Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

Now, THAT was unfair. Actually, I found them in Doug Curtis' storage shed,
under 2
still-in-the-taped-boxes Teac reel-to-reels. Believe me, if I had these 2
years ago,
I'd be driving a Lexus!

On a side note, I did see his personal, modular synth. Very interesting: it
was laid out
like an old SSL mixer. Each "voice" was about 4 inches wide and about 20
inches long.
They were on card-edge connectors, so you could plug them in and out. Each
voice had a
large, big $$$ slide pot with 6 small push on/push off buttons. The switches
assigned the
routing of the "performance slider" as it was labeled. Beautiful brushed
aluminum panel,
laser engraved!

The voice "patch" was interesting: he used ∗very small" gold-plated pin
jacks. These were popular
20 years ago in analog computer patch panels (the panels were removeable,
held in place
by a massive "Socket 7"-like ZIF doo-dad) Anyway, each voice had like a
matrix of female
sockets, ∗very∗ much like a VCS3 pinboard. Except, these small jumpers, 2-4"
long, made
the patches. The sockets are only about 0.050 diameter, so density is not an
issue. Also, he had
the patch matrix recessed about 2 inches from the other "surface", with a
smokey Plexiglas cover.
Sort of like the "hidden" presets on a CS-60/CS-80 synth. Didn't hear it
(it's "straight" 3340>>3379>>3310
so it's like an OB-8, I'd guess). Sucker is 7 FEET long and very bizarre!
Future eBay oddity??!?

Also saw his synth #0001. Doug's history is: he entered a design contest for
analog ASICs. He won, got $5000
and a run of 500 chips of his design. Which was his later-patented bipolar
exponential converter cell, the basis
for every CEM chip. The 500 chips went into 5 different synths (including a
guitar synth with 6L6 tube outputs!)
and the $5000....started Curtis Electromusic!

Paul S.