PAiA Gnome

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"The Gnome was put out as a DIY kit by PAiA Electronics between 1974-1982. Only about 3,000 kits were produced and only a fraction of those are available now, correctly assembled and in working order. The control strip and trigger work perfectly, and all the pots are clean. This is an amazing little instrument, and PAiA is still alive and well, in case you need any help with the Gnome down the road.

The Gnome sports a VCO with triangle and square, a VCF, and noise. It's controlled by wiping a probe across a vinyl strip, and/or pushing the trigger button. The Gnome can also be triggered by C/V, and it runs on two 9v batteries (included.) The audio output is a mono 1/8" jack. I don't fully understand the modifications that were done to it, but it seems like they just added an input or two, and didn't take anything away.

Here's some more information on the Gnome:

"While it started out as purely an electronic instrument to make wind sounds, the Gnome turned into one of the smallest, most portable analog synthesizers ever manufactured."

"'The Gnome started out as an instrument that wasn't going to do anything more than make the sound of wind - not like a flute, but real wind. Ssssshhhhew. That kind of wind, which could be played with a little vinyl controller strip that was part of it. The Gnome was one of those things that just grew. After the instrument that did the wind sound was done, it became pretty apparent that you could stick other components in there and essentially come up with a small synthesizer, a thing that captured the central ideas of voltage-controlled synthesis at the time - Oscillators, filters, transient generators, and so on - but stripped down to the essentials or the core. It was an attempt to get rid of that keyboard that was always by far the single most expensive part of anything we made, by order of magnitude or more.'"


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