Oh boy, this is a holy grail video for me. My best mate and I built a synth based on these Formant designs back in the seventies, when I was about 16 and he was 17-18. We couldn't afford to buy the PCBs at first, so we actually photographed the track layouts in the mags and etched the boards ourselves using photo resist paint, a UV light and hot ferric chloride, all in my mum's kitchen. We couldn't afford the front panels either so we spent an entire summer in my parents back garden, wrangling sheet aluminium into L-shaped trays so the boards sat horizontally behind the front panels. The case was 1-inch angle aluminium rivited together into a semi-modular rack that looked remarkably like a fish tank before the wooden panels went on. We had a stroke of luck when a genuine ARP2600 keyboard appeared after the main synth had been accidentally thrown away (I kid you not!) And our unique touch was using four-position slider switches everywhere instead of patch leads. None of the pots or switches got labelled, but by the time it was finished we knew what every one did so never bothered! I have a couple of old black and white pictures of the guts of it somewhere, but I don't think I can post them in a TH-cam comment. Suffice to say, it was a beast and it needed a lot of constant TLC, to the point where we joked about permanently installing a soldering iron in the lid of the case! But it sounded absolutely fab. My friend went off to uni and ended up playing in several bands, culminating in Red Shift and Beat the Drum who had some minor commercial success. The last two members of which are still writing music and even gigging now in their sixties, the other three all having died very young). My friend died suddenly from an undiagnosed brain tumour in his thirties and all his keyboards (including an electric piano and a string synth that we had also built together) ended up in his partner's loft. It was all such a weird situation that, to my eternal sorrow, I never got back in touch with his partner again after the funeral and never found out what happened to our lovely synth. I guess it was scrapped. Looking back, what amazing times.
Wow ! .... What a amazing story .... I can relate to That .... I have had a similar experience with an electronic music project lately .... But Your's with the people involved over the passage of time is Awesome !
I bought one of these in 2000 (ish). The unit had been sitting in a man’s closet since 1980 when he built it. When I got it, it was pretty cheap. I knew nothing about electronics. I was 18 years old and SO happy finding this synth. I started repairing it. Blew lots of transistor and ic’s along the way. A shame since some of the ic’s in this beast are very expensive today (used in the mini moot today. Fairchild 741 I think the ic was called. Was in the cco part of the Vco). Lots of stuff didn’t work, but eventually I got it going. I was obsessed with making it working and I vividly remember once I got the first oscillator up and running. I was SUPER happy (and had soldering iron burns on several fingers). I fixed it even further over the years. Made a new case. Custom front plates etc. put in some doepfer modules as well along with a diy ele4music filter (may ele4music Rest In Peace. He made diy synth modules in the early 2000s but since passed away because of cancer). I finally got a new and modern PSU which made the formant sound So much better. Really amazing sounding synth. I still don’t know tons about electronics, but can now read diagrams, fix synthesizers and other audio equipment. Buying old synths, repairing them and selling them, enabled me to save up enough money for me to visit my cousin in Texas for the summer. (Living In Denmark). Pretty awesome for a young guy like me. I have since sold the formant (along with book) to a group of elderly synth geeks. Good times. I was around 18 when I bought it. Living in my parents basement. Making music non stop as a hobby. Now married with 2 kids and making a living doing sound design and music composing for computer games (deep rock galactic is the most famous title). Once a synth geek always a synth geek. I was 18 back then. Sold the formant when I was 37. Will be turning 40 this spring. Life is weird and full of weird noises:)
Add some distortion early in your signal chain or (and this is the power move) just before the mixer, run your dry signal through reverb like Plateau then through distortion like Debriatus and then a LP filter to reign it back in. Chord changes sound absolutely massive!
Encountered this as it popped out randomly and was amazed to be reconnected to my past. I started buying Practical Electronics in 1964 when I was 13 and remember the magazines you showed. I also bought piles of Practical Wireless, Wireless World and later The Radio Constructor and then Electronics Today International. Without those magazines I wouldn't have gone to university to study "Electrical Sciences" and then spend my entire career in computing up to retirement many years ago. Amazing to think a random purchase of a magazine drove the rest of my life. In the 60s I was able to make "pocket money" building fuzz boxes, treble boosters, waa-waas, tremolos and reverbs, all from the designs in Practical Electronics. Now to browse further down memory lane with the images of the magazine contents. I must have studied them in great detail as even the advertisements are all very familiar.
