Synthi 100 - rare AF synth

General
1

Yo Gang,


I just got the great news that I’m being commissioned to work on one of the world’s rarest synths, the EMS Synthi 100. I don’t know the exact details of the project yet, but as far as I understand there will be patch-making, sample-taking, and composition in the works. Super, super excited, had my first training day the other day on it and this thing ROCKS. There were only 26 of these ever built, with only about 6 left in existence by most count. I’ll be working on the one at Melbourne Uni, which has been restored and modified to accept external midi, so I’m hoping that I can integrate the OP1 to drive the unit :wink:
Here’s a pic from the other day:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRrj1iNjLi4/?taken-by=mlbstrd

I’ve been working on a bunch of long-form synth pieces for a while now, and it was a piece called Miller’s Planet that I submitted last year for a scholarship prize (came second, always the bridesmaid…) that brought me to their attention and landed me this project. Here’s a link to Miller’s Planet, if you feel like really synthing out for 7 minutes.
https://soundcloud.com/mlbstrd/millers-planet

really looking forward to this project, will definitely update this thread with pics/soundbytes, and hopefully I will make an OP1 pack or 2 of samples from this 23 (!) oscillator beast

2

Awesome!

3

What an amazing opportunity! I dig your track which is very Synthi to begin with so I’d imagine you’ll have a total blast on the 100.


The VSC3/Synthi is a favourite of mine and the 100 is like someone spiked my synth dreams with steroids. Look forward to more sounds and pics!


4

Wow. Sounds amazing. Congrats, dude :slight_smile:

5

Thanks dudes!


@<a href=“https://www.operator-1.com/index.php?p=/profile/1152/wolflegjon” class=“Username” style=“margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 15px; font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(66, 157, 168); background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>wolflegjon<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 17.8px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”> yep, there’s something seriously special about the Synthi 100, even though it is a far from perfect beast and has a shaky history (one of the guys from EMS has apparently been bad-mouthing it for years) there’s a certain allure about it’s imperfection. Having heard the oscillators in person for the first time the other day, it’s literally the first time where I’ve actually been excited just hearing a pure tone… this thing goes DEEP.
<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 17.8px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>
<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 17.8px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>The matrix boards are actually way simpler than I thought they’d be to get my head around (pretty much just source->destination in a horizontal/vertical format with a continuous cycle-back).
<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 17.8px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>
<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 17.8px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>Whatever happens, it’ll be a bit of fun :slight_smile:

6

Super rad.

7

@millbastard I had a whole weekend with a synthi a while back and those imperfections were certainly there even in a smaller format. There is so much character in those instruments that I really didn’t mind. Took me a little while to figure out the matrix but once you do its very simple. Anyways, congratulations on getting some hands-on time with the 100, look forward to hearing what comes out!