The Holy Grail ? (second reprise)

[SmashedTransistors]

The S3 is one of the few of my isntruments that I have yet to see on the inside but since the S2 is the same but only provides a 61 note keybaord it stands to reason that the 76 note S3 wil have ample room inside to install an Axoloti, which should upgrade such a synth into the 21st century killer instrument with ease.

Hi @brasso,
I bought a second hand S2 Turbo thursday... 16kg, it is heavy, i had to wash and clean it because the former user was a smoker and its surface was sticky and smelled cold tobacco ...

I opened it to dust and clean its internals (especially the rotary) and checked the CdNi battery ... surprisingly no acid leakage yet, but i will replace it before a fatal leak eats the circuits. If some other axonaut plan to buy a S2 turbo, he must check as soon as possible if the battery leaking in this 20 year old gear.

Well, it still smells
but it is totally functional including the !

It is really nice to use this as a master keyboard for the Axoloti:

• 7 sliders for CCs
• Attack and Release velocity
• Polyphonic Aftertouch

Now @brasso I understand why you use these derated italian synths to build your Starship One.
Thanks for pointing me to this one.

[SmashedTransistors]

So again: I'd hate to think that this community is only about problem solving and exchanging software solutions.

I would also dislike to think that it will turn into yet-another-philosophico-theoretic-blahblah-DSP-forum.

We share a common DSP platform, the Axoloti.

The Axoloti allows to share practical ideas by exchanging patches on the forum (and through the library).

Most of the time it can seem technical and problem solving oriented ("how can i...?", "how does it work ?") simply because we all need technical help when technical problems arise.
It's great for beginners (and others) to know that they will find practical help on the forum.
BTW, I thank all the people that helped me when i started a few months ago (@Sputnki, @toneburst, @thetechnobear, @johannes, @mtyas, @lokki, @jaffasplaffa ...)

But it also have an aesthetic dimension ("why do i like this sound ?")
and a practical creative dimension ("what if i combine this patch, with this one ?...")

I really love that practical aspect of patch sharing.

I'd love to see some of your ideas in form of patches... even if they are not perfect, it will provide a living idea of what sort of grail you are looking for.

[axoman]

Hey, Marc's gone very quiet

Anyway, good luck with the S2 renovation, ST. I used one of those back when they were available (though only for a few minutes). I was in a music shop just browing around and saw one, so I started playing around with it. Then of course the salesman appeared thinking he was going to sell me one. I remember him demonstrating a bunch of sound effects, sirens, rain and thunder etc. It certainly looked the part as well. To cut a long story short, I ended-up wanting one ... real bad ... but of course the cost was prohibitive!

[SmashedTransistors]

Hey, Marc's gone very quiet

holidays maybe.

good luck with the S2 renovation

Renovation done and static RAM added with low self discharge batteries.. now it will last 20 years more.

The internal sounds and demos are kind of General Midi stuff. :
The good things/ideas in its synthesis engine are:

• the envelopes : multi segment with loop made of two multi segment sub envelopes:
  • a multisegment envelope for the attack decay sustain portion
  • a multisegment envelope for the release portion
• The double filter (which sounds really great for a digital filter of this era, maybe it was designed by the ELKA team).

For me, its flaw - as a synth - is that, as far as i see, editing, saving and sharing patches for this synth is almost impossible:

• you can"t use sysex => no software editor, no sysex dump.
• the floppy disk format for saving sounds and setup is proprietary (1.62Mb) which can't be read or written by a USB floppy disc (only some floppy disc driver under Win XP were able to do it).

It's a great master keyboard for the Axoloti attack and release velocity (with spring contacts), and polyphonic aftertouch with a Fatar keybed

[axoman]

Sounds like it's a well-made beast then!

[brasso]

Hi Smasho,

Sorry for not getting back to you on this one but I have been on holdiay and I make it a point to leave all media related devices at home.

Congrata with going for the S2. It's nice to have at least one convert

Fun fact: In 2015 I actually visited the region where allmost all Italian keyboards came from. It is called La Marche Italy. The only clear proof one could still find was the derelict GEM factory. It's big shame this industry died. Somebody has however recently bought the brand name and knowhow. So never say an Italian brand is totally dead.

Marc

[brasso]

Like I said before. I'll have to get around to it first. Already dreading the moment when I have to work out all the complications of installing Axoloti does obviously not help but the main reason is that I am alwys working on a lot of stuff in a sort of intermitent, semi-paralell way. Some of you have seen my website. It still only shows the top of the iceberg. It only contians the stuff that got finished up to a certain standard and is (possibly) consumable for others.

I could give you a "still to do list" that would be as long as my arm, inlcuding a section about the status of my electonic instrument projects, but I conciously refrain form that because explaining everything on it would in itself alrady be an undertaking.