Awesome, Sam you are an inspiration education needs folk like you to get kids to engage with stuff and just not software emulator s and apps. Growing up in the 70s and 80s half my mates were into synth pop and the other half into rock/metal. They all thought I was nuts liking both....
Daft Punk needs to roll into the museum and throw down an improv music jam..... Speaking of which, your latest songs are great and hope you send out some more.
You are a wonderful man , i m guitarist and i don't no why i watch this channel every time you post a new one..! Your conceptions are crazy, clever with real musical application. Thx man for the smile you give me ( us ) every time! I watch i learn thx
Well.. Yes..! I was shocked that INPUT Magazine enabled me to prevent the USA 🇺🇸 Soviet War with BASIC! You cannot deny it worked!.. WE ARE ALL ALIVE!.. YOU'RE WELCOME!
Remember, NL had a pretty big electronics industry: Philips. Lots of people worked in that industry and in their free time they were hobbyists as well. My father was one of them.
@@jfv65 Nice, it’s good when enthusiastic people like to spend their free time sharing their knowledge. Well, I shouldn’t be so amazed when considering that synths are just oscillators and filters like most everyday circuit at the time (radios, TVs, etc.) and electronic magazine editors who were mostly deep heart hobbyists like your dad surely loved to teach young generations about synths and similar stuff that was exciting for them.
In Yugoslavia there was even a whole computer you could build from magazine instructions with edvice how to optain certan components and there was one radio station that would transmit code for its games late at night. Electronic magazines were the real deal back in their day.
@@GeorgeKaslov you know what's funny? In the 80s you could build a 80s computer using schematics from those magazines. Fast forward 40 years and... you can still build... a 80s computer at home. Because modern BGA components make it impossible to build a modern computer from parts at home. At least not without spending hundreds of thousands on equipment which is too much for hobby electronics.
I had almost forgotten about these mags, what a major nostalgia trip! Then I remembered that the amp running my kitchen speakers is based on some design I got from Practical Electronics in the early 90s. Recapped it a couple of months ago, and it’s ready for another 30 years. Yaaaas!
The Radiophonic Workshop were late into synthesizer usage. They didn't need it as they could create all they needed by other means ... just listen to the original Doctor Who theme, created by the magnificent Delia Derbyshire:- th-cam.com/video/75V4ClJZME4/w-d-xo.html
Wow, you pump out both great sqeeks and thumping grooves! A word of advice from a previous builder/owner: drop the fourth VCO and put in the 12 db VCF instead! It has a very strong and raw character while the 24 db VCF is sounding more sophisticated. And when you have two filters you can make vowel sounds like joy and yeah! For educational and practical purposes I suggest you restore the original internal wiring, it saves you a lot of patches, and it remains flexible to deviate from the obvious sound path. But what a massive sound!
The brain is such an amazing organ. I remember several of the front covers you showed even though I haven't seen them since they were published several decades ago....
Dude. I look at that panel and would be like "oooh, turny thing go wewew". You speak the lingo, then make something I could dance to, swingin' them dials like a genius. Please make more songs, you're growing a fanbase I'm sure!
The greatest thing about him is that he's one of the only synth-centric channels that really tries to make regular music. I swear the rest of them absolutely despise their neighbors, and just started up a channel for an extra excuse to go, "Okay, it's Tuesday which is shrieking beep day, let's see what I come up with for shrieking beeps. Wonder if they'll move out this week."
Yurrrsss. I made a 5mW Helium Neon laser in an aluminium casing from a Maplin kit in around 1988 ?? I was only a kid, and my brother couldn't believe it till I switched it on. I've been building more & more exotic lasers & controllers ever since. Totally made a shift in my life to the hobbies I follow. These magazines & build series instructions were so good, like supplying the PCB etching prints on an A4 sheet, circuit diagrams, theory, evolution etc. Just brilliant. They were absolutely a massive influence in my hobbies.
