Roland JD-800 "1991 Roland New Product News" brochure, 1990

Roland JD-800 "1991 Roland New Product News" four page black and white brochure from December 1990.

Let me start this blog post by saying I'm extremely biased. How biased? I'm gonna lay it out on the table - I like my Roland JD-800 more than my Juno-106. I find it more fun to play. More fun to program. There. I said it.

Everything you read about this synthesizer is true. It's big. It's heavy. It's gorgeous. And it sounds absolutely fabulous. When you sit down in front of the JD-800, you are drawn to those sliders and you can't help but start to experiment with it's sound. I liked mine so much that I spent a good part of the next two or three years searching high and low for the JD-990. And when I finally found one used in my local music store, I was lucky enough to have found one with the vintage expansion, FTW!

This was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, JD-800 brochure. It was actually more of a sell sheet, put out at the end of 1990 to announce the beast. The actual brochure would be printed later in 1991 (next post!). It actually contains a fair bit of info. Definitely worth the read.

The best thing about the JD-800, and this sell sheet in particular, is how Roland was selling knobs and sliders again. "A radical departure from conventional digital synths". It's fun to see Roland, one of the major companies responsible for the removal of all those knobs and sliders from the front panels of synths in the first place, was now pooping all over those synths. Including their own JX, Alpha and D series synths. But, Roland does deserve some credit, because even during those awful years of trying to program a Alpha Juno 2 or JX8P through a small LCD and a few buttons, at least Roland usually built a programmer module to go along with most of their hard-to-program synths. So, they didn't so much get rid of the sliders, more that they just put the sliders and knobs in a separate box and make you pay extra for the privaledge. A great marketing strategy for sure.

But launching a synthesizer with all those sliders and knobs added back into it was an even better marketing strategy. And helped keep Roland front of mind during a period in synthesizer history that had also recently seen the launch of competitors products such as Korg's innovative Wavestation, Waldorf's angry-sounding analog Microwave, and Yamaha's kick-ass sample+FM synthesis SY-77 monster.

I'll take a look through old Keyboard mags to see if this thing showed up at NAMM before being released, but as far as I can remember, this thing came out of nowhere, ready to satisfy all of those frustrated Roland synthesizer programmers that had been sulking ever since the company dropped their last easily programmable synth from their roster back in the mid-80s - the Jupiter-6 I think?!?!. So, when the JD-800 showed up in magazine ads and in music stores, everyone looked at it in awe and shock. We all drooled over the thing.

I was jealous as heck when a friend picked up one of the few that ever made it into my city.

But  I was all smiles when he finally sold it to me more than 15 years later. Have had it ever since.  :)

Boss HC-2 Hand Clapper / PC-2 Percussion Synthesizer "A sound innovator" brochure, 1984

Boss HC-2 Hand Clapper / PC-2 Percussion Synthesizer "A sound innovator" two-page colour brochure from February 1984.

If there is one thing I do a lot of, it's clap. I clap when drinks come to the table. I clap when my dog does a funny trick. I clap pretty much anytime I want to.  And its usually accompanied with me bobbing up and down in a chair. If that HC-2 Clapper had its own speaker, I'd definitely be using it to clap with.

I've never owned either of these. But have *always* been infatuated with them. They just look so adorable - especially in that front cover photo sitting on that particularly 80s background. And the orange on the always-adorable Boss knobs really pop.

That front cover photo is really the only thing remotely "design-y" about this brochure. The back cover is just your standard specs layout found on many of the Roland/Boss brochures from the time period. But that spec section does contain some good reference info, so I'm not gonna complain. Plus, like many of these brochures, we not only get the year it was printed, but also the month. I will never complain about that.

This brochure is part of Boss's "A sound innovator" series that included the DR-110 brochure I blogged about last Monday. But this time Boss has kept the brochure to two pages - there just isn't enough info to justify another two pages of content. But that's the point - they are simple enough to use. No need for bulky instructions.  :)

You can find quite a bit of information on line on both units. Vintage Synth Explorer has pages for both the Hand Clapper and the Percussion Synthesizer, where you will find a ratings of three and four stars respectively for each piece of gear from the site itself, and three and (a disappointingly) 2.36 stars from users. Both pages provide some great information - like the little nugget that the HC-2 was a particularly useful addition to the hand-clapperless DR-55 and TR-606 drum machines.

One thing I first noticed on this brochure, and then went back to the DR-110 brochure and found it there too, is how Boss is referenced in relation to Roland. You will find it on the back of both sheets under the logo:

Sounds like someone pointing out an animal pack in the woods. Like a group of moose. 

