OMG OMG I actually played that thing!

Posted on Thursday, 3. October 2024 by untergeek

Looking at the analytics, I have noted that my reminiscence to/analysis of the Keytek CTS-2000 synth has been found by a number of people that surprises me, given that it is an article about a truly horrible, obscure late-80s hybrid synth in a rather niche blog. Given that, I would like to share some proof that I actually played that thing, and on stage, too. And though it is hard to date the old photographs, I would estimate that I held onto it for quite some time.

So I guess at least the CTS-2000’s keyboard was really decent.

5-piece band: female bass player, percussion player, guitarist, keyboardist with guitar.

The band, by the way, was named “Voice of the Alien”. You won’t find anything Googling it.

I added another photo to the original article.

The Noisy One

Posted on Sunday, 3. October 2021 by untergeek

I’ve won a Dreadbox Typhon in a sweepstake, and it’s bloody brilliant. Like, really, really brilliant! A fun machine with a monster sound and a great concept for real-time sound manipulation and editing. If there wasn’t that nasty problem with digital noise.

Dreadbox Typhon powered from USB hub; preset A1

Just listen to it! It’s wonderful – but you will have noticed the nasty sound on switching it on, and the permanent high-frequency noise. (Oddly enough, it’s no longer in the recording as soon as the sequencer starts, but believe me – it’s there, all of the time.)

Digital noise, for sure.

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Stereoping Hardware Controller for Crumar Bit

Posted on Monday, 14. September 2020 by untergeek

Stephan (aka umusic6) did some nice work:

Thanks to his efforts, there is now a Bit Edition of Stereoping’s Synth Controller, for Crumar Bit-01/One/99 with the Tauntek firmware. You can read up on the firmware, or order it, here.

(No, this is not an affiliate link, I have no share in this. But I think it’s a great project.)

Jenny getting her very own phaser…

Posted on Saturday, 24. November 2018 by untergeek

…and my sweet Lord, does it make her shine!

Nothing fancy here. After inserting the booster/overdrive in between VCO and filter section, I took another of those lovely Musikding.de kits for a phaser, built it, drilled some holes into Jenny’s housing and fitted it.

I have been using Jenny as a bass synth recently, and I am quite impressed by the quantities of life and fun this old machine is adding to the mix. She doesn’t do that much in terms of tonal range, but what she does, she does well.

Drilling holes in Jenny’s front

I rediscovered an old trick when drilling metal: use a bit of alcohol, not on the person drilling, but on the surface you want to drill. And don’t go too fast.

A Pre-Filter Booster Stage for Jenny

Posted on Monday, 5. November 2018 by untergeek

Giving my JEN SX-1000 a bit of additional low growl by adding a pre-filter overdrive.

A nice little addition: Insert a booster circuit kit where the coupling capacitor between oscillator and the filter used to be. Come on, you’ll have to take out that damn capacitor anyway. And it sounds really nice, punching through the mix (samples below) – especially in combination with the sub-oscillator mod.

I do admit that you might think that this is a superfluous mod. After all, when you drive this circuit – any circuit – into overdrive and into clipping, the resulting wave form will, gradually, start to resemble a square wave.

But I could do it, so I did it. And I like it. So let’s get started.