Ensoniq ESQ-1 Update

After some research I decided it is easiest to try to program new EPROMS my self. I can download the OS off of the internet. I found an EPROM burner for $30 on eEay, and I bought a bunch of EPROMS from Mouser. If all goes well, I will have a working ESQ-1 in about a week. All probably won't go well though.

Where There's Smoke...

Well, no fire, but there was smoke.

I was jamming with a friend on Sunday, playing thought the Fender Bassman when suddenly no sound. Initially I thought a cable had a short in it, so I started kicking and jiggling things. Then the smell. Caustic. If you have ever smelled it before you immediately know what it is. Burning electronics components. Panic.

I turned around and saw smoke coming from the Bassman. I ran over and unplugged it.

I'm 99 percent sure a capacitor blew in the power supply. Hell, the thing is over 40 years old. I'm not surprised. At least I have another project...

Kawai K3m and update

Based on the last picture you might have figured out that I bought another synth. It is a Kawai K3m. I bought in on eBay, and it is in fantastic shape. It looks like I bought it new yesterday. This is a hybrid synth. Digital mixed with analog. It also uses two types of synthesis to make awesome sounds.

The wave forms are generated by additive synthesis. It builds up the harmonics to create unique sounding waveforms. It has 31 preset waveforms and one user defined waveform, plus white noise. This allows for a lot of really cool sounds. These are all digitally generated. 

The analog part lies in the filters, using subtractive synthesis. This is what separated this synth from many others in its class. The analog filters smooth out the digital waveforms and make it sound very natural. 

You can assign the LFO to the VCA, Filter, or oscillators. It also has aftertouch. You can have the aftertouch control the filter, balance between the oscillators, the VCA, and the LFO.

It also has built in effects; five choruses, a tremolo and a delay.

You can get a lot of really great sounds with these features. Its a pretty great synth for its price (under $200) and I bet that these will go up in price quickly when people rediscover how cool it is. Is only weakness is that is doesn't do basses too well, at least compared to something like my Juno 106. The K3m is great for pads, noises, and general synthing (I'm not sure what that actually means). It comes in a keyboards version and a rack version. I have the rack version. I guess I'm getting into rack synths now. 

Kawai K3m