The good news however is that I normally always finish what I start (even if it might take 10 years or so to do so). I'll expect the winter will bring a new bout of music related activity. Ice winter stalactites hanging form my metal workshop's walls (think Transilvanian castlle surroundings) often help to drive me into the music laboratory (It's alive, I tell you!) providing autumn has not already done so. Sigh!

[brasso]

As far as I am concerned the S-series only has one problem: It's user interface is way too cryptic.

Not buying one at the time is understandable. Good worksations could burn quite a big hole in your pocket. By now they are however very affordable.

[brasso]

Yeah, editing is cumbersome.

As far as file / preset management is concerned. Floppy's might be oldfashioned but if stuff works it works.

The S-series strength are actually it's synthesizer sounds. The typical nineties sample pool is good enough but layering rather obvious samples on top of each other becomes boring quite quickly. The way to get the best out of such machines usually is to use the layers to provide basic waveforms and then do your best (or worst) with al the other facilities. It's the classic less is more thing.

So my first tip is. Us the triangular cursors to the left of the display to select and mute the different layers in the preset user Performances. Pressing an arrow once selects a layer, pressing it agian mutes it.

By listening to the individual layers you really get a better impression of the quality of the sounds and their possibilities.

[axoman]

As far as I am concerned the S-series only has one problem: It's user interface is way too cryptic.

Not buying one at the time is understandable. Good worksations could burn quite a big hole in your pocket. By now they are however very affordable.

Cryptic, man you should see the Yamaha A3000 Sampler then, it brings a whole new meaning to the word "Cryptic". I've only ever owned two samplers. The first one was a Roland MC-808, which I really liked but returned it just days later after discovering it needed to be connected to a computer to fully edit the sounds. I even left a message at the store for the Roland rep who was supposedly visiting later that day. I told him, when I pay for a piece of hardware, I fully expect to be able to program the damn thing without having to drag a computer along!

Havnen't a clue if he passed the message on, but that's what I told him.

Later I ended-up with the Yamaha A3000 Sampler, which I still own. Has the worst designed operating system I've ever seen, and while a lot of people claim the machine has horrible rotary encoders, personally, I'm convinced it's the operating system itself that is to blame, not the encoders. it's so unresponsive sometimes that the encoders simply have no effect cause the OS seems to be busy doing something else. I'm convinced that's what it is, anway.

Very powerful machine though, with three completely independent Multi-FX blocks, so works well as a super-powerful effects rackmount even if you never touched the sampler!

[SmashedTransistors]

Well, the only difficulty i had is to set on the polyphonic aftertouch. But once you get that it is organised around "tracks", its not difficult to configure it.
The RAM disc i installed is a plus compared to the slow floppies. This way, i just have to switch it on to have my MIDI setup running without any boot floppy in the driver.

I found the sound editing pages logically designed.

The internal samples sound standard to me: mostly similar to what you can have in a Emu of this era (Proteus I 1989).

The double filter is surprisingly good for a digital filter of the early 90s : it can be deeply modulated with high resonance.
It sounds much better than a Chamberlin filter - that was widely used in the late 90s - with its stability issues that forced to limit its modulation depth and/or resonance.
Maybe, they used the good old step invariant transform, the filter performances are consistent with this almost forgotten design.

There is only one LFO but, the envelopes can have a loop that makes them act like LFOs.

Well, now, i will use it with the Axoloti.
I will make some patches designed for it using attack and release velocities, poly aftertouch and the 7 sliders .

[jaffasplaffa]

@axoman I got the Yamaha A3000 too. Been messing around with it a lot lately. Haven taken out the fan, whihc made it sound like a jetplane. I read that this was no problem and I havent had any problem with it. I also took out the harddisc, which made it sound like the was a second jetplane inside my house.

And I JUST got a floppy to USB-stick converter, to store patches on instead of the internal drive..... This is pretty nice, like 15€ i think it was. I just got it and going to try to install it tonight, hopefully it works SO overall now I think it is in the best shape it has ever been

Oh.. I forgot about the knobs... Sometimes I have to turn them 4-5 rounds before they actually start to work....... Haha

So yeah I agree a lot it is a weirdo of a sampler. I also had a Akai sampler and an Emu sampler. Emu sampler was about the same as the a3000. VERY problematic.

But I think actually I am mostly just going to use it for the effects now, the A3000. As you say pretty decent effect section in it...

