ARP 2600, Omni-2, Piano and Quartet infosheets, 1979

Set of ARP 2600, Omni-2, Piano and Quartet infosheets from 1979.

Catalogues, info-sheets, brochures? I just don't know which is which anymore. I definitely haven't been consistent over the last 11 or 12 years that I've been yapping on and on through this blog. And my tags are a dog's breakfast because of it.

In my head, catalogues are usually larger marketing documents that contain a little bit of everything, bound together in some way. Saddle stitch, glue or whatever.

Love 'em. 

I got a lot of 'em. 

Roland. Korg. Casio, Akai... they even have covers that say "catalog" or "catalogue" on 'em with a year/date and volume number - very official looking.  But scanning large catalogues takes a lot of time and I'm an "efficiently lazy" person by nature, so you don't see a lot of them on the blog.  

Info-sheets, on the other hand, are those one-pagers (often two-sided) that contain a lot of information and specs on one instrument. Often, they are part of a larger group of similarly designed info-sheets like the ones above.  And usually I scan these similar documents all at once, and then spread out their posts over time so that in my head I feel like I'm being more productive. 

I gotta tell ya, lately I've been feeling like I'm running out of things to say. 

How many times can I say...

"Lovely!" 

"Consistent design!"

"Logo!" 

"Font!"

"Large photo!"

"Diagram!"

"Did I mention diagram!"

Now, I gotta say that all of the above applies here and posting them all at once really shows off the lovely consistent design with large photos and diagrams. I could literally post a scan and just write LCLFLDD underneath the images and call it a day.  

There isn't much else coming outta my head these days synth-related. 

Hence, lets continue on with my original thought. Where was I? Catalogues. Info-sheets... oh right...

Brochures. 

Brochures, in my head, are usually smaller that catalogues, but larger than info-sheets. Maybe stapled if they are more than two pages. 

Sometimes they tell the company story and feature more than one instrument - I'm thinking in particular of that 1974 "Arp Story" brochure that I had posted earlier this month. 

But, isn't this just a catalogue? 

To make it even more confusing, each of those pages can also be found in the wild as individual "info-sheets", and ARP even created addition info-sheet inserts for this brochure of newly released instruments to increase the shelf life of the original brochure. 

But how about those Roland "We design the future" brochures I fetishize over?

Drool. 

*tick tick tick*

(Its literally two hours later because I started looking at these lovely beasts. I still have so many to scan from this series.)

Anyways, like those ARP info-sheets above, these Roland brochures feature one instrument and usually contain a diagram or two, some specs, and are part of a larger group of similarly designed documents. The only real difference between those ARP info-sheets and these Roland brochures is a fold. Seriously. A FOLD. 

I guess my point is that I have no standardization. 

Hey... I'm surfing around the blog now... what about this ARP "promo/datasheet"...?

Or these Moog "reference sheets"... ?

Do I go back and change them all to "fact sheets" now? 

So much work. 

Double ugh.   :)

Roland "Eschew mediocrity" ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1979

Roland JP-4, MP-600 and RS-505 (and family) "Eschew mediocrity" two-page full colour advertisement from pages 42 and 43 in the April 1979 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

Eschew? Gazoontite.

That has to be one of the best ad-titles I've come across in a long time. Someone needs to get that tatoo'd to their ass. And make it about the same size as the ad-title in this two-page, one-time-only centrefold ad that popped up in the April 1979 issue of CK.

This advertisement features three of Roland's "newest line of Professional Keyboards", but it's really about the promotion of the "FREE-Deluxe, full-color 58-page Roland Catalog of the largest, most diversified line of electronic music equipment in the world". A catalog you can get for a mere dollar (shipping and handling charges  :)

As a centrefold should, this ad's focus is on that one big lovely photo of the three featured keyboards. There is some good detail to be found.

One of the most interesting details I found was the green colour framing around most of the controls of the RS-505. My recollection told me that these were gray, not green, and I was excited that this photo may contain a prototype. Like the grey colour found on the photo of the RS-505 on Vintage Synth Explorer.It makes me wonder if that colouring changed on other Roland synths during their life spans.

This was actually the first ad to feature the RS-505, but the keyboard itself seems to have been around a lot longer than when it first appeared in advertisements.

For example, it showed up in the December 1978 Spec Sheet section of Contemporary Keyboard. It's not the best Spec Sheet I've seen, but it includes the basics as well as the coveted retail price. Not gonna argue with that:

"Roland Paraphonic-505. The RS-505 Paraphonic keyboard has a splittable 61-note keyboard with three voicing possibilities - a string synthesizer section, a lead synthesizer and a bass synthesizer are included int he unit. A number of different settings are available on the string section, a 24dB-per-octage filter is supplied on the lead synthesizer, and the bass synthesizer has two 16' settings and one 8' setting. There is also an independent three-state ensemble mode for creating effects ranging from flanging to chorusing. Re-tail price is under $1800.00. Roland Corp, U.S., 2401 Saybrook Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90040."

