Entries in this blog will not occur in chronological order. The posts will be back-dated to the date I acquired the equipment, or at least my best estimate.
There will be one blog entry for every synth I own.
I will edit the entry as significant things are done with each synth.
Initially things are going to look sparse, but I think it will start to look interesting within a few months, once the entries have some actual stories and pictures.
I have a main blog.
BUILT ON NOV. 26, 2007 AND STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Sequential Six-Trak
Grabbed a Six-Trak from the 'Bay for $325. I bought in in early January 2008, and had it delivered to Buffalo.
Wow, this keyboard is gorgeous. Cosmetically ... mint. It got more marks in the trunk of my car on the drive home than it sustained since its manufacture back in ... 1984? I dunno.
Turned it on to find that each of the 5 potentiometers was totally useless. Got back to the eBay seller who said that if I could find a suitable replacement, he'd order them to my address.
Wine Country wants $9 each! That's stupid expensive. Plus $8 for shipping. Um, yeah. I ran that by my seller and he was more interested in seeing a datasheet so he could try to source them himself, and I don't blame him. Unfortunatley I have no datasheet and I looked around to try to find pots shaped like this ... no luck.
So I bought 5 10K linear pots from radio shack, cut the shafts to length, put 'em in the grinder to achieve that "D" shape, mounted them (the collars were a bit skinny but the washers make up for it), then soldered them in place using some 24 gauge solid tinned copper wire. They work like a champ. One of them feels slightly wobbly because my grinder work was a bit off centre, so the knob doesn't quite sit right, but I'm actually OK with that for the next 25 years.
Pics to follow. (updated 2008/1/30)
2008/2/1: WELLLLLLL....
I got this thing home and decided to set it up with the Mackie C4 (using "C4 Commander") to control all of the synth's parameters.
The good: this synth sounds badass. It's possible to make really rude, biting tones that no other synth I own can make. That just re-affirms for me why I bought the thing.
Unique to this synth is that there is a separate EG for pitch, filter, and amp. With this it's possible to make some crazy percussive and SFX sounds.
The not-so-good: each voice's filter sounds slightly different. Bearing in mind that the entire voice is a CEM3394 supported by numerous mylar and electrolytic caps, this could be due to component variations or due to age. But I must emphasise the word slightly.
The difference in the filters is really only noticable with nasty, hi-resonance sounds, and it IS analog, so I can deal.
LFO value can be routed to pitch, pulse width, and filter cutoff. But there is only one depth control. Routing to each mod destination is strictly an on/off affair. This means you can't modulate pulse width and filter, for example, with different amounts.
The bad: The software-based envelope generators have only 15 values for each of attack, sustain, decay, release. This limits control over tweaking those punchy techno sounds to sit just perfectly. Set "decay" to anything above 4, and there is no punch left. But this is forgivable, since the sounds are so unique.
Most of the controls are pretty "steppy" sounding due to their low resolution. There are no audible steps or zipper rtifacts from the envelopes or LFOs though. So ... live front-panel tweaking is not out of the question, but it doesn't have the resolution needed to sound smooth and analog.
I had to edit the xml file provided by Mackie to make the display names understandible on the C4. With only 7 characters available per name, calling the parameters "Filter Cutoff", "Filter Resonance", "Filter Envelope Depth", "Filter Envelope Invert", "Filter Envelope Attack", "Filter Osc Mod" etc yields "Filter ", "Filter ", "Filter ", "Filter " and "Filter " on Mackie's much-ballyhood digital scribble strips. So I shortened them to more useful names.
Still, the C4 instrument definition is far from perfect, as all parameters are adjustable from 0-127, even the ones that only go from 0-31, 0-15, and on/off. So I do plan to spend a few hours to make that XML file perfect. Contact me if you'd like a copy of it once I'm done. To me it is evidence that Mackie really rushed the C4 Commander software out, and probably didn't even test half of the instrument templates they provide.
[i digress]did you know that the Mackie C4 was originally to be the Emagic Phat Channel?[/i digress]
Plan: by this summer I want to build a dedicated MIDIbox controller, as a proper front panel for this wonderful little synth.
