John Bowen Solaris | Epic, Enormous & Expensive

video upload by Espen Kraft

"A flagship synth from 2011, the John Bowen Solaris is both vintage and modern at the same time. It's all digital, but it can mimic both old analogs as well as the 80s hybrid synthesizers and more.

Check out the synth here: https://www.johnbowen.com

The idea to use a Compact Flash card to store patches, presets, Wav-files and even the OS is a great concept in my opinion. Yes, it means you can loose everything if not careful, but as long as you have a backup of the card you can put it into another Solaris and boot it up to reveal YOUR Solaris.
Using the CF card does not mean the Solaris boots the OS from the card, you flash the Solaris from the card when there's a new OS update you want to install into the synth.
You do need to have the CF card present to have your presets and patches available though.

The demo song was made to showcase what I feel is the best part of the Solaris, the ability to mimic the classic hybrid synths like the Prophet VS, the PPG, and also synths like the Yamaha FS1R which uses formant shaping. The drum loop that comes up at the end is also out of the Solaris as you can create patches based off your own Wav-files.
The first part of the demo song is all recorded by hand, with a free flowing tempo. I also play an arpeggiated part on top of this.
The second part is recorded to tempo.
Some of the patches are part of this Solaris' preset bank, while some of the sounds are either edited presets or my own makings.
External FX used in the demo track: Valhalla VintageVerb, GFI Specular Tempus.
The demo track has been mixed and mastered using my well documented workflow and gear."

Korg NTS-1 "Ideas” Soundset (FREE) 130 Presets!

video upload by LFOstore

"Korg NTS-1 "Ideas” Soundset is here!

A Soundbank with 130 Presets included for free, as a Gift from Us to You our dear customers! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Download: https://lfo.sellfy.store/p/korg-nts-1...

The Nu:Tekt NTS-1 digital KIT is a unique, flexible, and easy DIY synthesizer that you can easily assemble yourself (tool included), without any soldering.

The first of its kind from KORG’s DIY-focused Nu:Tekt brand, NTS-1 packs a powerful synth and multi-effects engine into a compact and highly portable form factor.

Its DIY nature means it’s also very customizable.

Explore the possibilities!"

ESK - MFB Synth Pro Sound Demo

video upload by Metunar

"Sound Demo of the MFB Synth Pro polyphonic analog Synth.
Direct recording without external effects.
Sequenced by the Elektron Digitone.

http://www.metunar.ch"

DX5 playing Erasure "Sometimes" cover (Update)

video upload by DX5

"Updating an instrumental cover I had already done years ago.
Gear used:
Roland JX-8P
Emu Emax
Emu Emax II
Backtrack previously recorded on Pro Tools, track by track, by me.
Original song composed by Vince Clarke/Andy Bell
Performed here by DX5 Jose Maria Bara."

benge MC4

video upload by zack dagoba

"Roland MC4 and 100M modular synth
These two were made for each other. Literally"

Custom White & Blue Roland Juno-106

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

"Fully customized finish by 'synth spa' white on blue Juno 106. All voice chips and internals work perfectly. Some blue LED’s have burned out (mainly the 16” 8” octave leds but the buttons still work). Pitch bender needs new spring. But otherwise works perfectly."

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E-MU Systems Emax I HD Plus SE Rack SN 0390123 w/ OLED Display & SCSI2SD

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

"Rare E-MU Systems EMAX I HD Plus SE Rackmount Sampler. Factory Plus SE HD Model 2121. Internally mounted SCSI2SD 5.2 board with 4 partition 16GB SD card capable of holding nearly 160 banks in the floppy drive slot. Comes loaded with many custom and factory library sounds I will include download links for entire Emax library as well.

Analog and Digital Boards have been recapped. New medical grade power supply installed. Everything works great and sounds amazing! 12 bit character and true analog filters.

System boots up in seconds from SD card. Banks save and load nearly instantaneously. The HD advantage is huge over standard floppy or Gotek systems as every function of the unit is faster and more responsive.

Display has been updated to a beautiful new white OLED display. Sadly pictures can't do justice to the quality of the OLED. Everything works as it should. Incredible sounding sampler with analog processing. SE features provide deep synthesis."