But that's not even the earliest sighting of the RS-505 this side of the pond. It actually appeared even earlier in the What's New section of the Summer '78 issue of Synapse Magazine. And it contains something REALLY weird about another synthesizer featured in this advertisement. Read it right to the end:

"...Roland Corp US, 2401 Saybrook, LA, CA 90040, has released several new synthesizers recently. The SH-7 is a duo-phonic keyboard instrument with dual sample and hold, so that both notes will hold pitch after the keys have been replaced. The $1,895 unit features a 24dB fVCF with external signal envelope follower, and a "bender" that can control VCO, VCF, and VCA. The RS-505 "is a paraphonic ensemble, a strings and synthesizer combination," with a tag of $1,895. The PO-44 Space Bird is a "four-voice polyphonic synthesizer with a computer memory," listing for $2,695. No further information has been furnished on these instruments yet. Roland has also announced plans to introduce additional guitar synthesizer models later on this year..."

Did you catch it? The PO-44 SPACE BIRD. When I had first read that name, I could only assume that Synapse was referring to the Jupiter-4 - it was the only 4-voice Roland released soon after. Could you imagine if the Jupiter-4 has been named the SPACE BIRD?!?!? Pure awesomeness. I can only assume a Rave band of the same name would have sprung up in the late 80s or early 90s. Oh - and dibs on the domain name!

I had no idea. But apparently Simon James and Matt Ford of TheSimonSounds twitter account did back in 2011. Gah.Was I the only one that didn't know this?!?!

I used to want Roland to reissue the TB303 or SH101 as part of the new craze to build on old brands - like the new Korg MS-20 or even Novation's just announced Bass Station II. But now I just want Roland to create a 4-voice polyphonic analogue synthesizer called the Space Bird.

Pleeeeeeeeeese Roland!

Roland Organ/Strings RS-09 "The Sensible Addition" ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1979

Roland Organ/Strings RS-09 "The Sensible Addition" full-page colour advertisement from page 11 in the December 1979 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

Roland made a lot of keyboards during this era, and their series of ads to promote all this new gear is a testament to this. The Jupiter 4 synth. Vocoder Plus with strings and voice. The RS-505 strings, brass, bass/synth. And now the RS-09 organ/strings machine.

I've gone on endlessly about the design/style of this ad series. No need to start up on that *again* (psst: really really good, especially as more ads get added to the series). But as the series begins to include more keyboards, another curious pattern begins to develop - the look of each keyboard itself. 

The Jupiter-4, Vocoder Plus, and RS-505 all look "similar" to me. I know, there are distinct differences - but they all look like they belong to the same family. But, the RS-09 looks distinctly different. Gone are the wood side panels and left-side controls. Sure, with less features (and a price tag of $795.00 to match), there are less controls in general. But to me, lacking any splashes of colour or wood, it takes on more of the look of two Roland synths that came before it - the SH-01 or SH-02 - or the SH-09 synth that followed.

I know its wrong, but it is those physical details that, in my mind, allow me to throw the RS-09 into Roland's "synth" bucket rather than the "string machine" bucket. Even with the organ-like flip-switches (I don't even know the proper name for them is), it still evokes that warm fuzzy feeling I get when I think of Roland synthesizers. On the reverse side of this weird brain behaviour is that my brain puts the Jupiter-4 into the string-machine bucket when compared to the look of the Jupiter-6 and Jupiter-8. The younger me immediately dismissed the Jupiter-4 for looking too string-machine-like next to the totally synth-y look of the Jupiter-6 and -8. 

What's really messed up about this whole situation is that once I actually listened to the RS-09, my brain wanted to immediately throw it back into the string machine bucket. I just wasn't impressed. Seriously. And I should have know better - it does say "organ" right in the name on the front panel of the instrument.

Its like in all those 80s movies when the dude puts the girl on the pedestal at the beginning of the movie, but then when he finally meets her he begins to see all the flaws. And like that guy, who at first denies the flaws and continues to try and make the relationship work, so did I do the same thing with the RS-09.

I first decided to listen to the RS-09 on Vintage Synth Explorer - they have a few audio samples on the right side of the RS-09 page. The first sample sounds okay to me, but I just couldn't get into the others. Just not my thing. But as soon as I looked back at that lovely image of the machine, my mind flipped right back into "synth" mode. I put it right back on that pedestal. 

I decided to give it another chance through YouTube. I found a decent demo with a guy who could even play.

Again, very organ-y. It just doesn't do it for me. Yet I want to buy this machine. And I want to like it.Just because of how it looks.

I know its a problem. I know its discrimination. I'm embarrassed.

Help.   :)

Roland Paraphonic RS-505 "It Starts as a Symphony Orchestra" ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1979

Roland Paraphonic RS-505 string synthesizer "It Starts as a Symphony Orchestra" full page colour advertisement from page 5 in the September 1979 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

This wasn't the first advertisement to feature the RS-505, but it made sense to post it now since it's part of the Roland series of ads I'm currently infatuated with. In fact, I probably should have started with this ad since it was the first of the series to appear in the September 1979 issue. The Jupiter-4 ad started a month later in October, and the Vocoder Plus the following November.