Really long-term plan: I would love to design and build my own CEM3394-based synth, capable of making these great Six-Trak sounds, but without the limitations of the 30+ year old Z80 processor. It might give me a chance to check out those cool standalone PIC-based envelope generators.
Wow, this keyboard is gorgeous. Cosmetically ... mint. It got more marks in the trunk of my car on the drive home than it sustained since its manufacture back in ... 1984? I dunno.
Turned it on to find that each of the 5 potentiometers was totally useless. Got back to the eBay seller who said that if I could find a suitable replacement, he'd order them to my address.
Wine Country wants $9 each! That's stupid expensive. Plus $8 for shipping. Um, yeah. I ran that by my seller and he was more interested in seeing a datasheet so he could try to source them himself, and I don't blame him. Unfortunatley I have no datasheet and I looked around to try to find pots shaped like this ... no luck.
So I bought 5 10K linear pots from radio shack, cut the shafts to length, put 'em in the grinder to achieve that "D" shape, mounted them (the collars were a bit skinny but the washers make up for it), then soldered them in place using some 24 gauge solid tinned copper wire. They work like a champ. One of them feels slightly wobbly because my grinder work was a bit off centre, so the knob doesn't quite sit right, but I'm actually OK with that for the next 25 years.
Pics to follow. (updated 2008/1/30)
2008/2/1: WELLLLLLL....
I got this thing home and decided to set it up with the Mackie C4 (using "C4 Commander") to control all of the synth's parameters.
The good: this synth sounds badass. It's possible to make really rude, biting tones that no other synth I own can make. That just re-affirms for me why I bought the thing.
Unique to this synth is that there is a separate EG for pitch, filter, and amp. With this it's possible to make some crazy percussive and SFX sounds.
The not-so-good: each voice's filter sounds slightly different. Bearing in mind that the entire voice is a CEM3394 supported by numerous mylar and electrolytic caps, this could be due to component variations or due to age. But I must emphasise the word slightly.
The difference in the filters is really only noticable with nasty, hi-resonance sounds, and it IS analog, so I can deal.
LFO value can be routed to pitch, pulse width, and filter cutoff. But there is only one depth control. Routing to each mod destination is strictly an on/off affair. This means you can't modulate pulse width and filter, for example, with different amounts.
The bad: The software-based envelope generators have only 15 values for each of attack, sustain, decay, release. This limits control over tweaking those punchy techno sounds to sit just perfectly. Set "decay" to anything above 4, and there is no punch left. But this is forgivable, since the sounds are so unique.
Most of the controls are pretty "steppy" sounding due to their low resolution. There are no audible steps or zipper rtifacts from the envelopes or LFOs though. So ... live front-panel tweaking is not out of the question, but it doesn't have the resolution needed to sound smooth and analog.
I had to edit the xml file provided by Mackie to make the display names understandible on the C4. With only 7 characters available per name, calling the parameters "Filter Cutoff", "Filter Resonance", "Filter Envelope Depth", "Filter Envelope Invert", "Filter Envelope Attack", "Filter Osc Mod" etc yields "Filter ", "Filter ", "Filter ", "Filter " and "Filter " on Mackie's much-ballyhood digital scribble strips. So I shortened them to more useful names.
Still, the C4 instrument definition is far from perfect, as all parameters are adjustable from 0-127, even the ones that only go from 0-31, 0-15, and on/off. So I do plan to spend a few hours to make that XML file perfect. Contact me if you'd like a copy of it once I'm done. To me it is evidence that Mackie really rushed the C4 Commander software out, and probably didn't even test half of the instrument templates they provide.
[i digress]did you know that the Mackie C4 was originally to be the Emagic Phat Channel?[/i digress]
Plan: by this summer I want to build a dedicated MIDIbox controller, as a proper front panel for this wonderful little synth.
Really long-term plan: I would love to design and build my own CEM3394-based synth, capable of making these great Six-Trak sounds, but without the limitations of the 30+ year old Z80 processor. It might give me a chance to check out those cool standalone PIC-based envelope generators.
Saturday, November 11, 1995
Roland Juno-106. The first I deliberately owned.
Date is best bet.
