These are a rare machine. Maybe 500 built? I see there were a couple serial series U1 and U2 and I've seen only up to 200 something in one and mine is 166 in the other. Anyway these sound GREAT! There is a mixer for the 4 sections and bender for monosynth only and mod for all other sections' vibrato. (with speed knob right there by the wheel) I don't know what the 'touch dynamics' knob does. There is no velocity on this thing. Two busses on the keyboard but one is for monosynth and one for the others. Not for calculating velocity. ANd no AT strip sensor or anything so..I dunno yet on that. Schematic anyone? Also it has a breath input (tubing goes directly in) which can be switched to give volume control for either poly or mono synth section. Anyway, the review of sounds/features per section: 1) Performer sounding strings pretty much save the cool eq of the performer of course. But at least the same kind of quality for the tones it does have and a decent eq sweep and 8' 16' 'stops'. 2) 4 great preset organ tones plus percussion stops with master volume and decay knobs. Overall organ 'sustain', a release envelope. It's all paraphonic with retrig on all notes off but wow. Great BBD leslie emulator that speeds up and slows down like the real thing. And nice tone selection. 3) Polysynth is at least as nice as the ARP omni's I think overall. I dunno that ARP filter is awful cool sounding I think. But the curtis CEM3320 is ok too in it's own way and there is one of them shared again with eg retrigger when all notes are lifted. CEM3310EG, and CEM3330vca. These same three chips are in the mono section also. But on the poly section there are three presets...a nice piano enveloped sound and a more brassy sound and a more tweaky synth sound... and then you can select 'free' which means you program it with the knobs for ADSR, amount (invertable like Korg Delta etc.) and cutoff/resonance. Anyway in the oscillator control section there are two oscillators and both can be dropped an octave with a switch and one can be detuned up or down a fifth or like that. Also second oscillator can be muted. You can select between square and saw for both independently. 4) Monosynth is one oscillator. But you have more waveform types..pulses and triangle added and also you can vary footage from 32' to 4' I think it is. PORTAMENTO amount is very useful for creating sounds where the lead lage the other parts. This thing can sound very phat for a divide down based unit! This is a tremendously undersaught unit it seems to me. They were rare and at the end of an era..the year before MIDI. And the DX7. Wish list? Oh...independent lfo for the monosynth? But I'm really looking forward to recording with this thing! -Bob
Circuit Overview:
Four part machine with lead synth, polysynth, organ and string sections. This machine has a breath control input for the solo synth also...as in for an actual piece of tubing. The sensor is built in! This may be the first like that. The filter controls are shared for the poly and solo section but each has it's own oscillator controls. Great sounding organ presets and decent string section as well as the synth section that is very nice also for what it is. A paraphonic and monophonic synth mixable.
Service Tips:
In the middle of fixing one of these rarities that has lots of switch/pot damage for starters plus many broken keys. Movement is similar to Siel's Fatar manufactured movements but with two springs below and correspondingly more complex plastic extenstion that holds them in place and moves them when key is pressed. I've plastic welded the broken off bushing holders underneath the keys on my DK80 and will do the same on this one it appears.
Parts:
Lots of strange parts. I usually have most of the semiconductors save tone generators. I found some switches that will retro for the strange French 14 pin ones with "D" shafts though instead of round.
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