On its own, it is a pretty ordinary looking ad. But as you put the series of ads together, they start looking a lot more like a set of Pokemon cards you want to collect and preserve. Distinctly different, but yet definitely complimenting each by following a tried and true formula - Ad title/photo/three columns of ad copy.

For the longest time I couldn't put my finger on it - but it must have been sitting there in my subconscious for a while. What I finally figured out was that one of the big reasons I'm drawn to these ads is that they all contain the retail price of the instrument. In the case of the RS-505 its $1,695.00. I have a lot of respect for a company that is willing to put a price in a magazine ad. And I think consumers, even more than 30 years ago, realized that this was the retail price and chances were that they could pick it up in-store much cheaper. 

Flipping through the rest of the September 1979 issue of CK with this in mind (a great activity for an Easter Sunday while sipping a coffee and beheading a white chocolate bunny) one will quickly realize that none of the other big ads had included the price:

Another interesting point about this ad (and some other RS-505 advertisements I've run across) is that Roland itself never refers to the RS-505 as the "Paraphonic RS-505". "Paraphonic" is not only a cool word that balances on that fine line between technology and art, it's also clearly labelled RIGHT ON THE FRONT PANEL OF THE INSTRUMENT. Why not include it in the ad-copy? Even today, my small circle of synth addict friends always refer to the machine the Paraphonic 505. Time has spoken. Its a well-liked term.

In the past I've had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for string machines. They didn't offer the full control of a synthesizer and so as a youngin' I probably wrongly considered them like toys. I'm not sure if it was when I got my Korg Trident, or maybe when I starting paying more attention to bands that regularly used string machines like The Cure, but I've grown wiser with age. But, there is only so much real estate in the studio, and if I have to choose between making space for a keyboard like Roland's  Jupiter 4 or 6, or the RS-505, the true synthesizer is going to win most of the time. I'm sure I'm loosing out through my discriminating behaviour.

Maybe its just time to take down a wall or two (figuratively and physically) and just double the size of the studio.

But first, Time to start on the legs of that bunny. 

Roland Vocoder Plus "The Human Factor" ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1979

Roland Vocoder Plus "The Human Factor" full page colour advertisement from page 7 in the November 1979 issue of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine.

This Roland Vocoder Plus ad has a lot in common with other Roland advertisements from the same time period, like that Jupiter-4 ad I blogged about last Monday. Title, large photo of gear with coloured background and three columns of well-written white ad-copy all on a black background.

Unfortunately, lasting power was not one of the features it has in common with the Jupiter-4 ad. The JP4 ad ran five or six times over a year or so, but this Vocoder ad only lasted through one winter - October, November, December and January 1980.

Some would say that four ads in consecutive issues is better than five or six spread out over a longer period of time. Plus, the Vocoder Plus also had the additional promo bump with it's appearance in the December 1979 Spec Sheet.

"Roland Keyboard. The Vocoder Plus is a polyphonic instrument which has a built-in vocoder and two tone-generating systems, one for strings and one for human voice-like sounds. Each of the three sections may be independently assigned to cover the whole keyboard or one of its halves, top or bottom. Each half of the keyboard also feeds into its won output so that the Vocoder Plus can be run in stereo. The tone and attack time of the strings section is independent of that of the human voice section. The two sections share release times. The upper half of the keyboard has one female and one male chorus and the lower half has two male choruses. The vocoder section processes the spoken or sung human voice and uses this program information to modify the carrier signal (which for the instrument is provided by the human choir tone-generating system). A balance control is supplied for balancing the output levels of the different sections. The microphone input to the vocoder section accepts either a phone plug or an XLR connector. Price is $2,695.00. Roland, 2401 Saybrook Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90040."

Enough about the ad. I'm more interested in the machine itself.

I love vocoders. Probably because many of the things I love in this world revolve around vocoders. Kraftwerk. Robots. Eeeerrr... Did I mention robots?!? Robots are awesome.  Okay, maybe I also love vocoders because I can't sing and its really the only excuse I have to to put a mic in front of me.

Believe it or not, my love for vocoders started with a Korg DVP-1. I picked it from a friend who found it too limiting, but I was more than happy to take it off his hands for a nice price, and it got the job done when needed. I don't even remember what happened to it. Must have lent it to someone a long while back once I found a Roland SVC-350 - in the city even!

What I didn't know (according to Vintage Synth Explorer's page on the Vocoder Plus) is that the SVC-350 is related to the Vocoder Plus! I've never hunted down a Vocoder Plus to listen to but VSE commenter "mike" came up with an ingenious way to get the SVC-350 to sound very similar to the Vocoder Plus:"

"Here is what I done so I can get same tone out of VP-330 in a SVC-350. I bought a AKAI S5000. There is a AKAI CDROM called “History of Roland” in S1000 format. It has all the VP-330 sounds. Load the VP-330 programs up on the S5000 and Plug this S5000 up to your SVC-350 and BAM you have a VP-330 with the same carrier sound on a SVC-350. That is just if you want to have the same sound you get when you turn on a VP-330 and use vocoder without any ext sound. 5/5"

Smarty-pants! Gonna definitely try this!