But I have actually only payed 30€ for it, so I dont complaint(too much)

[axoman]

Already dreading the moment when I have to work out all the complications of installing Axoloti does obviously not help

I meant to reply to this yesterday, so just in case any of my own adventures of installing Axoloti has put you off a bit, really, don't let it. Axoloti was actually quite painless to install on my other machine, and even then, I was one of the unlucky ones cause I had to flash it before it would work. When you come to install it, chances are it will just go as easy as installing any other peice of hardware - you pessimist

I got the Yamaha A3000 too. Been messing around with it a lot lately. Haven taken out the fan, whihc made it sound like a jetplane. I read that this was no problem and I havent had any problem with it. I also took out the harddisc, which made it sound like the was a second jetplane inside my house.

Sounds like you have a faulty fan then, mine's nice and quiet, I can hear it but it's just a whisper! I've not got a hard disk in mine, in fact a hard disk is the only feature I haven't bothered with. I was extremely lucky when I got mine, She's completely 100% mint condition, not a single mark anywhere, still has the proctective film over the display even. It's an official V2 ROM version as well, has every expansion board fitted, and the maximum amount of RAM. I chose not to go for a hard disk when I saw those Floppy Emulator drives you just mentioned, much better, silent and no moving parts! I just haven't gotten around to buying one yet.

And I JUST got a floppy to USB-stick converter, to store patches on instead of the internal drive..... This is pretty nice, like 15€ i think it was. I just got it and going to try to install it tonight, hopefully it works SO overall now I think it is in the best shape it has ever been

That sounds exactly like the one I was going to buy, so please let me know how you get on with it, and if it works, please post a link. Here's the one I was thinking about (says it's Yamaha compatible):
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5V-DC-3-5-USB-1-44MB-Floppy-Drive-Emulator-Yamaha-Korg-Electric-Organ-Keyboard-/121527471192

So yeah I agree a lot it is a weirdo of a sampler. I also had a Akai sampler and an Emu sampler. Emu sampler was about the same as the a3000. VERY problematic.

Yup, it's definitely a weirdo sampler, lol, but it's power makes up for it (it's crazy powerful). When you consider that it has a Parametric EQ for each individual sample, then a bunch of Parametric EQ's in each of the Multi-Effects blocks, three completely independent Aphex Aural Exciters, a Master Parametric and 24 Digital Filter types, it's quite a beast!

Oh.. I forgot about the knobs... Sometimes I have to turn them 4-5 rounds before they actually start to work....... Haha

Here's a little tip to help you out there, one that will prove it's the OS and not the encoders (they're actually very high-grade encoders). When it appears to go to sleep and stops responding, just stop twisting the knob and count to two, then try again and it will work perfectly. Like I said, I'm pretty sure it's because the OS is doing something (probably some sort of house-keeping), but that's the best way to deal with that annoying encoder thing whenever it happens.

But I think actually I am mostly just going to use it for the effects now, the A3000. As you say pretty decent effect section in it...

But I have actually only payed 30€ for it, so I dont complaint(too much)

You got a bargain, and it would be crazy not to use it as a sampler. I actually paid double that amount but like I said she's completely mint, V2, and has all the boards etc. Other than me not installing the hard disk, she's "fully loaded" as they say

A strange beast, super-powerful but at the same time often cryptic and frustrating (but I still love her)

[jaffasplaffa]

Sounds like you have a faulty fan then, mine's nice and quiet, I can hear it but it's just a whisper! I've not got a hard disk in mine, in fact a hard disk is the only feature I haven't bothered with. I was extremely lucky when I got mine, She's completely 100% mint condition, not a single mark anywhere, still has the proctective film over the display even. It's an official V2 ROM version as well, has every expansion board fitted, and the maximum amount of RAM. I chose not to go for a hard disk when I saw those Floppy Emulator drives you just mentioned, much better, silent and no moving parts! I just haven't gotten around to buying one yet.

Yeah mine had the harddisk installed when I got it. And it works fine, but it is making an AWEFUL lots a noise. So not worth it. Those SCSI drives......

I dunno if mine is V2. But I guess I should find out

That sounds exactly like the one I was going to buy, so please let me know how you get on with it, and if it works, please post a link. Here's the one I was thinking about (says it's Yamaha compatible):

I got this one:

2017 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive to USB emulator Simulation For Musical Keyboard...

I think the same as you found, just a bit cheaper:

Well a friend of mine bought one for an old school 8-bit sampler, Ensoniq Mirage. He had to flash it before using it. And his set up seemed to work perfectly. That sampler, the Ensoniq has got some character to it But for the A3000, from what I understood there is no need for flashing it for A3000.

Yup, it's definitely a weirdo sampler, lol, but it's power makes up for it (it's crazy powerful). When you consider that it has a Parametric EQ for each individual sample, then a bunch of Parametric EQ's in each of the Multi-Effects blocks, three completely independent Aphex Aural Exciters, a Master Parametric and 24 Digital Filter types, it's quite a beast!

Yes super powerful. Maybe I will use it as sample also when I actually get it working.

