I bought one, loved it so much, so decided to buy another.
Thanks to Jon, aka, The Human Comparator for these wonderful machines.
They are based on the Pearl Syncussion from 1979.
Pearl are a Japanese firm.
The Pearl Syncussion is a vintage electronic drum synthesizer originally produced by Pearl Musical Instruments in the late 1970s. It was designed to replicate the sound of acoustic percussion instruments using analog synthesis techniques. The original drum was triggered with drum pads.
The Syncussion was one of the early attempts at creating a drum machine that could generate a wide range of drum and percussion sounds electronically.
It featured a fully analog sound engine with various parameters for shaping the sound of each drum voice.
The original Syncussion was a tabletop unit with a distinctive design, featuring a panel with knobs and slide switches for control.
It offered six drum voices which I guess tried imitating bass drum, snare drum, low tom, high tom, cymbal, and hi-hat.
The left most dial (OSC MODE), lets you pick a among a few oscillator presets.
A. One Oscillator. At this position, the regular drum synth sweep can be effected.
B. FM setting ... One oscillator modulates the freq of the second oscillator.
The latter VCO is routed to the VCF. Good for metallic sounds
C. Osc 1 + OSC 2 mixed. ... supposed to sound like a vibraphone ??
Each oscillator is set at a different pitch.
I think both VCOs pass to the filter but VCO1 is at reduced level.
D. Osc 1 + OSC 2 mixed. (modulated frequency) .
EG 1 modulates VCO1, EG2 modulates VCO2. Both VCOs are passed to the filter
Produces a low to high sweep.
The velocity is mapped to sweep. ??
E. FM + noise.
ie: One osc adjusts the freq of a second osc with a mix of noise. ... thin metal sound??
F. White noise is passed to a VCF. No oscillators.
Each voice has lots of controls.
This is what makes this early drum so unique.
Drums of this period like those from the Roland TR period allowed some controls for tune , delay etc
but not much else.
The Sy-1 has its own controls for pitch (tune), decay, and tone shaping.
The synth voice consists of two VCOs, one lowpass VCF & one VCA with a envelope generator (this only has a decay control).
There is also one envelope generator for sweep effects, a noise generator, an LFO and finally a sample & hold.
The envelope generators shape the amplitude envelope of each voice, allowing for dynamic control over the sound. I like a longer sweep for kick like sounds and shorter sweeps for snares or hi hats.
The width control is the low pass filter.
Additionally, it provided trigger inputs, allowing it to be triggered by external devices such as sequencers or drum pads.
These are the inputs
No MIDI.... all CVs and triggers
Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment