It’s been announced all over the place: BBC (who stupidly call it a “sound system”), Synthtopia, Sonic State.
Predictably, it’s not yet in production, much less has a price tag attached — but already nerds are complaining about the price. Plus, the continued use of the aging MIDI protocol will limit its interfacing abilities to software or other synth electronics. I wish them luck, they’ll need it.
I almost forgot to mention the German made Endeavour controller. It, apparently, is actually shipping.
After years of threats, the Therevox ET-4 is finally available.
And yes, it’s another Ondes-style controller.
(Unlike the French Connection, it has a built-in two oscillator analog synth. And $1475 is a bargain.)
All the way back in 1972, Tony Furse managed to get funding to build a polyphonic digital/analog synth. That was the Qasar.
He built precisely two prototypes–the finished machine would have been far too costly for the era, so no investors came forward. Tony persisted, though, and developed it into a primitive sampling machine with dual 6800 microprocessors (brand-new on the market) in 1978. That machine, the Qasar M8, eventually was commercialized as the Fairlight CMI. (More history here.)
It’s got a blog, it’s been mentioned on Gizmodo, Makezine has done a piece on it. They’ve been talking it up for at least 4 months. So when does it ship?
If you’re interested in one, go here and donate.
This guy took an ancient (1980 or so) paper-tape reader from a Heathkit computer and rewired it so it would control a simple oscillator bank made with 555 timer chips. Then he made punched tapes for it, by writing a QBASIC program. I’m afraid to ask how long it took him.
He apparently pulled the voice board out of a perfectly good Moog Voyager,
installed it in a Modularworld case, and wired it up like a modular.
Am I missing something here?
First, Russian DIYer Dmitry Morozov, better known as vtol, has a website full of his colorful instruments. Nice panel art! He apparently makes limited issues of some of them for sale.
And Joe Paradiso built a hybrid synthesizer into a CAMAC crate, to be controlled by a PDP-11 minicomputer, in December 1979. Don’t throw it away, Joe, it’s a priceless historical artifact!
Mike Zee is a musician and prolific DIY builder in Poughkeepsie, NY. (That’s like saying Sean Connery is an “actor of some repute in Scotland”, I suppose.)
His main site for custom work is here. His cabinetwork is so beautiful, it will make you cry. Be warned, you will be exploring every link there. He has schematics of almost everything he’s built — clever designs, easy to reproduce.