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Oberheim Matrix 6R with ObiMagix6000 Controller

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

You can find some demos of the ObiMagix6000 controller by Volt Crafty in previous posts here.

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1987 Kawai K5 Digital Multi-Dimensional Synthesizer

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

Update: removed the auction link. More popped up with the same pics. Thanks to gridsleep in the comments for catching this one.

Keeping this post up for the pics and for anyone searching for them to verify auctions. These haven't been posted before.

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Performance // Chordal Ambient Tape Delay Patch // Instruōctional Patching

video upload by Instruō

Tutorial video here

"This is a performance recording of a patch I created while I was supposed to be prepping for the Tágh overview video.
It grew and became too fun a patch not to make a video of.
I deep dive on the patch techniques and break it down in detail in dedicated video.
The full Instruōctional Patching video will be live on Dec 30th at 4PM (GMT)

Core Techniques:
• Harmonic chord progression using Harmonàig/Saïch
• Cascaded pitch shifting delay
• Sub-harmonic waveshaping with through-zero frequency modulation
• Rhythmic textural "bird noise" by oscillator cross-modulation

This is quite a dense patch with a lot of subtle modulation and some interesting waveshaping techniques involved.
Fundamentally it is a patch using 3 parallel voices as audio sources which are mixed via multiple crossfaders.

The primary voice is the harmonic aspect which utilises a Saïch controlled by a Harmonàig to define the chord progression basis of the composition.
The Harmonàig can either be controlled via CV for preprogrammed/randomly self generated progressions, or can be manually played in Performance Mode.
When a new Root note is defined, the GATE output controls the Cèis ADSR which triggers a cascade of events that influence the patch.
The Cèis envelope output (acting as an AR) sounds the chords through a VCA which routs to the Lúbadh, which is configured as a tape delay.

Various gate and trigger signals from the Cèis clock two S&H modules as well as toggling signal routing for variations in parameters such as interval offsets on the Saïch (which introduces tension tones to the chords), input mix of the Saïch voice between the Lúbadh's decks and varies the index ratio of the Cš-L's complex voice.


There is a parallel bass voice which follows the root of the Harmonàig chord progression and is triggered by the primary voice's ADSR envelope (Cèis).
The tone is produced by the trigger output striking/pinging the I-ō47 filter which is tuned to match the Root of the Harmonàig voice. The percussive tone from the Band Pass output is waveshaped via a tanh[3] channel to restrict its amplitude and add a bit of saturation to the timbre. This signal then modulates a neóni configured in TZFM configuration to act as a waveshaper over the tone.

The High Pass output is converted to an aggressive unipolar positive square wave signal via the AND gate of the eãs. This signal is used in parallel to the TZFM waveshaping to soft sync the neóni at the audio rate of the Root note frequency.
This clock signal patched to the soft sync input is toggled on and off via a latching switch (tàin) controlled by the release stage gate output of the Cèis.
The result when the soft sync is engaged is a sub-harmonic introduced to the voice.
As the voice is triggered at each segment change of the ADSR this gives a longer rhymic meter that nicely matches the harmonic rhythm of the composition.


Finally, there is a generative textural voice which sits in the higher frequency bandwidth to serve as a chaotic percussive element somewhere between hi-hats and bird noises. This comes from a self modulated Cš-L.
The sine wave of oscillator B is used as the sound source. The resulting tone is gated through a VCA by the OR logic result of oscillator A's PWM voice (inverted at the eãs ~ gate) and the clock pulse of the Lúbadh's left deck.
The Lùbadh clock is the stable element in this gating signal as the Cš-L is fundamentally unstable due to extreme cross-modulation.

The cross-modulation is exponential on both oscillators and the wavefolder of oscillator B is used to modulate oscillator A which is in LFO range.
The wavefold depth of oscillator B is modulated in addition to the FM depth via the INDEX control.


For final seasoning, an øchd is used to add additional movement to the patch keeping things more dynamic. Vibrato is added to the Saïch voice using the first LFO from the øchd tunes to ~4-5Hz. This vibrato naturally softens the the voice as it is reverberated and echoed in the Lúbadh."