MATRIXSYNTH-B: 10/11/10

via this auction
"4 volume vintage collection of instructional books from the Roland Corporation, 1986 (1979 copyright).

The 4 volumes are entitled...

1. "Practical Synthesis for Electronic Music, Volume One"

2. "Practical Synthesis for Electronic Music, Volume Two"

3. "A Foundation for Electronic Music"

4."Multi - Channel Recording for Electronic Music"

The are "old school" manuals, and reveal some "old school" techniques and applications of synthesis, and could be very useful to those who seek analog synth sounds from synths like the Roland SH-101 (or other analog synths), and vintage recording techniques. Some of the chapters are "Advanced Synthesis", "Accessories Used in Synthesis", "Strings Sounds", "Rhythm and Effects", "Tape Recorders" and "Basic Multi-Channel Recording Techniques" and more......."

via this auction
"The Six-Trak is a beginner synth from the legendary American Sequential Circuits Inc, producer of the prophet 5. It has typical Sequential sounds in an analog six oscillator, six voice synth. There is only one knob and you need to assign the parameter you wish to adjust to this knob. The assignment settings for the various parameters are listed in the center of the front panel. It also features MIDI with controllers for its parameters. The Six-Trak features two operational modes: Polyphonic Mode and Unison Mode. In Unison mode, with all six oscillators, this baby gets fat, rich, creamy and wild making it an excellent stand-in for Moog-like sounds. Also, the Six-Trak is capable of interesting and complex sound effects, mostly thanks to useful cross modulation and the six oscillators. It also includes a simple 6-channel on-board sequencer. The Six-Trak is a 6-voice, polyphonic, multitimbral, programmable analog synthesizer with MIDI, a squencer, an arpeggiator, and a 4-octave, 49-note (C-C) keyboard. The Six-Trak was also designed as a MIDI instrument. The SixTrak was the first multitimbral MIDI synth to respond to multiple MIDI channels. Each voice can be programmed to any of 100 internal patches and played (via an external sequencer or external keyboard controller) as a separate monophonic synth. Also available was a built-in 800 note sequencer consisting of two multitimbral Six-Trak sequences with individual volume controls. It is also syncable to an external source.

Each voice consists of a single Curtis 3394 chip, which basically contains the entire synth engine (one VCO, a VCF, a VCA, and an LFO) except for the ADSR envelope generators. The VCO has coarse and fine tuning, glide (portamento), and available sawtooth, triangle, and pulse (with pulse width modulation) waveforms. Each oscillator can be mixed with the noise generator. The filter section features controls for the cut-off frequency, and resonance. Keyfollow modulation can be set to off, half, or full keyboard. The filter is self-resonating and can be modulated by the oscillator. In each voice the VCO, VCF, and VCA have their own ADSR envelope generators with variable envelope amounts. Both the VCF's and the VCO's ADSRs can be inverted. The LFO can be routed to the VCO, the VCR, and pulse width modulation. Available waveforms for the LFO are square and triangle with controls for amount and frequency. The Six-Trak uses parameter access programming via a single data knob and a single two-digit LED display.

The Six-Trak features polyphonic portamento (in polyphonic mode), unison mode, and "stack" mode. Stack mode allows each voice to be set to a different patch and played as one complex monophonic sound. Both mono and stack modes are selectible between single and multiple triggering modes. The arpeggiator can be switched to up, down, or assignable, which arpeggiates notes in the order they were played. It can be set to play on voice six as a chord is played with the other five voices. The keyboard can be split into three areas. The pitch wheel is fixed at a range of a major 3rd up and a minor 3rd down. The modulation wheel controls the LFO amount. The Six-Trak's patches and Sequences can only be backed up through MIDI. Also on the back panel is the MIDI interface (IN\OUT), a stereo audio out jack which doubles as a headphone jack, and a footswitch (sustain) jack. The Six-Trak's over all dimensions are 28" x 12" x 4 1/2""