I was single, had a bit of cash to burn, and really badly wanted a Juno-106 for its quick programming and sweet tone. So I browsed the "Buy&Sell" and found one for 300 bucks ... right around what I expected to pay. Unfortunately it meant a long drive through treacherous snow to a a location I forget, about an hour north of Barrie, Ontario.
The little Sprint Convertible held the road pretty good. I was glad to be rid of the stupid Mustang.
I arrived at a mansion in the middle of the country. The snow was as bad as I had ever driven in. I was greeted by a guy in his mid-20's who had a very nicely equipped synth studio in a big, warm open room. He showed me his two Juno 106 synths - one of which was in great shape, and the other had what I would soon learn to be the common "dead voice" issue. After all that driving, the guy told me that if I wanted a Juno for 300 bucks he would only be willing to sell me the one in need of repair. He assured me that it's a common problem with that model, and a routine repair by Roland would be a cakewalk.
I got the synth home and, a few days later, played it to find that after it warmed up it had not one, but two dead voices. Back in those days the "Music Machines" site was an invaluable resource (it still is I guess), and from it I learned how to power up the 106 in service mode, and determine which voices are actually not working. It was voices 3 and 6. Unfortunately at that time I was too dumb to realize that the 80017A VCF/VCA IC was generally the root of the problem, and I instead figured it was the two-voice "wave generator" ICs, each of which controls a pair of voices. So, at around $70 each, I ordered a pair of Wave Generator ICs from Roland.
Within a few weeks I got up the courage to disassemble the keyboard, locate the IC's I presumed to be defective, and attempt to desolder. I say "attempt" because I gave up before I destroyed the circuit board.
(more to come...)
I was single, had a bit of cash to burn, and really badly wanted a Juno-106 for its quick programming and sweet tone. So I browsed the "Buy&Sell" and found one for 300 bucks ... right around what I expected to pay. Unfortunately it meant a long drive through treacherous snow to a a location I forget, about an hour north of Barrie, Ontario.
The little Sprint Convertible held the road pretty good. I was glad to be rid of the stupid Mustang.
I arrived at a mansion in the middle of the country. The snow was as bad as I had ever driven in. I was greeted by a guy in his mid-20's who had a very nicely equipped synth studio in a big, warm open room. He showed me his two Juno 106 synths - one of which was in great shape, and the other had what I would soon learn to be the common "dead voice" issue. After all that driving, the guy told me that if I wanted a Juno for 300 bucks he would only be willing to sell me the one in need of repair. He assured me that it's a common problem with that model, and a routine repair by Roland would be a cakewalk.
I got the synth home and, a few days later, played it to find that after it warmed up it had not one, but two dead voices. Back in those days the "Music Machines" site was an invaluable resource (it still is I guess), and from it I learned how to power up the 106 in service mode, and determine which voices are actually not working. It was voices 3 and 6. Unfortunately at that time I was too dumb to realize that the 80017A VCF/VCA IC was generally the root of the problem, and I instead figured it was the two-voice "wave generator" ICs, each of which controls a pair of voices. So, at around $70 each, I ordered a pair of Wave Generator ICs from Roland.
Within a few weeks I got up the courage to disassemble the keyboard, locate the IC's I presumed to be defective, and attempt to desolder. I say "attempt" because I gave up before I destroyed the circuit board.
(more to come...)
Saturday, June 30, 1990
Roland S-330 Sampler.
Bought in early 1990 to replace my Akai S612.
As of January 2008, I still own it ... and it still works great!
As of January 2008, I still own it ... and it still works great!
Sunday, June 1, 1986
Yamaha RX21L Latin Rhythm Programmer.
Bought this with Charles from Long & McQuade for about $400. It sounded so sweet we weren't even all that interested in a drum machine that did actual drum sounds. It would become the backbeat of the MANGOZ, and later one of the 3 drum machines that provided the "impAled" / "Capital i" rhythm section.
Saturday, June 1, 1985
Yamaha DX21 Synthesizer.
I bought this from "Hudson Music" for $1000 CAD while I worked at Zellers. Eventually when I upgraded to DX11, I sold this one for about $300 through the Buy&Sell.
Sunday, May 20, 1984
Yamaha CS15D
I bought this keyboard at the ripe age of 15. In September of 2007 I gave it to my old friend Charles Watson.
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