Anyways, I found a great little video on YouTube from someone that was selling both units in an auction. Provides a nice little demo to end the post with. So here it is... the end.

Boss DR-110 Dr. Rhythm Graphic drum machine "A sound Innovator" brochure, 1983

Boss DR-110 Dr. Rhythm Graphic drum machine "A sound Innovator" four-page colour brochure from December 1983.

I hadn't turned on my Boss DR-110 for about a month or so. And just this morning when I plugged it in and flipped the power switch,  I immediately noticed the smell of burnt electronics. Doh.

Let me take a few steps back...

I've been building up my Eurorack modular synth lately. And whenever I get new modules, I like to hook 'em into the system as quickly as possible and do a few tests to make sure everything is working properly. This usually involves setting up a short sequence on the Doepfer A-155 Analog/Trigger sequencer and setting up an increasing complicated patch that will try to involve all the in's and out's of any new modules.

This time, the new modules included the lovely Phonogene and DPO from Make Noise and Micro Hadron Collider and Geiger Counter from WMD.  Shazaam!

The Photogene and Geiger Counter were just aching for an external sound source such as a drum machine that I could also trigger the sequencer with to get everything sync'd together. Usually that responsibility is given to my Boss DR-220E (the electronic drums version of the 220). The 220E uses the cowbell as the trigger out, so I just set up a normal drum pattern with the cowbell hitting on every beat and hit the START button.

But, since I knew I was blogging about the DR-110, I thought I would try using that drum machine so I would have something to blog about. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone. And that's when I turned it on only to have that burnt electronic smell fill the air. Thankfully I hadn't turned on the modular yet, so I knew that it was the relatively cheaper DR-110 that was the source on the odour.  So, instead of blogging about triggering my modular with a DR-110, I guess I got to blog about the exact opposite.

Ouch. Will have to open that thing up at some point and look at the damage.

The brochure itself takes its design cues directly from similar brochures/sell sheets that were being designed for parent company Roland - like this one at right for the Roland TR808/606/303. Lovely covers. Really.

Like that front cover for the TR808/606/303, the front cover for the DR-110 brochure is great because it includes such a juicy photo. And not only that of the drum machine, but the drum machine's sister product that was also being advertisement at the time - the Play Bus HA-5.

I am a little disappointed that Boss's "comic book" advertisement theme from both the DR-110 and HA-5 didn't make it into the brochure for the DR-110 at all.Those were truly gorgeous.  Quite the disconnect.

Now, open up the brochure and you will find that Boss decided to take the opportunity to provide readers with some pretty detailed instructions on the DR-110's operational procedures for step writing, tap writing and song writing. They even included all the little button symbols. Nice.

The back of the brochure includes the obligatory specs and accessories sections, including that HA-5 Play Bus headphone amp and RH-11M stereo headphones with microphone. Nothing really new here. Just some nice info.

Well - it's time to get out the screwdriver and see what kind of damage I'll find inside my DR-110.

Wish me luck...

Wersi Digital Multi-Sound System (DMS) System "The Impossible No. 3" ad, Keyboard 1985

Wersi Digital Multi-Sound (DMS) System  "The Impossible No. 3" full page colour advertisement from page 13 in the January 1985 issue of Keyboard Magazine.

Been going through a bout of insomnia. Not fun when it happens, but I do tend to get a lot more done. Unfortunately, lately "a lot more" more often refers to Skyrim adventuring and noodling on my ever-growing modular. Less often does it mean getting more actual work done.

Point is, my schedule and routines gets a little messed up.  So, rather than writing this blog post on a Sunday or a week night like I usually do, I'm writing this early in the morning, outside, sitting on my deck. I'm hoping the sun will help change my mood and help me get started with my day.

I was just starting into my Wersi kick when I was distracted for a few posts by Vako/TRI and Viking/Voyager advertisements. But I knew I'd get back to this new Wersi advertisment soon.

If you recall from the last Wersi blog post on the DMS Condor, I went on a little too long about it's design relationship with punk and scrapbooking. Yeah... scrapbooking. This design is just as "80s" as that previous one, but in a more contemporary way.

The strong blue and close-cropping have been kept, but gone is the black backgrounds that were used to separate out the different elements of the ad.  It's been replaced with horizontal blue lines that run from the top to the bottom of the ad, gradually getting thicker along the way. The only angles to be found in this new ad is the cut-out portion that readers can use to send in for more information.

As much as I love the design of this new ad, the ad-copy leaves a bit to be desired. For a number of reasons.

The first issue is how crowded that ad-copy is. The designer obviously wanted the three thin columns of text to fit *exactly* within the same number of lines, and was willing to sacrifice readability to do it. But it went a little too far.