This then got me even more curious to exactly how the Vocoder Plus sounds. Especially when the ad itself says that "The Human Voice section literally defies description with its uncanny resemblance to a chorus of human voices".  Add to this the fact that another commenter from VSE says that the Vocoder Plus was used extensively by Vangelis on the Bladerunner soundtrack. And another says it was used extensively by Underworld. I just had to know how this thing sounds.

Thank you Youtube and Retrosound.de for a great little demo of its functionality.

Yup. Very Vangelis.

I'm hooked.

Roland Jupiter-4 "Never has the universe been so near" ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1979

Roland Jupiter-4 synthesizer "Never has the universe been so near" full page colour advertisement from page 23 in the October 1979 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

So it seems that after the blog's latest run of Roland SH-101 ads, I'm still on a bit of a Roland kick. Not even a dude in tight blue spandex traveling at high speeds down a hill playing a keytar using ski gloves could stop me.

Initially this Jupiter-4 advertisement ran inside the October and November 1979 issues of CK, but then Roland seemed to have decided to give the synth a bit of a boost the following spring by making it the first Roland advertisement to be placed in the coveted front inside cover of the magazine. It ran in that spot through March, May and June 1980, and then, to put icing on the cake, Roland decided to run it again in the January 1981 issue.

An okay run by most standards.

It might not be the most creative advertisement with a basic title/photo/3-column layout on a black background, but at least its in colour. Unlike the Jupiter-4's first ad that appeared almost a year earlier. To me, Roland's Jupiter series is all about the colour pallet. Even the small amounts of colour on those buttons "pop", and you need to see a photo of the Roland Jupiter-4 in a colour advertisement to really appreciate it's beauty. 

Another thing about layouts in general that I always notice is when an ad doesn't use all of its space. I've tried to scan this ad with as much of the outside edge of the ad as possible so you can get an idea of just how much space was left on all sides. It's almost too much. Almost.

The theme of this advertisement is about as creative as the design - price/performance/function. You may be inspired to yawn at this point, but as my friend Dave would always do to me, if you don't cover your mouth while you are yawning, I'm going to stick my finger in it. And then slap you across the face.I started covering my mouth pretty quickly.

My point is, it may be an old message previously used with ads for monophonics developed and their prices began to fall, but its also an effective message to be used on polyphonics that are now starting to follow similar price drops.

If there is one thing that bugs me about this ad, it's that tag line "Never Has the Universe Been so Near". First, because they've decided to only capitalize some of the words. Sure, some style guides will tell you to do this - but I'd be more inclined to keep everything in small letters after he first word.

Never has the universe been so near.

Or, break the rule book altogether capitalize everything.

Never Has The Universe Been So Near.

But its not just the capitalization. It's that the tag line doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the ad-copy. The "universe" is never referenced again.

Yes, I get it. Roland is telling me I can have it all with the Jupiter-4. It costs half as much as a similar synth from another company, and yet includes features not found in the competition. But just pull the "universe" into that first paragraph somehow. You've got the room.

In the big picture though, capitalization and on-going references to the universe are small potatoes.  The ad-copy in this ad is all grown up. First and foremost, another Roland product, the Compu-Rhythm makes a great cameo appearance. And its not just thrown in there in some half-assed way, its used as a tool to keep the main focus on the Jupiter-4, and one of its most awesome features - the arpeggiator!

Also, many foreign companies got razed a little for their disjointed ad-speak back in the 70s, but this one from Roland definitely isn't one of them. Not only does it speak well to a North American audience with lines like "rolling in money", Roland also seems to be getting a little scrappy, willing to poke the eyes of the other big synth companies by throwing in cheeky comments like "features our competition somehow forgot". And that final paragraph delivers the final blow:

"But if all of this still isn't enough to make you try out a Jupiter-4, this one fact will be: It costs $2895.00. Why do the others cost so much more? You'd better ask them that question."

Bam! Yo mamma!

Strider Systems Inc. DCS II Signal Flow Chart and Dealer Price List, 1979

Strider Systems Inc. DCS II Signal Flow Chart and Dealer Price List, 1979

Here are two more Strider Systems Inc. docs to add to the company's recent appearances on the blog.

The first document is a two-sided DSC II  "Synthesizer Module Signal Flow Chart". The front is the actual flow chart along with some descriptive explanation of  the DCS II's functionality, and the back continues with more functionality information.

I really dig synthesizer signal flow charts. They are just so much easier for me to digest when trying to figure out exactly what goes on under the synthesizer's hood. Would you rather take a glance at the above flow chart, or read the made-for-a-drinking game DCS II Spec Sheet promo that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago? Okay, maybe a bad example for those that like shots. But you get what I mean.

The second document is a one-sided Dealer Price List from 5-1-1979. Either May 1, or January 5. I hate when dates are printed that way. Anyways, I always find dealer pricing fascinating - it's a glimpse into the world of my buddies who worked at music stores in the 80s. A time before the Internet messed with the whole retail pricing model. Stupid Internet.

