PAiA 2720/R Restoration

davebr · Joined: Jun 09, 2007 Posts: 198 Location: portland, or

I recently acquired a PAiA 2720/R modular that I restored. I remember when these came out in the mid 1970's but by then my interests had shifted from music synthesis to microprocessors and computing. I didn't get back into synthesizers until later so I missed out on most of the early PAiA gear.

I tend to keep my gear period correct so I didn't upgrade it other than replacing bad parts except for the PS filter capacitors. Increasing those significantly reduced the ripple and the effects it causes in the modules. It came out pretty good and works well for the simplicity of the design.

I have photos of all the modules on my site at http://modularsynthesis.com/paia/2700/2700.htm

Dave

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

PHOBoS · Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 2:47 am Post subject:

nice work

Do you know if piano wire has a very low resistance ?

davebr · Joined: Jun 09, 2007 Posts: 198 Location: portland, or

Cfish · Joined: Feb 24, 2016 Posts: 477 Location: Indiana

I know this is a pretty old post, but that is a nice restoration.

Just picked up a 2700 (modules only) on eBay. This gives me hope I will find a fun useful purpose for them.

davebr · Joined: Jun 09, 2007 Posts: 198 Location: portland, or

DES · Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2016 2:33 pm Post subject:

Looks really nice! Oh how I wish I had bought some of their synths in the seventies.... Sad

cslammy · Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 3:04 pm Post subject:

My brother and I built one of these in about 1974. I was 12, my brother was 14. your photo brings back a lot of memories. We got it to work, pretty good for a couple of kids.

Our 2700 didn't scale or stay in tune but it was fun and all we could afford.

I remember the balanced modulator in it being really good; the low pass VC filter did almost nothing. But the PAIA started both of us down a path of being professional techs which we still are today.