Comment keeps getting deleted. Let's try this... This is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels on TH-cam. I used to work for a company that starts with the word radio and ends with the word shack but they're out of business now. Cleaning up the back room one day I found a box of old catalogs from the 70s. They were called another name back then that rhymes with randy but starts with a T, not R. Those old randy but with a t catalogues had some crazy stuff in them. Awesome video. I guess mentioning company names is banned here because the comment is sticking now that I've modified it.
Fantastic, I really wanted one of these as a kid, and I still have both the original magazines and the photocopies of the articles Dad made when we looked into building one. Never got a modular and I don't really have room for one now, with all the other studio gear, so thanks for showing the Formant being put through its paces.
That is so dang cool. The magazines, the concept, the overall builds are awesome. I'm currently learning electronics the hard way. So far I've learned a backwards cap can / will go BOOM and that SOICs are very picky about voltage directions as well. Apparently they also explode. I've also learned to wear eye protection haha. Great channel!
@monsieurtechnical I had a (reversed :-/) tantalum go BLAM! (complete with small mushroom cloud, I kid you not) when I single-stepped a debugger to the line that turned the volts on. A very weird feeling.
Elektors office is in a Castle in the village where I live. I remember reading about the Formant back in the day. Once in a while you see one for sale loacally on marketplace
It sounds absolutely gnarly! What a time, when you could build from scratch a synthesiser, even without having much knowledge or experience, just sheer dedication.
What a find for this channel. I was about 14 or 15 when I decided to build the PE Minisonic. It took me ages to get the parts together only having a paper round. I built the circuit on veroboard, but much of the print out in the magazine was wrong and it took me ages to debug. However, that process taught me so much about electronics and fault finding and has stood me in good stead all my life. I built the keyboard out of an old upright piano, lots of rubber bands and copper braid from coax cable. It was great, but so out of tune and flaky. I sold it to two guys who I think were amazed that I'd put it together. They got it for a steal (£50 I think). I wish I knew whether it was ever used. It had a proper sloping upright case and I used two bank of push switches to do various routings. I built a cut down one which I still have and keep meaning to get it working again, but it was the cost of a proper keyboard that always held me back. Then I discovered that girls were fun too :) and computers... Thanks, looking forward to browsing this channel.
Brilliant! It's these 1970s / 80s electronics magazines that got me into electronics, and why I chose Electrical Enineering in Aeronautics as my 1st degree! Wow, those mags brings back memories.
Loved this video. I still have my original copy of the Formant book. Also, that Practical Electronics with the Minisonic on the front cover was the first issue that I ever bought (November 1974 I think) - that started my life-long interest in Electronics. I have the book on the Transcendant 2000 from ETI some where too. Amazing stuff back in the day.
I once had a non functioning Roland SH5. It was 1982 and I couldn’t find anyone to repair it. I eventually tracked down a guy who lived near Blackpool, rang him and he asked me to bring it to him. Turns out he was the owner and creator of Digisound synthesizers. A lovely guy who built modular synths in his garage. He fixed my SH5 and let me have a play on his synths.
Awesome. I remember making the PE Minisonic synth when I was about 15. Tried to fit it into a box far too small, which made it so difficult to wire up. The oscillators never stayed in tune but the noise generator and filter was fun. Wished I'd kept it, but recall taking it all apart to use the components in other magazine projects, like wah wah pedals and noise gates! Great walk down memory lane.
America had something similar called "Heathkit" they had things from Ham radio, and Hifi audio to metering equipment. All of this was built by you. The most well known one was a tube transmitter, the sb-220.
Read alot of the Dutch version of Elektor called then Elektuur when I was in tradeschool. The most amazing project of the time was the build yourself CD player but the total amount of the components was alot more then a off the shelf player.
@@nullsmack That was not that interresting, the complete laser assembly complete with loadtray was from Philips. Philips were always helpfull with these kind off projects, those diy dudes could end up as new personel.
