Music Synthesisers, MIDI and CV / Gate

[SiriusHardware]

I bought it, used, from a friend in the late 80s, early 90s - I can't exactly remember

Understood, I just thought it would be a nice coincidence if it turned out we had both owned the same one. Doesn't seem so.

If I find anything negative, something I wish I'd known about the S-1 before I bought it, I'll let you know - I might be able to save you from yourself.

[SiriusHardware]

Turns out my question regarding 5-pin DIN to 3.5mm jack leads doesn't have a straightforward answer. The leads are referred to generally as 'MIDI-TRS' cables, the TRS part referring to the Tip, Ring and Shield portions of a stereo (3 pole) 3.5mm plug.

After doing so well to get everyone to adopt the same 5 pin DIN to 5 pin DIN connections in the early days, the manufacturers immediately messed it up when it came to choosing which pins of a 3.5mm plug to use for what. Around half of them need the plug tip to be connected to DIN plug terminal 5 and the ring to be connected to DIN plug terminal 4 - that type is called 'Type A'. The other half need them to be the opposite way around. That type is referred to as 'Type B'.

This is from the Roland website. Fortunately it does state that Roland equipment is likely to use Type A. (The numbers in circles to the left of the plugs are the associated DIN plug / socket terminal numbers).

[SiriusHardware]

I should do more with the Roland JV-1010 that I've already got.

I wasn't familiar with the JV so I went off looking for info about it, there are a couple of decent Youtube videos of people demoing them - seems very good, I suppose they are the rough equivalent of the Yamaha TG series modules, with yours being a bit like the TG-100. Like those other modules it seems to have built in drum sounds which of course the S-1, which 'specialises' in sounding like an analogue synth and nothing else, does not. Looking around I see them sometimes going for less second hand than the S-1 is costing me new.

If I had one of those I would consider it too useful to part with, but if you were to add an S-1 or similar unit to it it would give you the instant / live twiddleability which you just don't get with digital synths where you have to delve into menus to tweak things.

[jamesperrett]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

In the early days of the R-Pi there was someone on the Raspberry Pi website who was working on a nice soft-synth based on that machine but he didn't seem to want to make it generally available so everyone who was initially interested lost interest - I haven't really kept up with where it got to since then.

I see that there is Mini Dexed which will give you the equivalent of a TX816 on a Raspberry Pi

https://github.com/probonopd/MiniDexed

but my lad seems to be a fan of Yoshimi which has 3 different synth engines though no FM.

[ortek_service]

Originally Posted by Steve_Bell

Like the OP, my first MIDI-equipped synth was a Casio CZ-230S. Long gone but I still have my own version of the monophonic Maplin Spectrum, which works via its keyboard and CV/Gate signals from an Elektor-designed MIDI-to-CV converter.
>>
Old post of the Spectrum here (post 25): https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?p=901666

I didn't recall the Maplin Spectrum featuring in the Catalogue back in the mid 80's, that many of the E&MM magazine (that I much-later acquired most issues of) projects had around that time.

I thought at first it may have been something for the Sinclair Spectrum, but have now discovered it was rather different and more like the other (Ex Australian? ETI magazine) 'International 5600 etc' Synths back then, that I'd been tempted to build. With a demo of it via link here to a youtube video:
https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2...g-synthesizer/
- Maybe I should have, just looking at price one of these is up for: https://reverb.com/uk/item/75969862-...og-synthesizer

With the Spectrum construction documentation (from a special edition of E&MM ?) available from a link on this webpage (that hasn't got the promised pictures of it quite yet): http://www.bigbluewave.co.uk/spectrum.htm