The True Power Of This Fully Operational Death Star...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Got the Roland CMU-800R all up in this bitch. This unit essentially completes the Complete Professional Musician’s Apple //e System. This Apple //e now has a pair of Mountain Computer synthesis cards, a Decillionix sampler card, an alphaSyntauri keyboard and software, and the CMU-800R. There were, as far as I’m aware, no other “pro” pieces of music-making gear for it, other than the Passport Soundchaser system, which also uses the Mountain Computer cards, and thus is the same additive synthesis as the alphaSyntauri.
I’ll put up a full workup with sound samples and what-not as soon as I get balls-deep in the step editing heaven that is the Compu-Music software. Suffice to say that the following things are true:
1. People that have written that the CMU-800R contains a complete TR-606 are off their fucking rocker. It is a full analog drum voicing board, but it ain’t no 606. In looking at the schematics, it’s kind of its own thing. I compared it to the 606, DR-110, and TR-808, and found very few similarities other than a general Roland-ness. It is much thinner than any of those.
2. People that say the bass voice is a complete 303 are really off their rockers. The bass voice is coming out the same voice source as the other 5 voices; it and the melody voice have an envelope structure that is somewhat different than the 4 “chord” voices, and the bass voice is the only voice that has a filter, a simple Sallen-Key 2 pole LPF. But it ain’t no 303.
Anyhow, I’ll put up samples and maybe a short video when I’ve got it sequencing like a champ, but suffice to say it works fine, and if you’re in to 80s computer-based music making, you can’t touch this rig.
10 comments
Float like a butterfly sting like a bee!
I just got a little moist reading this...
That's some hot sequencing action on that screen.
I still vividly remember the klickity-klak of the //e keyboard. That setup is truly the dream system of Apple // nerds. Good times.
I suppose you were running around BBSs/AppleNet etc... in the 1980s.
I'd love to know whether output of these "pro" components ever ended up on any commercial recordings made while the components were still in production. I know that various models of standalone MicroComposers saw actual professional use (e.g. YMO), which I suppose implies that someone somewhere made music professionally by editing step values in all-caps text on a 40x24-character CRT, hard as it is to imagine nowadays.
--Adam
For what it's worth, the alphaSyntauri was used by many pro players; chief among them being Herbie Hancock, of course. And Laurie Spiegel wrote fairly large swaths of the Syntauri software, so I suppose she used it extensively as well.
As far as the CMU-800? No fucking idea. It's rare as hen's teeth. There are probably 8 units that I'm aware of, and they're constantly batted back and forth on eBay. This particular one I now possess has been the subject of at least 2 auctions, and is the unit featured in exactly half of all the videos and photographs you can find featuring the CMU-800. I know there are at least 3 units that have been converted to MIDI; two are in Japan, and one is in Europe.
This unit right here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/rare-ROLAND-COMPU-MUSIC-CMU-800R-drum-machine-synth-/180572982394?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a0afd0c7a
...has been auctioned on eBay many times. Since it doesn't have the card, it's only good for MIDI conversion (or holding down a stack of paper on a windy day) and the people that buy it, once they discover what they're in for, sell it again after a couple months. I think, if you look at historical eBay auctions for CMU-800s, you'll see that very one in over half of them. It has been moving around the country since the late 90s.
-CR
Doris Norton had a CMU-800, and I think it's safe to assume she had a good portion of the other computer synthesizer hardware available at the time. There's one sitting on top of her Apple in this photo: http://www.futurestyle.org/archives/images/n/nortonDoris20020311B.jpg
On the Roland S Series and the Fairlight CMI, there are only a few different images of the screens and they are mostly of the same pages/windows... so I'm glad to see you got an image of the CMU's software up so quickly, CR... to the majority of us the software side of hardware like this is a mystery.
One question - are the voice patterns sequenced vertically as well?
This whole thread --- whoosh! --- right over my head.
- c
"balls deep".... so many jokes... must.. resist...
ah.. there i made it..
i'm so curious how all this will sound!
also, as a side project can you try to hack into the WOPR w/that thing?
I'm with boobs.
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