Wow. That sounded much better than I expected. Nice. One of these days I'll actually build something like this; been on my "someday" list since I was a kid.
I have an Elektor Formant myself. About twice as big as this one. I own it since the eightees. It's sitting in a closet, patiently waiting for me to bring it back to life... By the way, I LOVE it that you gave a very inspiring musical demonstration in this vid!
This is great! I also collect vintage electronics magazines and hobbyist books. Last I checked, they don't teach discrete analog and valve electronics at university, so this is all we have to go on. One thing I want to point out: at 5:15 in the video, when you're panning across the back of the units, the PCB on the right has an 8-pin DIP IC that looks like it's not all the way seated in its socket. It could just be that the socket wasn't soldered completely flat to the board, but you might wish to check it to make sure the chip is pushed all the way in
University doesn't teach electronics and hasn't for years. It's teaches the mathematical theory underpinning everything. As for valves that's really a niche technology now for high power RF amplification which is disapearing more and more.
i have the classical Fromant setup made in 1979. with the magazine as well. i love the deep deep bass - it's a beautiful sounding oldschool synth ... and the rfm really does a good tone shaping. this is a great synth :) happy
Elektor was one of my favourite back in the 90s, they had such seriously awesome projects - real quality! Impressive amount of work to put that back together.
I bought the odd copy of Elektor magazine back in the day when I saw it at a book/magazine seller that carried some specialty and/or foreign ones. I don't remember where exactly I got it but I obtained a copy of the Formant book. I thought about building the modules back then but never did. IIRC, the boards were meant to plug in to card edge connectors on a motherboard. It was a nice modification to bring out a few of the signals to the front panel.
I have the keystep 37 and haven't used it enough, much like all the synth stuff I bought during lockdown, but the thing I love is how easy music can be made. If you work in C and just hit a load of notes in step mode, as long as you hit C as a home note, it sounds awesome.
The way these old synths were configured using patch wires feels so raw, in a good way. I remember some software that tried to replicate that back in the 90's. With the slow processors of the day they had to write a lot of the code using highly optimized assembler. The software was pretty good, but there's nothing like actually patching together a signal path and having manual control of every knob. But for me screwing around with the software emulations were enough to convince me that I really didn't have any talent for making music.
I used to LOVE buying the British electronic magazines back in the late 70s and early 80s. I've still got a few on my shelf. They weren't cheap by the time they landed in Australia but they were well worth the $$$.
Always admired the stark graphic cohesive style of Elektor. They look like a high-end everything-is-by-design type of product with those smart panels and glossy collets. It’s interesting to finally get a glimpse behind the panel and see an equally impressive build using quality din backplanes with pins available for normalized patching schemes. This is really impressive. Someone could make a mil-spec monosynth using these available card designs and some nice rotary switches.
Just shows you can build something yourself using common place components, transistors, capacitors, resistors, for probably less than the price of a cheap controller keyboard and make mind blowing analog sounds that put many modern synths costing thousands of pounds to shame! Sounds amazing, especially those filters!
Nice looking back to those magazines! I had access to the Dutch version Elektuur, which also published the Formant synthesizer. Never built it, but I did build my guitar preamp from Elektuur. Good memories!
This jam at 13:37 reminds me of a song I've not heard for a long time now and I just can't remember the name... Love your content Sam, I really hope I'll be able to visit UK this year to see the Museum.
@@steenkoudahlfrederiksen6417 Yes, their music seems similar, but I think the song was by a more mainstream group, maybe Kraftwerk... I'll keep looking in my spare time and hopefully come back here with an answer at some point. Thank you for the suggestion!
My dad got most of those magazines in the 70s and 80s and built lots of hi-fi projects. My teenage listening would be interrupted by faint sounds of radio Moscow at night. I was a little obsessed with the Elektor Formant synth but never got as far as making it so maybe that’s why I gravitated to modular later in life.