These two docs came to me with a pile of other great brochures and reference sheets a while back, and I always wondered if they were originally distributed together or separately. But then, during my research, I came across this MATRIXSYNTH auction post from October 2012 that included this description from the auction:

"Rare 'STRIDER SYSTEMS INC.' digital polyphonic synthesizer 'DEALER PACKET' from 1979 NAMM show!!

strange synth from Norman, OK

brochure 4 pages / price list / dealer info / synth signal flow chart

in original 8.5 x 11" envelope!!"

So, it turns out that could very well have been part of a dealer packet from NAMM  that also included the 4-page brochure that I had already posted. Unfortunately, I have yet to come across the original envelope. That thing looks juicy good.

I asked James Christensen, then president and founder of Strider, if he recalled exhibiting at NAMM. He sent me a few things he remembered, and if there was one memory that would stick out in my mind too, it would be this one:

"Bob Moog came to our booth at a NAMM show at McCormick Place in
Chicago and was very encouraging. A real gentleman."

Excellent.

He also remembered an earlier NAMM show where they displayed the DCS-1.

"The first time we showed the DCS1 - solid oak case and all - was at a NAMM trade show in LA (lots of posters up on the telephone poles for this new group Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the Troubador). I spent a lot of the time in the motel room in West Hollywood fixing the connections that had come loose in the airplane's baggage hold while the other guys were out in the hospitality suites. I was mentioning this to one of the other exhibitors and he remarked knowingly, 'Prisoners of our own devices.'"

Tom Petty? Who's that. I kid, I kid. Speaking of musicians, I asked Jim if he had given any of his products away to musicians as promotional items.

"I believe that Tony Presti (Anthony Prestigiacomo), a musician from Baton Rouge who became our marketing department, had one - He was the only one who could play it and demo its features convincingly."

 Those are some good memories. With the resurgence of analog and older synthesizer companies (Moog, Dave Smith, etc), I asked Jim if he ever felt the pull back into synth building.

"One thing that the Strider experience taught me was that I am a whole lot better at software than hardware. Whenever I feel the urge to build something that produces music, I do some programming with JavaSound. The only thing missing there is the ability to create sounds from scratch via additive or subtractive synthesis by patching modules together. Massive collections of sampled sounds just aren't the same. I did spend the rest of my career writing standards and building software for interconnecting software modules diagrammatically.  Maybe one of these days I'll get around to programming some "function blocks" for synthesizer functions."

Understood.

Thanks again to Jim, who currently heads up HOLOBLOC Inc., for all the great Strider history. I'll still jelis of anyone that was around and contributing to the industry during this time period. 

Strider Systems, Inc. DCS II "Get ready to change what you think..." modified ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1979

Strider Systems, Inc. DCS II "Get ready to change what you think..." modified full-page black and white advertisement from page 53 in the April 1979 issue of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine.

If there were two take-aways from my last blog post on the DCS II brochure, the first would be that I tracked down the president and co-owner of Strider Systems, Inc. and managed to squeeze quite a bit of Strider history out of him without managing to be too much of a pain in the arse. [Spoiler alert:  more juicy info below!]

The second take-away would probably have to do with the last page of the brochure, and in particular the designer's choice to modify what was the DCS II introductory ad to better fit inclusion into the brochure.

On a hunch I decided to revisit the three-month run of the introductory advertisement in the February, March and April 1979 issues of Contemporary Keyboard, and sure enough - the design of the ad was also changed during that final April placement - to match the brochure!

original advertisement                        Brochure                       New advertisement

The real problem here is that I'm a little obsessive and so I had to scan the ad and log it on the blog, even though it is exactly like the brochure.

The good news? Its another chance to write more about something else I'm obsessed about right now - the history of Strider!

As I mentioned above, the last post provided a bit of an introduction of Jim Christensen, president and co-owner of Strider, as well as some historical information on the company's initial product the DCS-1. Although that product only saw one pre-production prototype, the company did continue to design new products and grow.  At the height of Strider Systems, the company had five full- and part-time staff, and during his time with Strider, Jim continued to do some consulting and programming from time to time "to keep body and soul together".

The second and only other synthesizer Strider advertised was the DCS-II. I asked James about it's unique front panel and how the design came about:

"Tony Presti (Anthony Prestigiacomo), a musician from Baton Rouge who became our marketing department, convinced us that musicians would like to adjust more than one parameter at a time, for example pitch bend and modulation depth, so the joystick was a natural fit to that requirement. It was also a low-cost way to set parameters without using a knob for every parameter, and you could play the note while adjusting two parameters at once with the joystick to get the sound you wanted."

Development of the DCS II went through a series of changes during the creation of the pre-production models:

"Thinking back on it, I am amazed that it only took about 18 months to the stage of manually assembling the first 6 pre-production units. Everything was changed - signal generation went from analog VCO to a digital TI chip to get pitch stability and flexibility in waveform generation, VCAs and VCFs went from analog multipliers to photo-resistors, processor family was changed from Signetics 6502 to Intel 8048."

