[sdiy] Ondes Martenot Schematics

[Oren Leavitt]

Mike,

How very cool!
Thanks for these resources.
I've always been curious about this instrument.

- Oren

On 3/20/25 9:35 PM, Mike Beauchamp wrote:
> I'm really happy to share this with the synth-diy community, as these
> schematics are something I have been searching the internet for over the
> last 14 years.
> 
> http://ondes.net/
> 
> I have been collecting all of the information I can find on the Ondes
> Martenot for quite some time. Although there were rumours of people
> having copies and one being briefly shown in the film "Wavemakers"
> (https://www.nfb.ca/film/wavemakers/), actual schematics seemed totally
> unobtainable.
> 
> Several years ago, I reached out to a man named Jean Landry who had been
> a repair technician and also worked and taught at the Conservatoire de
> musique de Montréal, which as far as I know is the only place that
> teaches the Ondes Martenot in North America. During a visit to his
> modest repair atelier, he pulled out several original schematics from
> his filing cabinet and very kindly offered to scan them for me.
> 
> Once I saw the schematics, of course I started simulating and
> breadboarding the oscillator core, waveshapers and mixing circuitry.
> After making some improvements to the stability of the oscillator, I
> designed the Therevox Ondes VCO for eurorack as a side project during
> the development of the ET-5.
> 
> Jean continued to scan and organize more documents he had related to the
> Martenot, including original operating manuals, technical bulletins and
> everything else he could find. Jean and I are both former guitar amp
> repair techs, and we talked about how vintage Fender amplifiers will be
> around forever because their schematics were always top-notch and
> available. Jean wanted his Ondes Martenot information to be available on
> the internet so it might help others repair the few Ondes Martenot
> instruments that are left in the world. He did most of the work, I'm
> just a guy that knows a bit of html and happy to finally put this stuff
> online.
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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