[sdiy] Understanding 80s Synth Architectures

[Tom Wiltshire]

The complete wallk-through explanation of the Rhodes Chroma is one of my favourite bits in Hal Chamberlin's book too. That synth is well documented one way or another!

Tom

> On 4 Feb 2022, at 13:57, grant musictechnologiesgroup.com <grant at musictechnologiesgroup.com> wrote:
> 
> I was also going to say Junglieb. He has most of his stuff online. The Prophet 5 technical manual would be great for this.
> 
> https://www.jungleib.com/ <https://www.jungleib.com/>
> 
> Also the Rhodes Chroma and Emu Emulator manuals should be noted for their detail. I'm sure there are other great ones too.
> 
> GB
> 
> ------ Original Message ------
> From: "Tom Wiltshire" <tom at electricdruid.net <mailto:tom at electricdruid.net>>
> To: "Jared Anderson" <jarander at gmail.com <mailto:jarander at gmail.com>>
> Cc: "Synth-Diy mailing list" <synth-diy at synth-diy.org <mailto:synth-diy at synth-diy.org>>
> Sent: 2/4/2022 2:53:39 AM
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] Understanding 80s Synth Architectures
> 
>> I second Hal Chamberlin's book as a great resource, but I'd also say that I learned most from reading old service manuals. The Sequential ones by Stanley Junglieb are particularly good and give an overview of how the system works before diving into the details.
>> 
>> Tom
>> 
>> ==================
>>        Electric Druid
>> Synth & Stompbox DIY
>> ==================
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 4 Feb 2022, at 10:31, Jared Anderson via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org <mailto:synth-diy at synth-diy.org>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> You might like to try to get a hold of a copy of "Musical Applications of Microprocessors" by Hal Chamberlin.
>>> There may be PDFs floating around on the net somewhere...
>>> 
>>> Cheers
>>> 
>>> On Fri, 4 Feb 2022 at 11:25, ackolonges fds via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org <mailto:synth-diy at synth-diy.org>> wrote:
>>> Hi Everyone,
>>> 
>>> As the local SDIYer I sometimes get asked to try and fix synths from the 80s like various Rolands, Korgs, Oberheims etc. and I generally just try to pinpoint the rough area of the issue and replace logic chips until the issue is resolved...
>>> 
>>> Most of these synths have a CPU connected to everything via a parallel address bus and a parallel data bus, with all sorts of glue logic chips doing various things. They also usually just have 1 DAC, time-domain multiplexed to all of the different parameters via more logic chips. 
>>> 
>>> Obviously this is very different to the modern ways that microcontrollers and DACs are used in synths, and since I wasn't around in the 80s, these older architectures are very foreign to me. To aid in my troubleshooting efforts, I would love to better understand the details of how these architectures work, so I was wondering if anyone on here would be able to point me to any resources that could explain these types of systems to me, be they websites, articles, or books?
>>> 
>>> Thanks a lot for any advice you might have.
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