It's stories like this that make me wish I now worked at a synth company. Just to watch a new keyboard evolve throughout its development cycle.

Unfortunately, the DCS II's fate was sealed before it could get into production. Strider couldn't get production up and running before their major investor's real-estate empire collapsed and the company lost its source of funding.

"Fortunately, we also didn't accept any orders or up-front payments".

Even though the DCS II never launched, the product did manage to squeak into the Spec Sheet section of the May 1979 issue of CK - a month after the advertising run ended.  Its one of the longer promos I've seen, with a large portion devoted to its unique programming with the joystick/matrix system.

Not gonna lie - I'd be drunk if this was a college drinking game where I had to take a shot every time the word "function" was mentioned.

" Strider Synthesizer. The DCS II features two polyphonic voices that can drive up to eight notes each across its three-and-a-half-octave keyboard. There is a separate synthesizer module for each note produced from the keyboard: each module has three oscillators with mixable waveforms, a multi-mode state-variable filter, and separate ADSR envelope generation for the oscillators, filter, and VCA. Forty-eight patches can be stored in computer memory. 16 of these are permanent factory presets, 16 are user-programmed sequences, and 16 are user-programmed joystick modes. The joystick mode is one where each function is programmed with a single joystick controller - one function at a time, or as many functions as you wish to move in unison at a time. The Command section of the instrument has push-buttons which let you choose the area of memory you're going to alter. By pushing one of the those buttons, and cross-referencing to another button or buttons in the Matrix section (which lists functions in rows, with a button at the top of each row to let you choose the function you're going to change), you set up just what functions the joystick will let you alter. Once you've found the sound you're looking for, you can write it into the memory, the single joystick being programmable to adjust whatever parameter you'd like it to adjust. A cassette interface is also supplied (minus cassette machine) for storage of memory. There are no controls on the front panel of the instrument other than the pushbuttons for the Matrix and Command sections and the single joystick. The unit is available in 2-voice and larger configurations. Strider Systems. Box 2934, Norman, OK 73070."

Yup.

Drunk. 

Strider Systems Inc. DCS II "A New Generation of Synthesizers" brochure, 1979

 

Strider Systems Inc. DCS II "A New Generation of Synthesizers" four page brochure from 1979.

Whoa. I made some great strides in my research into Strider Systems Inc. last week.

While trying out some different variations of search terms in Google I managed to track down one of the co-founders of Strider Systems Inc. through... get this... LinkedIn.  And once I had a name and current company associated with Strider Systems, it was just one or two more steps to an email address. And then... of course... a barrage of questions.

James Christensen, then president and co-owner of Strider Systems Inc, currently heads up HOLOBLOC Inc., providing support, consultation and training for the IEC 61499 standard and the optimization of software processes. Prior to HOLOBLOC, in the early 90s, James worked at Rockwell Automation (formally Allen-Bradley) building intelligent manufacturing systems. During his time there, he came up with the Holobloc idea and it became a research side project at Rockwell. When James semi-retired, he retained a license to continue development. 

I contacted James to learn a bit more about the history of Strider Systems, the people that worked there and the gear they were designing.

Back when James started Strider Systems Inc., he was a professor of Chemical Engineering at Oklahoma University in Norman and an amateur player of guitar, banjo and accordion. His partner at the company, Roy Nelson, was a Vietnam vet, student in Materials Science at OU and part-time roadie for an Oklahoma City prog-rock band called The Jupiter Effect (not the current band of that name).

The company began in 1976 and their first product was the DCS-1. I asked James if they realized at the time that Strider was at the forefront of digital technology for the synth masses.

"Yes, we did know we were pushing the boundaries. The one thing we didn't realize was that if you wanted to be successful as a start-up business you had to be where the expertise was. At the time, there were only three places that met that criterion: Nashville, LA and New York. The only advantage Oklahoma had was low cost of living. As one of our consulting musicians, Richard Bugg, said, "You can starve to death more slowly here than any place else."

Interesting. That's exactly how I feel about the town I live in now. I kid, I kid... kinda.   :)

I also asked James how the idea of the DCS-1 came about.

"The leader of Roy's band had a Mini-Moog and was continually frustrated by the fact that you couldn't change the patch setup quickly enough between songs, much less change patches during a song. We first looked into the idea of using a microprocessor as a "digital patch memory" with offline cassette storage, but quickly found that the Mini-Moog and similar single-voiced synthesizers, as well as the existing modular synths, were usnuitable because so many of their controls were electromechanical. So we decided to see if we could do a polyphonic synth in which each voice could be controlled digitally."

When asked about other influences on the development, his answer was extremely interesting to me. Normally when I ask this question, the answer will include other synths or synth makers.

"A big resource was the "Musical Engineer's Handbook." Couldn't have done the analog circuitry without it. Wish we had started a few years later when the Curtis and SSM chips became available. Wouldn't have had to do the whole analog circuitry from scratch."

I learned that in the end, only one pre-production prototype was produced. Strider was moving on to bigger and better things.

