carbon111, via this VSE thread where you will find more images and info.

"I was privileged today to have given John Bowen's Solaris a test drive in my studio! Though its not quite finished yet and there are some re-designs in progress, I can honestly say its a programmer's as well as a player's dream!

It sounds absolutely wonderful and is very powerful! It took a few minutes for the interface to sink in, but once it did...wow! Flexible, deep and yet relatively easy to program due to the excellent UI despite the huge number of available parameters and choices. Most parameters are not buried in menus and are easy to access and tweak.

There are a ton of audio-rate modulations available on this thing, none of which generate any artifacts or aliasing at all...lots of FM possibilities, linear as well as exponential. The Moog-style filter was as warm and squelchy as one could want and could be run in other modes besides LP! The "Obie" clone was a good state-variable emulation. The oscillators were plentfull in both quantity and variety. Each patch has a unique architecture, essentially a massively parallel yet integrated "multi" unto itself.

I was suprised at how organic and non-digital it sounded! A one-on-one "taste test" against my analog gear proved this thing has that elusive low-end "beef". Its no slouch as a complex wavetable synth either, holding its own easily against my Waldorf Microwave XT and Ensoniq Fizmo.

You can do FM, physical modeling, subtractive, wavetable and vector synthesis on it as well as the warmest VA I've yet heard.- I'm really blown away! Time to start saving...or figuring out what will have to go"

Also check out the official John Bowen Synth Design.

Some specs via this thread on the John Bowen Synth Design Forum (BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE THREAD FOR MORE including clarifications):
"The hardware Solaris has the equivalent of approximately 6 Scope boards (the 14 DSP cards), so 6 x 14 = 84 Scope generation DSPs - but remember, you would have to be running your Scope Project at 96 kHz as well...

We have lots of software to finish, so I can't report exactly as to the polyphony count, but here are some of the other specs:

CLICK FOR MORE »

ConBrio ADS200 lightshow

ConBrio ADS200 lightshow II

YouTubes via bdufdiskc. via Brandon Daniel in the comments of this post.

"Control panel lightshow on a ConBrio ADS200 digital FM/Additive synthesizer, taken at the 10th Vintage Computer Festival" Listen closely and you will hear that it has 64 notes of polyphony with 16 oscillators per note. This means you could have up to 1024 oscillators at once back in 1978 or shortly after. :)

For those that want real audio, word from an anonymous reader is that it is not 100% yet, so there was no audio actually coming from the synth - just recordings playing in the background.

Update via Devo in the comments:
"Just wanted to clarify... The sound that was heard of the Con Brio at the VCFX this weekend WAS indeed coming from the synth itself. It is true that the synth isn't 100% functional (yet), but the parts that need to be made "whole" still, are the connection from the keyboards to the "brain" (mostly), which will be sorted out soon, hopefully. The sounds that were heard consisted of existing sequences on the original 8" floppys, coupled with existing sound-patches from the same orig. disks (of which, the OS is derived). BTW: the Con Brio sounds as good (or, dare I say, BETTER) than it looks. Awesome! I hope this info helps. Much kudos to all (past and present) involved! "

Oscope with modular soundtrack

YouTube via bdufdiskc.
"Everything you hear is being generated by the modular, including the clock timing and the waveform on the scope.

It's also a pretty good demo of what the Analogue Systems delay can do, as much of what you're hearing is a single snare hit into the delay whose time is being modulated by the doepfer sequencer.

Longer, higher quality mp3 of the sound you hear is here:
http://www.fdiskc.com/aud/RS290.mp3"

Zyklus Mps midi sequencer

YouTube via fizzydiodes. via fizzydiodes on the Matrixsynth Forum.
"Zyklus Mps midi sequencer ROUGH demo !"
Update: link to pdf of manual via dlmorley.
Update via esaruoho in the comments: "AnalogGuy has posted a 3 part video on YouTube with the original Zyklus Demotape:" posted here

isotopeofme

click here for more pics, audio and video. via poictesme on the Matrixsynth Forum.
Note the classic "Lately Bass" preset on the Yamaha TX81Z.

Women That Play Synths

click here for the set via jeff.

Follow up to this post.

77 - Bowzer Zunday (Korg Electribe EMX-1 + Kaoss Pad)

YouTube via atishmeh.
"Went overboard w/ the looping feature on the Kaoss pad again...It's so fun though. Korg Electribe EMX-1 Kaoss Pad"

MOOG Synthesizer Amplifier

images via this auction.

"The unit comes in three pieces, the amp, the main cab and the midrange horn. Included are the front enclosures for all three as well as the rear enclosure for the power amp with the attached spring reverb unit."

Sequential Circuits Six-Trak

images via this auction

"The Sequential Circuits Six-Trak is a classic instrument from the 1980's -- the first multi-timbral"

If correct Sequential Circuits can lay claim to the following:
Prophet-5: 1st Programmable Polyphonic Synth with a microprocessor to save patches.
Prophet-600: 1st MIDI synth
Six-Trak: 1st multi-timbral synth