Back in the '60s and '70s, you could send away for kits to build stuff like your own tube amplifier, FM radio receiver, television set, really any piece of home entertainment electronics. Thanks for another cool video!!
awesome bro, loving all this synth stuff you do. nice to see you mixing with the new, ie beatmaster looper, it really does come alive then! i could play with just those two things for a long time. 💣💣💣
I love that about stuff like that. You don't know the story, likely never will... but the stories it can tell, if you're willing to listen. :) They have charm in spades, something modern electronics rarely are able to convey if ever. At least in the 90's i'd find a gecko printed on an mother board or a cheer or a greeting. Those were the days.
I love electronics and spent too much money on magazines over the years, I was always interested in synthesisers and understood each section and how they worked but as for making music from them that was totally alien to me. I'm impressed people use these things to make music but just can't fathom it out myself which is strange because I do have a musical background in that I have played in a brass band since I was about 8 years old (now 50) I need to visit your museum soon.
I actually had this Formant booklet (in German, I read the Elektor in my youth and built the "Junior Computer" with extension board, hand-coding a 6502 Forth into it). I used some of the circuits of the Formant in a project (mainly from the VCO, and I think there was a keyboard circuit board that I copied), but it was too expensive for me to build in its entirety. This was trip down memory lane for me!
Funny thing - as old as it is, those glorious analog sounds never get old - been into synth-music since the mid 80s and it just gets better and better!
NAME A DIY SYNTHESIZER
something 2000
JEFF 2000
Samthing 2000
The Watson valve 2000
OL-D C.R.A.P.
Awesome! The entire Elektor Lab and editorial team loves this. Great video. Bravo.
Neat!
Maybe a re-issue wirh modern components Eurorack size would be a great idea. A Formant 2022
@@TheTerracide I love this idea
all hail Elektor! I wouldn't be where I am now were it not for you people and your magazine. Thank you!
aha great! no idea how i missed this comment. currently making the formant bigger, building the case today. nice one!
Oh boy, this is a holy grail video for me. My best mate and I built a synth based on these Formant designs back in the seventies, when I was about 16 and he was 17-18.
We couldn't afford to buy the PCBs at first, so we actually photographed the track layouts in the mags and etched the boards ourselves using photo resist paint, a UV light and hot ferric chloride, all in my mum's kitchen.
We couldn't afford the front panels either so we spent an entire summer in my parents back garden, wrangling sheet aluminium into L-shaped trays so the boards sat horizontally behind the front panels. The case was 1-inch angle aluminium rivited together into a semi-modular rack that looked remarkably like a fish tank before the wooden panels went on.
We had a stroke of luck when a genuine ARP2600 keyboard appeared after the main synth had been accidentally thrown away (I kid you not!) And our unique touch was using four-position slider switches everywhere instead of patch leads. None of the pots or switches got labelled, but by the time it was finished we knew what every one did so never bothered!
I have a couple of old black and white pictures of the guts of it somewhere, but I don't think I can post them in a TH-cam comment.
Suffice to say, it was a beast and it needed a lot of constant TLC, to the point where we joked about permanently installing a soldering iron in the lid of the case! But it sounded absolutely fab.
My friend went off to uni and ended up playing in several bands, culminating in Red Shift and Beat the Drum who had some minor commercial success. The last two members of which are still writing music and even gigging now in their sixties, the other three all having died very young).
My friend died suddenly from an undiagnosed brain tumour in his thirties and all his keyboards (including an electric piano and a string synth that we had also built together) ended up in his partner's loft. It was all such a weird situation that, to my eternal sorrow, I never got back in touch with his partner again after the funeral and never found out what happened to our lovely synth. I guess it was scrapped.
Looking back, what amazing times.
this is the coolest thing i ever read
Wow ! .... What a amazing story .... I can relate to That .... I have had a similar experience with an electronic music project lately .... But Your's with the people involved over the passage of time is Awesome !