But that's enough of the DCS-1 and the company for now. This DCS II brochure is probably getting a complex from being ignored so much. I'll have more on James Christensen and Strider in future posts.

When I posted the introductory DCS II advertisement from Contemporary Keyboard, I had mentioned the cool and clean design of the DCS II. And this brochure not only substantiates this observation, but this description also applies to the brochure as well.

The front page of the brochure is minimal - so minimal that someone decided it was a good idea to leave out Strider's gorgeous logo and name of the company. In fact, the only logo to be found that is not on a photo of the synthesizer itself is on the back page. And in fact, if I'm not mistaken, the company name is ONLY listed on the back.

I'm conflicted by this. On the one hand, the company name would only clutter up that front page, but on the other hand branding is important, especially for a small company. And Strider's reverse-colour logo would look so sweeeeet against that black background.

The inside of the brochure provides the most up-close detailed look at the front panel of the DCS II I've seen yet. You can make out most if not all of the labels for the functions in the matrix - simply gorgeous and unique for the time. And we get an even better idea of how exactly the matrix and joystick worked to program this synthesizer. A definite read for anyone even remotely curious about this beast.

The back page of the brochure may be the most curious of them all.

I can hear you yelling at me already - THIS IS JUST A REPRINT OF THE AD!!!!

But there is just one thing wrong with that statement. Well first, you can't yell hyperlinks - that would be just crazy.  But besides that, there is something else wrong. It's not *exactly* like the advertisement, in one very significant way. The image of the synthesizer itself.

    Brochure                          Advertisement

The designer went out of their way to create a new image of the synthesizer for the brochure. One that is a solid black and white. Gives it a cleaner look - nice. This new profile angle was possible because the designer knew they could remove the big "DCS II" since that is the subject of the whole brochure.

A great little brochure. And the start of a great conversation with James Christensen, whom you will be hearing more about in the near future.

Thanks again to James Christensen of HOLOBLOC Inc. for taking the time to chat back and forth with me a few times. Appreciated.

Strider Systems, Inc. DCS II "Get ready to change what you think..." ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1979

Strider Systems, Inc. DCS II synthesizer "Get ready to change what you think..." full page black and white advertisement from page 49 in the February 1979 issue of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine.

By the name of this synthesizer - DCS II, you have probably guessed there was a DCS1 - and you would be right. Approximately two years after releasing that first instrument, Strider Systems decided to take another crack at it and released the much more compact and synthesizer-looking DCS II.

But the DCS II only looks like a normal synthesizer from afar. Get a little closer and you realize this thing doesn't have a bunch of knobs and sliders like those found on many of the other synthesizers advertised in this issue of CK. Ads like those for the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, Oberheim Four-Voice, or Korg MS-20. The ad-copy even points this feature out to the reader early on.

"First, notice the differences you see. No knobs. No sliders. Just a compact instrument with a clean, perfectly arranged control panel of push buttons."

I'll be the first to tell you that I'm all about sliders, knobs and dials... but I gotta admit, that front panel does look kinda cool, clean and all digital-like. And now imagine seeing the DCS II back in 1979.

Woulda been sweet!

And that, in a nut-shell, is what I like about this introductory advertisement. It's also as sweet as a butter tart at Christmas (yes, I'm still on a sugar high).

For one - just like the look of the DCS II's front panel, the ad is pretty well-thought out. Strider obviously knew the synthesizer looked different - so they slapped a really nice large photo at the top of the page. Would definitely get reader's interest.

Strider also knew that readers would have a lot of questions. How did the DCS II work without knobs and sliders? Was it like a normal synthesizer? The company needed to include a lot of ad-copy explaining it and only a full-page advertisement would get all that ad-copy in.

Read it all. I'll wait...

I find the ad-copy contains a lot of good, useful information, but it is a little too friendly. It could have been cut down a bit, either providing a bit more white space or to allow the ad to include even more useful information. But it does a great job of playing up both the differences this synthesizer has with others (digital control, programming interface), as well as what it has in common. It was just as important not to alienate readers, and they made sure not to by pointing out that the underlying sound architecture was similar to other synthesizers readers may own (oscillators, filters, VCAs, envelopes).

And of course, there is that lovely sweeeeeet logo. I'm a little disappointed that Strider made the decision to do away with the gaelic-like writing for the word "Strider" beside the logo that can be seen on their DCS1 advertisement (see right). But its definitely more noticeable now against the black background. And I also like how they reversed the colours of the circular logo itself to make it work with the black background in the new ad.

Perfect!

ARP 2600 "The ARP for the studio. The ARP for the stage." ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1979

ARP 2600 synthesizer "The ARP for the studio. The ARP for the stage." full page colour advertisement from the September 1979 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

People around me are starting to make their New Year resolutions.  Or is that "New Year's"? Or "New Years"? My resolution should really be along the lines of learning grammar. But instead, the only resolution that I can come up with that my lazy ass could even come remotely close to actually fulfilling is to try and get the blog's Advertising Timelines updated. But even that sounds tiring and makes me more anxious about the whole thing.

