The most reliable analog polysynth

CZ Rider · Post by **CZ Rider** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 8:38 pm

My vote for most reliable analog polyphonic synthesizers, that I own, would be the Moog Opus 3, and the Korg PS-3100. Never really had any problems with either, and what little maintence required was simple. The Opus tuning is solid, due to single oscillator design. And it still has a pitch wheel. Very nice!
Dito on the Korg, with 12 oscillators the tuning is very stable. All the other manufactures could learn a trick from the vast amount of voltage control on that Korg. Fun to control the PS-3100 from a Moog ribbon controller, the VCO's go from sub audio to almost out of hearing range. Hours of fun.
Actually just how many real analog poly synthesizers were there. Most I know of are hybrids with a digital front end attached.
Only time will tell just how reliable the polyphonic Voyager will be? I don't have much faith in any hybrid synthesizer with an operating system. I'll let you know in 20 years.

Nothing says vintage polysynth like all that solid wood!

EricK · Post by **EricK** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:37 pm

Man I know you get this a lot but you live in a synthmuseum.

Jeez!

Eric

The Analog Organist · Post by **The Analog Organist** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:39 pm

What a gorgeous instrument, like a piece of furniture! It puts our plastic moderns to shame.

Twenty years ago I had a brand new Korg MS-20, and thought it was a gem. Fabulous pulse width modulation. I can't imagine what power this PS-3100 must have.

mayidunk · Post by **mayidunk** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 11:09 pm

Is the wood cabinet on the Opus3 original? I owned one years ago, and don't remember it having such a nice cabinet as that one.

Kevin Lightner · Post by **Kevin Lightner** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:06 am

One other issue not everyone is aware of is that an 8 voice SEM Oberheim isn't just 4 more SEMS added on.
For each pair of SEMS, there's another board to be added to the keyboard assigner and to the programmer.
The 4 voice expander cabinet used to expand a four voice synth also came with its own power supply and audio mixer.
That's why some people didn't understand the original price lists for Oberheim.
They'd see the 4 voice at $4000-5000 and the SEMs offered raw for $700 or $800, but then the full 8 voice system would be around 10 grand.
It didn't make sense to some people.
But they didn't take into account all the extra boards needed for they key assigner and programmer modules.

I'm not a big fan of DCOs simply because of limitations in modulating them and that they're usually perfectly in sync with other DCOs.
Being in tune in one thing, but being locked in sync is quite another.
The sound of a DCO synth in unison comes nowhere close to a VCO synth in unison.
But if I was a live player, I'd probably prefer DCOs too.
No warm up time and always being in tune means less to worry about.
Service can also cost less due to fewer calibrations necessary.

CZ Rider · Post by **CZ Rider** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 1:33 am

mayidunk wrote:Is the wood cabinet on the Opus3 original? I owned one years ago, and don't remember it having such a nice cabinet as that one.

Just a refinish job, but it is the original 1979 wood. Back then Moog put this mud finish on the wood. I guess this way they did not have to match the various wood pieces? And the mud also hid the saw marks, especially along the length of the front rail. So you never know what is under the mud. I refinished a Prodigy, Taurus 2, and the Opus wood all at the same time. It was all light wood, (poplar?) so I sanded, stained and did a polyurethane finish. One of the side panels on the Prodigy had this great looking curly grain, while the other side was just OK. The front piece on the Opus did turn out nice. The original finish wasn't very robust, and could be scrached off with a fingernail. (Waterbased?) So that Opus was degunked, hot-rodded with VCF and audio inputs, new sliders, new attitude.
Here is the original Moog wood after sanding.

The Prodigy turned out nice too!

CZ Rider · Post by **CZ Rider** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 2:16 am

The Analog Organist wrote:What a gorgeous instrument, like a piece of furniture! It puts our plastic moderns to shame.

Twenty years ago I had a brand new Korg MS-20, and thought it was a gem. Fabulous pulse width modulation. I can't imagine what power this PS-3100 must have.

