Synthesizer

[laurie]

Score! Congrats!

[Pepe]

Indeed, it's a great score! The sound is absolutely great. It has very much in common with the later model Mini Pops 7 that Jean-Michel Jarre used for his iconic song Oxygène 4. I bet that it sounds fantastic through a set of effects, but the sound on its own is already remarkably good.

[chromandre]

Indeed, it's a great score! The sound is absolutely great. It has very much in common with the later model Mini Pops 7 that Jean-Michel Jarre used for his iconic song Oxygène 4. I bet that it sounds fantastic through a set of effects, but the sound on its own is already remarkably good.

I'll have to revisit that track! minipops 7 is also featured prominently as the first sound of aphex twin's syro album I am unsure what the difference is technically but if its the same family I absolutely believe it that you say the minipops 3 is a keeper!


I scored a DX7, rescued it from being destroyed. It just needed some deoxit, a new power switch, a new battery while I was at it, and then it's 3rd party OS is funny. It will say "RAM is corrupt" after you only format it. It spent a week on my bench like this while I was trying to locate this "corrupt RAM", turns out there is nothing wrong with the RAM, it just wants you to erase junk data. Why didn't they just automatically erase data a part of the "formatting" process?

I contend the DX7 has magic sounds in it, I am not personally interested in that crazy icicle bell electric piano thing its known for!

[laurie]

Oh YES!! One of the favorite vintage synths.

[Franzoni]

There is a programme on the BBC called ‘ The Repair Shop ‘ where they fix old things and the last episode the current keyboard player with The Stranglers brought in the original Hohner keyboard they started out with ….. nearly sure he said someone gave it to him after finding it in a builders skip…

[Pepe]

Hiroaki Nishijima, the designer of the legendary KORG MS-20 and of my beloved multi effects system, the KORG PME-40X, has also designed this polyphonic and sophisticated guitar synthesizer, the KORG Z3. It is a 4-OP FM synthesizer and it can be triggered by the dedicated Z3D Driver with the special hex-pickup. A few weeks ago I knew nearly nothing about it, but having read more about it, I took the plunge and bid on an ebay auction - that I won in the end. I had to install a new power cable (the previous owner has shortened it significantly) and I had to order a few black screws, springs and spacers to install the special pickup system in my Dean Vendetta 1.0, my only other electric guitar besides my MIJ Fender Stratocaster.

The pickup system reacts remarkably good to the pitch and the volume of each string. Very precise and dynamic sounding - something that you would rather expect in a modern unit and not in this system that was introduced in 1989! The sound that the rack synthesizer produces is quite similar to what the DX7 can do, the synthesizer that chromandre shows in his post above. Awesome sounds are possible with the rack already - and since it has MIDI out, I can also trigger any other MIDI-equipped instrument with my guitar now. Such an awesome unit!

[BearBoy]

Interesting piece of kit, Pepe. Not something I'd heard of, although I know very little about guitar synthesizers tbh so that's probably not too surprising.

A cursory glance at the front panel suggests you can set different sounds per string? Can you use it to change tunings by shifting the pitch of individual strings?

Awesome sounds are possible with the rack already - and since it has MIDI out, I can also trigger any other MIDI-equipped instrument with my guitar now. Such an awesome unit!

I can imagine you're going to have a lot of fun trying this out with your synth collection!

Would be very interested in a demo if you get the time to make one.