I bought one of these in 2000 (ish). The unit had been sitting in a man’s closet since 1980 when he built it. When I got it, it was pretty cheap. I knew nothing about electronics. I was 18 years old and SO happy finding this synth. I started repairing it. Blew lots of transistor and ic’s along the way. A shame since some of the ic’s in this beast are very expensive today (used in the mini moot today. Fairchild 741 I think the ic was called. Was in the cco part of the Vco). Lots of stuff didn’t work, but eventually I got it going. I was obsessed with making it working and I vividly remember once I got the first oscillator up and running. I was SUPER happy (and had soldering iron burns on several fingers). I fixed it even further over the years. Made a new case. Custom front plates etc. put in some doepfer modules as well along with a diy ele4music filter (may ele4music Rest In Peace. He made diy synth modules in the early 2000s but since passed away because of cancer).
I finally got a new and modern PSU which made the formant sound So much better. Really amazing sounding synth. I still don’t know tons about electronics, but can now read diagrams, fix synthesizers and other audio equipment. Buying old synths, repairing them and selling them, enabled me to save up enough money for me to visit my cousin in Texas for the summer. (Living In Denmark). Pretty awesome for a young guy like me.
I have since sold the formant (along with book) to a group of elderly synth geeks.
Good times.
I was around 18 when I bought it. Living in my parents basement. Making music non stop as a hobby. Now married with 2 kids and making a living doing sound design and music composing for computer games (deep rock galactic is the most famous title). Once a synth geek always a synth geek.
I was 18 back then. Sold the formant when I was 37. Will be turning 40 this spring.
Life is weird and full of weird noises:)
I'm a music student and when playing Deep Rock mentioned to my friends how much I enjoyed the music, thanks for helping create such a cool game!
Deep rock slaps. Thank you so much for being a part of its creation ❤
@@LT.dans_new_legs thanks :) I have made a “how I made the soundtrack video”, if you are interested.
@@louistown7835 thanks man:)
fåk det er nice man - og vild med soundtracket, det passer godt sammen med spillet !
God damn I was feeling it at 13:40!!! Wasn't expecting this quality of a jam!
You shoved a diode in your jacksy
I know! And just before that sounded like channeling early Tangerine Dream - fantastic!
i
@@robertfletcher9899 simple minds "i travel" would drop right in.
SAM : Places two patch cables and creates several big phat sounds.
ME : Tries to replicate on VCA-Rack and ends up with bleep bloop.
Hackerman
Add some distortion early in your signal chain or (and this is the power move) just before the mixer, run your dry signal through reverb like Plateau then through distortion like Debriatus and then a LP filter to reign it back in. Chord changes sound absolutely massive!
Same for me trying to program my Kurzweil (yes digital is much different than analog, but…).
4 layers and one hour later:
Thinnest… Sawtooth… Ever….
you need filters, man
Sam speaks synth.
David Attenborough: hmm this bird has a characteristic red beak
Sam: hmm this synthesizer has a characteristic blue circuit board
You birdwatch.
I synthwatch.
We are not the same.
DA: Here we have Sam in his natural environment, before he migrates to his next gig.
Encountered this as it popped out randomly and was amazed to be reconnected to my past. I started buying Practical Electronics in 1964 when I was 13 and remember the magazines you showed. I also bought piles of Practical Wireless, Wireless World and later The Radio Constructor and then Electronics Today International. Without those magazines I wouldn't have gone to university to study "Electrical Sciences" and then spend my entire career in computing up to retirement many years ago. Amazing to think a random purchase of a magazine drove the rest of my life. In the 60s I was able to make "pocket money" building fuzz boxes, treble boosters, waa-waas, tremolos and reverbs, all from the designs in Practical Electronics. Now to browse further down memory lane with the images of the magazine contents. I must have studied them in great detail as even the advertisements are all very familiar.
I built one back in the 80s when I was 16 or so. Still have it and it still works
Awesome, Sam you are an inspiration education needs folk like you to get kids to engage with stuff and just not software emulator s and apps. Growing up in the 70s and 80s half my mates were into synth pop and the other half into rock/metal. They all thought I was nuts liking both....
Daft Punk needs to roll into the museum and throw down an improv music jam..... Speaking of which, your latest songs are great and hope you send out some more.
Like the sound and sequenzing at 12:00.