I just installed it and it seems to light up as supposed, now I just need to test with some samples, which is next step. Hopefully everything works. I'll keep you updated. Maybe in PM, not to take over this thread

[axoman]

If it's a V2 it will tease you on startup:

• First it'll say YAMAHA A3000 PROFESSIONAL SAMPLER V1
• Then the 1 will scroll away and be replaced by a 2 so that it says V2.

There's a guy on ebay sells the V2 ROM if you cannot find a Yamaha branded one. Just bear in mind that you won't get the extra user manual that comes with the official Yamaha upgrade. If you're curious as to what you get in V2, you can see these two reviews for comparison. Good write-ups as well cause they're written by Chris Carter of TG, who originally wrote these for SoundOnSound:

http://www.chriscarter.co.uk/content/sos/yamaha_a3000.html
http://www.chriscarter.co.uk/content/sos/yamaha_a3000v2.html

Regards the Floppy Emulator, thanks, and yes that looks the same, but I'm not ordering from China if I can help it, I might as well just pay the extra and get it from the UK a lot quicker. Thanks for the heads-up about not needing to flash it for the A3000, that's a relief, makes it plug'n'play!

You could let my know how it goes by PM if you want, but to be honest I doubt it would matter posting it here after all we've posted already!

If Marc goes crazy again, maybe I could just send him a beer and tell him to relax

[brasso]

Dear Smasho,

Yep: findign the quick step to the poly aftertouch was also a bit of a bore to me and it alwys take sa few keyabstroeks but boy is it woth it.

Automatically configuring it floppy-less is indeed a good idea.

Sounds like you already went deeper into it then I did anyway. My main task for it also is to use it as a polyphonic aftertouch generating MIDI keyboard for the Strarship One but it should serve the Axoloti equally well.

If one uses it's internal sounds the reponse is however even more direct and really on a par with that of the Yamaha CS80.

An example: I did all the brassy bits in part 1 of my Zamsidat Suite (http://www.brassee.com/electronicmusic.html#zamisdat.) I pumped it out in one improvised go but it all sounds so measured and controlled that it gives the impression of somehting fully orchestrated. Now that is the sort of exprssion I am looking for.

Another very good example is foctory Performance B2; ThinShocks. The response is so fine one can actaully make a conventional analog type sound move in an almost vocal-like way. That's alwys alwys a very good measure of a synths potential.

Maybe you could help me out: I have not yet worked out how to actually load WAV's into the S-series, although I have prepared a complete set of CS80 samples in WAV (3 samples per octave, per waveform, etc.).

[brasso]

OK. That floppy drive emulator is pleasantly cheap for such a nifty device. But how does one configure it? And what about compatibility and connectivity? Will it also fit in less regular machines like the Technics WSA and the GEM S-series? If so I'll probabaly still upgrade my setup.

[jaffasplaffa]

hey @brasso

I got it yesterday so still figuring it out the details on how to configure it

Will keep you updated

[SmashedTransistors]

Maybe you could help me out: I have not yet worked out how to actually load WAV's into the S-series, although I have prepared a complete set of CS80 samples in WAV (3 samples per octave, per waveform, etc.).

I'm not sure you need some waveforms to get a BladeRunner sound or some other CS80 famous sound.
I obtained very nice results by using the first filter as a highpass without resonance and the second with mid resonance and pressure control. The character of this bloody filter makes the detuned sawteeth sound great (especially with slight pitch deviations thanks to the looped envelopes).
Sadly, the Gem S does not support SysEx Dumps ! (or rather it is not documented and readily available from the synth). So i can't link a MIDI file for you to try my patch.

As far as I understood the Gem S turbo uses a special 1.62Mb format for the setup/presets floppies but it can read MS/DOS 1.44Mb floppies to import wavs and Akai format. The subtype of wav is not really clear to me (you know, the number of bytes per sample, big or little endian issues... i read that it is signed 16 bit little endian mono). I think that maybe you can find some software that handles Akai format.

It seems that sample dump by MIDI (SDS) is possible.

If you have (lots of) time, maybe you can have a look to https://github.com/jmechnich/s3turbo

@jaffasplaffa, It seems that the 1.62Mb format can be an issue for some USB stick emulators... so i'm very interested in further experiments.

[axoman]

Just a quick note to Jaffa ...

It might be a good idea to access the A3000's Test Mode and do a Factory Reset just in case the previous user set or disabled anything in a menu somewhere, or you need to reset it after screwing something up.

To do a Factory Reset:

• Hold down the Program and Audition buttons while powering it up.
• Use the left-most encoder to scroll through the various tests until you see Full Reset.
• Push the encoder under where it says Automatic.
• Push the encoder under where it says Yes.

There's a whole bunch of stuff hidden in there, hardware tests, memory wiping etc.