Here is another pic of just the PS-3100

Very much like the MS-20's big brother, they play nice together. The PS-3100 is a strange instrument from back when there were many new designs, and not as many standards. The architecture is pure analog with 12 oscillators using sub-octave dividers to get full polyphony of all 48 keys. There are 48 VCF/VCA/eg's, one per key. Sounds unique, a little thin as is it only one osc. per. key, but with the onboard resonator and chorus, the sound can be quite full.
On the left of the front panel is 12 small tuners for the 12 chromatic notes, they can be tuned for different scales like "just" intonation. Next is the single oscillator section with a nice assortment of waveforms to choose, the last being a modulated pulse. A knob below for PWM amount with the source LFO 2 (MG2) or any external source via patch panel. Below that a coarse and fine tune, with a range selector 16' to 2'. And below that, the familiar two oscillator frequency modulation knobs. There is even a switch to invert the mod and switch to turn both off. One of the mod sources can be externally patched in. Similar to the MS-20 oscillator routing. There is a single LP filter section, not quite as agressive as the LP/HP combo on the MS-20, but similar modulation routings. And I haven't even scrached the surface of this synthesizers features. There is a resonator section, a amplitude modulator, sample and hold, an extra monphonic envelope generator, a great voltage controlled LFO, two voltage processors, and the patch panel that makes so many possibiities.
I wish all the other poly synths had as many options with voltage control. Korg had it right, but did not sell that many of these. And if one oscillator was not enough, they made a PS-3300 that was three complete 3100 synthesizers per key. Looked like a big Moog modular. For the most part they were reliable though, and a really different approach than the way the synthesizer progressed to today.

mayidunk · Post by **mayidunk** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 2:20 am

Very nice job! Thanks.

EricK · Post by **EricK** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:48 am

Man those cabs look brank spankin' new! Great job there.

Eric

ozy · Post by **ozy** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:51 am

that's not cricket, "analog organist"!

We were discussing cheapo Elkas and not-so-cheapo-but-nevertheless-affordable OBX-As,

and you throw around mint condition modular polys with 12 filters !?!

Come on, that's simply not fair...

I never played a PS 3100, but it looks stunning.

And if it's really just as half good as a "poliphonic ms 20", well...

Congratulations

Lux_Seeker · Post by **Lux_Seeker** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 9:10 pm

I know that I am chiming in on this one late but this is a great thread. I have two hardware synths. A Korg M3 and a Moog Voyager. I like both of them for different reasons and dont' have any plans on selling either of them.

There are currently two gaps in my hardware, an analogue polysynth and a modular. In some sense, my Voyager combined with CP-251 and expander is like a modular. H have to admit that I find a big gap between my ideals of what I want to do with hardware and my practical limitations mostly with time.

I can think modular. When I connect my Foogers and my Voyager I know what I am doing but frankly, creating a spaghetti of patch cords to get a sound is not so much beyond my capability but beyond my time contraints and my goals. My goal is to make music so my experimenation at times is pretty basic.

I thought about the Prophet 08. For all practical purposes, its an analogue synths (in every way that I think really counts). It's also based on a classic synth that has stood the test of time and its modulation capabilities are greatly expended much like the Voyager.

The Adromeda interests me. Highly complex but it might do the trick for creating some complex evolving pads.

Vintage - no real interest to me and I know, I am not a purist. Remember, I have an M3 and I like it! My ultimate anlogue would be a modular combined with a software based controller. Thats a long way off if at all from what I can see from the synth makers although Buchla comes as close as you can get with the 200e.

Right now I am thinking about either the Prophet or the Adromeda but that is a long way off and a Macbook pro to add my softsynths to my hardware setup might be first.

I am also in the midst of finding a way to connect all my gear.

I also want to spend a lot more time with pot mapping and modulation busses and the CV connects in the back of my Voyager. Lot's do do, no time to do it.

Kevin Lightner · Post by **Kevin Lightner** » Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:56 pm

Fwiw, the last PS3100 I serviced required new caps throughout.
It has 154 of 'em!
Nowhere near the amount an OBXa has.
Consider the labor of desoldering 308 connections and another 308 to solder back up again.

I had great fun with the 3100 while it was here and working, but they're aging and all of them will need this sort of work above sooner or later.
Definitely a unique synth. But not nearly as variable as say an Andromeda.