Minimal Wave Records

Synth trivia,

We met up with Dave Colton last week who we have not seen since 1983. He was the studio engineer for EitYZ and Kinder at both Stix and Elephant Studios. He reminded me that the second synth used for Kisses etc was a Wasp, not an MS10 as stated elsewhere.

Wasp possibly have the honour of being the first digital synth (with Analogue filters etc) in the world. We would be interested to know if anyone can verify this fact as true or not.

Thanks - Sudeten Creche

early digital synths

I don’t follow the trivia closely enough to have the definitive answer, but there is a pretty old Crumar synth called DS-2 that I think has some digitally controlled oscillators.  Also a strange synth from RMI called harmonic Synthesizer.  I don’t think it had *any* filters but was definitely an early implementation of pure digital oscillators.

Re: early digital synths

[quote author=“futility”]I don’t follow the trivia closely enough to have the definitive answer, but there is a pretty old Crumar synth called DS-2 that I think has some digitally controlled oscillators.  Also a strange synth from RMI called harmonic Synthesizer.  I don’t think it had *any* filters but was definitely an early implementation of pure digital oscillators.

Yep, is true, the Crumar DS2 was one of the first with DCOs instead of VCOs. I found one even in NY in a music shop, but they wanted a lot of money, the only problem with this machine, like all the other Crumar string and synths, is that rarely is surviving…cause of the quality of the components used for them. Read: it is quiet impossible to find one PERFECTLY working.

infos and manual (in italian, sorry!) here:

I’ve got a Crumar DS-1 which has DCO’s.  The “DS” stands for “digital synthesizer”.  From what I can tell the DS-1 was made around 1978, about the same time as the Wasp.

an interesting unique prototype was the famous ASE MCS-70, engineered in Italy by the GREAT Mario Maggi (elka synthex reminds you something? .

As far i know, it was the first synth able to memorize the sounds produced..the synth is from 1977…but its still VCO.

It was the only synth used in the production of the electronic music album “Automat” by Romano Musumarra and Claudio Gizzi, released in 1978.

Hi all, first post here.

Just thought I’d chime in with another DCO based synth from around the same era…the Jen SX1000.  Not sure if it came out before or after the Wasp, but most articles I’ve seen indicate it was released in 1978.

i own a Jen Sx and i confirm u that is 78