Another issue is the title "The Impossible No. 3". I'm not going to get into how crazy-annoyed I feel about the "P" and "O" touching each other (again - the designer wanted to squish text together). I'm more confused about what exactly the title means.  The only reference to "three" in the ad-copy is just that there are three columns of text. Then I thought that maybe that the "3" had to do with the keyboard itself. But when I zoomed into the photo, the keyboard is the "Beta DX400". No three there.

I don't know enough about the history of the DMS series, but if the series was released in the order they appear on this page of DMS keyboards, then the Beta was the third in the series, after the Condor (DX100) and Alpha (DX 300 and 350).  So maybe that's it.

And that brings me to my last little issue with the ad - the name of the Wersi keyboard being advertised actually doesn't appear anywhere in the ad-copy. Only in really small letters on the instrument photo itself. Maybe Wersi were promoting all the DMS line in this one ad, but that wouldn't explain why the ad-copy always seems to reference just one keyboard - not the whole line. Or the reason why they only included a photo of one keyboard.

Bah. Obviously still grumpy. Best to stop here and convince myself its time to go to work.

Technical Research Institute Inc. Orchestron "Your Instrument of the Future" 2nd ad, Synapse 1978

Technical Research Institute Inc. Orchestron "Your Instrument of the Future" half-page black & white advertisement from page 30 in the January/February 1978 issue of  Synapse Magazine.

I've always said there was an art to shrinking down advertisements. Whether you are going from a two-page spread down to one page, or, as happened here, one page down to a half. And in this case doing it twice since they had to shrink down the previous full page Viking Keyboard Systems advertisement as well.

Those two full page advertisements appeared side by side Keyboard Magazine, but that wasn't always the case with the half-pagers. In the November/December 1977 issue, the two ads appeared opposite each other on page 12 and 13, each on the far sides of the page, with CD reviews running down the other halves. But then, in the January/February 1978 and May/June 1978 issues, the two ads appeared on the same page.

The designer did a great job of shrinking down the ads. In fact, there is more white space now than there ever had been before!

In comparison to the previous Orchestron advertisement, only three pieces of content were left out. The first, rather insignificant piece was the last sentence of the ad-copy - "It is our desire to serve you.". Don't need it.

The second, more significant deletion was that of the price - "From under $2,500.00". But, considering that in an even more previous ad from 1976, that price point had been "From under $2,000.00", it may have been better to remove it all together since it seems that price was increasing considerably over time rather than decreasing like technology usually does.

The final piece of information removed was the call-out box from the top-right corner of the ad that explained who Dave Van Koevering was. This is what humanized the TRI/Orchestron brand - especially since Dave worked as a VP for Moog. They took out some good name recognition when they did that. But I agree, it did have to go to fit in the new, smaller space. 

As far as I can tell, this is the first Orchestron advertisement to appear in Synapse Magazine, although the previous company - Vako Synthesizer Inc. - had begun appearing much earlier in the "Listings" section of the mag under "Synthesizer Manufacturing". In fact, it continued to appear as Vako in this listing for quite a while, even though Dave Van Koevering had changed the name of the company to TRI quite a while earlier. Someone wasn't keeping up with the times at Synapse.

And speaking of confusing name changes, the first time these two ads appeared in the Nov/Dec77 issue, the companion ad for keyboard cases was stilled named Viking Keyboard Systems. There was even an Orchestron give-a-way contest in that issue under the Viking name. It was in the Jan/Feb78 issue that Dave Van Koevering changed the name of that company to Voyager Keyboard Systems and dumped the viking ship logo. 

And...and...  speaking of contests, by fluke I came across an earlier Contemporary Keyboard giveaway contest (#15) for an Orchestron from page 22 in the July 1977 issue. What is really cool about this giveaway is that CK does a great job at explaining more of the technology behind the Orchestron. More than I've seen elsewhere:

"The Orchestron operates on the principle of modulated light measured by photoelectric cells. A variable-area sound track is cut by a high-energy laser on a thin translucent disc. As the disc is rotated, a beam of light is modulated by the laser-cut soundtrack. This modulated light is converted into electrical impulses by photocells. These laser-cut recordings can be made of virtually any instrument and are played on the Orchestron's 37-note keyboard. This unit is supplied with five memory discs: violin, pipe organ, 'cello, flute and vocal choir. The pitch of the instrument is voltage-controlled and separate bass and treble boost circuitry is provided. High-impedance and balanced-line outputs are included. The duration of the laser-recorded sound is infinite, and the optical memory discs can be interchanged in seconds."

That info is GOLD! Someone needs to get that info in the Wikipedia page.   :)