Elektor Formant synthesizer

telstarmagikistferrari · Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2008 8:44 am Post subject: Elektor Formant synthesizer

Anyone played with one of these? I have one on the way and I am Super Excited. All these VCOs!: Needs more LFOs and randomness but I have other modules to perform more specific functions. Anyway, I think this thing's gonna be great despite the broken key (but I'm an optimist! Smile

). It's got some unique functions. There's a video on youtube of a guy rocking the balls off one of these things. It sounds like it will be ideal for the polyrhythmic stuff with random variables I've been leaning towards. Check it out:

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.

telstarmagikistferrari · Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 1:56 am Post subject:

Got sold a 20% functioning synthesizer after the auction indicated it was 'tested' and 'works.'

I'm really bummed out about it, there's some things I can fix, likely many I can't, at least yet. It looks awesome sitting in my basement! the Modules that do power up are great, but the keyboard isn't sending voltage to the modules either. I've got some great stuff going out of the one functioning VCO thru some of my blacet stuff, but I had bigger ideas to say the least. I'm in the process of a dispute on the auction so I'll leave it at this for now.

the19thbear · Joined: Apr 19, 2007 Posts: 151 Location: denmark

i have one of those.. ... actually it has been waiting for a decent "house" for over a year now!!..
You can find the book about this synth, and repair it!!
i have repaired my own.
you can join the formant elektor group at yahoo.com and ask there!
it IS a great synth! but my 24db filter doesnt work:(

astroschnautzer · Joined: May 22, 2008 Posts: 31 Location: FINLAND

I have one of these too, abit smaller system though but a 4 octave keyboard, everything works on it, it should just be calibrated and I should make a new box for it, and after that I think I would let it go... btw: the elektor formant book can be found on the yahoo group.

TekniK · Joined: Aug 10, 2008 Posts: 1059

has very good and fat vco's (there is also a ua726 inside ),nice 12db filter,(24 is not that great)
very slow attack adsrs,poor vca,nice lfo's but not VC and not fast enough.
rfm is crap

Pehr · Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 3:24 am Post subject:

Here are the Formant documents:
http://rubidium.dyndns.org/cag/pdf/chap1-2.pdf
http://rubidium.dyndns.org/cag/pdf/chap3-5.pdf
http://rubidium.dyndns.org/cag/pdf/chap6-9.pdf
http://rubidium.dyndns.org/cag/pdf/chap10-12.pdf
http://rubidium.dyndns.org/cag/pdf/playing.pdf
If you need to troubleshoot the circuits.

I think dar303 on this forum knows quite a bit abt these modules too.

jojoman · Joined: Aug 01, 2008 Posts: 11 Location: Belgium

Cool to see that it's still alive and kickin'.
This system used to be mine.
I sold it on ebay to Edwin Samoa(wavstudios).
Not sure what Edwin did with it,but when it was mine,it was completely been serviced and sounded so great.
Did you get the keyboard with it?

nofrets · Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 3:25 pm Post subject:

Holy carp! I have the formant book - picked it up at a used bookstore about 15 years ago, and had totally forgotten about it until I saw this post. Hmm - just what I need, more stuff to build...

telstarmagikistferrari · Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 9:38 am Post subject:

cool to hear where it came from! cheers..
edwin samoa is a real asshole.
I was totally civil to him and he got real personal and nasty.
your synth now has a couple broken (fix-able) circuit boards (yes, physically broken), only a couple modules actually powered up when I turned the thing on. I can see that most everything's intact, it just needs to be rewired almost entirely. I'm having some trouble reading the schematics. I didn't end up pushing the dispute any further, although I probably should. It's been a rude episode and has left me a little bummed out about the project. If anyone wants to make an offer, feel free to send me a message. Rest assured I will be totally honest about every facet of the condition of this thing.