catalog

I recently bought a whole stash of gear from someone (thanks for the tip-off Neil!) and amongst all the user manuals was a collection of Roland brochures from the 70s and 80s. So I have scanned all the synth-related pages from them, and put them into a PDF for the whole world to see. Below the embedded document are some pics of my favourite pages. ENJOY!

My FX

I was looking through the excellent Muzines website and decided to download scans of vintage reviews and info on all my 1980s FX units (I concentrated on the digital multi effects for now). Then I printed them all out and bound them. Geeky! Anyway, I had to make a cover for it and came up with this:

I know, its pretty ugly and uses about 20 different fonts - but it is in fact based on the 1980s Music Technology magazine look (see here for an extraordinary example) and I love it in a weird way

I made a PDF of the document for future reference

Memetune FX by on Scribd

Cooking 2

Here are some facts about the AS-1 sequencer:

1] Its V.cute

2] It is very small and compact having 16 steps and a lot of nice control features

3] My model has the serial number "DEMO" - so I guess this was one of the first units produced and used by the guys at Polyfusion to show people what it could do

4] The AS-1 was one of the first stand alone step sequencers. I can only think of a few dating from the 1970s: the ARP 1601, the Oberheim Mini Sequencer and the Korg SQ10. The Polyfusion is the coolest looking though. For some reason it reminds me of K9 which is a nice thought

5] The AS-1 came with an amazing user manual that has to be one of the BEST LOOKING USER MANUALS EVER DESIGNED! Its so cool that I scanned my version and made a PDF for you

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Polysynthi Manual

Don't you just hate it when you're sitting in front of your favourite EMS poly synth trying to work out why all the knobs have been put on backwards and you can't find the user manual because it has slipped down behind a radiator about six months ago? Well this might help

Polysynthi Manual PDF

Douglas Fir

I have just seen this amazing booklet made in 1960 showing you how to make your life better using wood.
Its from here, which is a good place to dig around in for a while
Second Homes for Leisure Living

First Foundation

I am a huge fan of Roland's beautiful publication The Synthesizer. In fact I have both 1st and 2nd editions of it. What makes it so good for me it its use of the Roland System 100 series modules in most of its patching examples, as I also have those modules. Well the good news is that Analog Industries have gone and scanned this long-out-of-print tome and you can download it from their website. Here is the excellent A Foundation For Electronic Music
RTS Foundation