And posting this ARP 2600 ad only piles more anxiety onto that growing mountain of what-the-f**k-am-I-thinking.  :)    But yet I can't help but adding onto the ARP timeline work-load with this juicy number.

The ad is just too dang good to appear only twice - in the September and November 1979 issues of Contemporary Keyboard. Everything about this ad makes it deserve at least a six month run.  The dual-theme concept (around here we call it a "Betty and Veronica" sell) is a great way to showcase the 2600's abilities and the two gorgeous photos play off these two themes nicely. With the studio perspective photo, the reader sees the front panel of the 2600, riddled with cables - obviously the result of a musician's hard at work coming up with that perfect string sound. With the stage perspective, the reader sees the opposite side of the 2600 with the left-side control panel on proud display. Definitely works.

The ad-copy only builds upon the photo for each perspective. On the studio side, ARP reinforces the sound recording capabilities of the 2600. Lead lines, string sounds, electronic effects. On the stage side, ARP drops the names of a number of musicians and bands - from Chicago to Weather Report. ARP is pulling out all the stops.

If I'm not mistaken, this is only the second ARP 2600 solo advertisement to appear in CK, appearing roughly three years after the first 2600 two-page extravaganza ad appeared in the December 1976 issue.

That first ad featured an awesome 1+1/3 page-sized photo of Joe Zawinul surround by two ARP 2600s. And almost two full columns of ad copy.

I also posted a 1971 - yes, 71 - ARP 2600 reference sheet back in 2010.

Yup - this thing has been around a long time. According to Vintage Synth Explorer's ARP 2600 page, from 1971-1980. It's Wikipedia page clocks it's lifespan lasting until 1981.

Either way... a looooong time.

Yamaha CS-5 and CS-15 "Turn yourself loose on a Yamaha synthesizer" brochure, 1979

Yamaha CS-5 and CS-15 "Turn yourself loose on a Yamaha synthesizer" brochure from approximately 1979.

Work is crazy busy. So, as usual, I'm putting into effect "protocol: dodge the blog". AKA post something really awesome so I don't have to write so much.

And I'm sure you will agree...

THIS BROCHURE IS FRICKIN' AWESOME!!!

I'm serious.

The only thing more awesome than this CS-15 brochure is the CS-15 itself. Mine sits next to my Korg MS-20, and I have to say that the Yamaha CS-15 sees a lot more action in music production work than the MS-20. I know... hard to believe... but its true. My CS-15 tuning is a lot more stable, and the control on the front panel just seem a lot more logical to me. The sections are well laid out, and that little splash or orange in the section labels really do help a lot in finding controls quickly, especially after its been ignore for a month or four.

Enough gushing... have to think of something not so good...

Well, the only disappointing thing about this brochure is there is no print date on it. So, I've taken the liberty of giving it a date of 1979 for one simple reason - it says "New" on the front cover. In a totally different font and shade of grey. You know they mean it when its in a different font *and* shade of grey.  :)

So, to triangulate a print date to go along with "new", I decided to dig into old issues of Keyboard Magazine and find any initial appearances these two synths might have made.

Looking back at advertising, the first Contemporary Keyboard issue that included an ad for the CS-5 and CS-15 synthesizers were, in fact, December 1979. It was actually a Yamaha "How serious are you about..." series advertisement that include those synths along with the CS40m and CS20m.

But, as you can see from the photo, they were kinda pushed into the background to make room for their programmable cousins. Definitely got the short end of the stick in that ad.

Sure, I know what you are thinking. The advertising may have started in 1979, but that doesn't mean the synths were available in 1979. What other evidence do I have?

Well, turns out that the Spec Sheet section of the same issue of CK - December 1979 - also included promos for the CS-5 and CS-15. And, considering the brochure seems to be quite rare, I'm going to assume most readers got the majority of their tech specs from either this Spec Sheet promo, or someone that read this Spec Sheet. Its detailed and provides a reader with a lot of condensed information... but not as much as this brochure :)

"The CS-5 and CS-15 monophonic synths from Yamaha both feature 37-note keyboard (C to C). The CS-5 has a single oscillator with a 6-position octave selector, variable pulse width, portamento control, and an LFO amount control. The unit also feautures a mixer section, state-variable lowpass, highpass, or bandpass filter, an FLO with either sine, negative-going sawtooth, or sample-and-hold output, and ADSR envelope generator, and a VCA. Pitch-bending control is done with a slider pot. The CS-15 includes two VCOs, two VCFs, two VCAs, two envelope generators, and one LFO. The amount of portomento on each oscillator is independently variable, and LFO modulation amount is also variable independently for the oscillators, filters, and VCAs. The output of the two envelope generators can be applied to either of the two VCFs and/or to the VCAs. The envelope generators' outputs can also be reversed or multiplied by a factor of 5 times the normal voltage output. Both filters are state-variable lowpass, highpass, or bandpass. Yamaha. Box 6600. Bueno Park. CA 90622."

Okay, it may be coincidence, but with both the ad and the spec sheet promos appearing in 1979, I'm going to confidently give this a stamp of 1979. 

So there.