This could be a great Song in Duft Punk Style
You are a wonderful man , i m guitarist and i don't no why i watch this channel every time you post a new one..!
Your conceptions are crazy, clever with real musical application.
Thx man for the smile you give me ( us ) every time!
I watch i learn thx
I loved the July/August editions of Elektor. It featured 100+ small, easy to build projects.
And some issues later, they published all the corrections. The most impressive circuit was the Zero-Volts stabilizer. Guess how they did that... :)
Excellent! I think building the synth would actually be easier than playing it!
Wow, that ring modulator is making sounds straight from the Barron's "electronic tonalities" for the film Forbidden Planet!
Exactly what came to my mind when I heard it - love that film! Shakespeare in Space! 😁
@@teaurn o
Woow, i knew those magazines existed but I never knew you could actually build a full working synth just by relying on them
Well..
Yes..!
I was shocked that INPUT Magazine enabled me to prevent the USA 🇺🇸 Soviet War with BASIC!
You cannot deny it worked!..
WE ARE ALL ALIVE!..
YOU'RE WELCOME!
Remember, NL had a pretty big electronics industry: Philips. Lots of people worked in that industry and in their free time they were hobbyists as well. My father was one of them.
@@jfv65 Nice, it’s good when enthusiastic people like to spend their free time sharing their knowledge. Well, I shouldn’t be so amazed when considering that synths are just oscillators and filters like most everyday circuit at the time (radios, TVs, etc.) and electronic magazine editors who were mostly deep heart hobbyists like your dad surely loved to teach young generations about synths and similar stuff that was exciting for them.
In Yugoslavia there was even a whole computer you could build from magazine instructions with edvice how to optain certan components and there was one radio station that would transmit code for its games late at night. Electronic magazines were the real deal back in their day.
@@GeorgeKaslov you know what's funny? In the 80s you could build a 80s computer using schematics from those magazines. Fast forward 40 years and... you can still build... a 80s computer at home. Because modern BGA components make it impossible to build a modern computer from parts at home. At least not without spending hundreds of thousands on equipment which is too much for hobby electronics.
I had almost forgotten about these mags, what a major nostalgia trip! Then I remembered that the amp running my kitchen speakers is based on some design I got from Practical Electronics in the early 90s. Recapped it a couple of months ago, and it’s ready for another 30 years. Yaaaas!
You are brown hatter yes?
Those oscillators sound incredible!
I remember drooling over the magazine articles back in the day, but never had the cash to build it (or the musical skill to use it!)
This has been a production of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Love it.
The Radiophonic Workshop were late into synthesizer usage. They didn't need it as they could create all they needed by other means ... just listen to the original Doctor Who theme, created by the magnificent Delia Derbyshire:- th-cam.com/video/75V4ClJZME4/w-d-xo.html
Wow, you pump out both great sqeeks and thumping grooves!
A word of advice from a previous builder/owner: drop the fourth VCO and put in the 12 db VCF instead! It has a very strong and raw character while the 24 db VCF is sounding more sophisticated. And when you have two filters you can make vowel sounds like joy and yeah!
For educational and practical purposes I suggest you restore the original internal wiring, it saves you a lot of patches, and it remains flexible to deviate from the obvious sound path.
But what a massive sound!
The brain is such an amazing organ. I remember several of the front covers you showed even though I haven't seen them since they were published several decades ago....
Dude. I look at that panel and would be like "oooh, turny thing go wewew".
You speak the lingo, then make something I could dance to, swingin' them dials like a genius.
Please make more songs, you're growing a fanbase I'm sure!
The greatest thing about him is that he's one of the only synth-centric channels that really tries to make regular music.
I swear the rest of them absolutely despise their neighbors, and just started up a channel for an extra excuse to go, "Okay, it's Tuesday which is shrieking beep day, let's see what I come up with for shrieking beeps. Wonder if they'll move out this week."
Yurrrsss. I made a 5mW Helium Neon laser in an aluminium casing from a Maplin kit in around 1988 ?? I was only a kid, and my brother couldn't believe it till I switched it on. I've been building more & more exotic lasers & controllers ever since. Totally made a shift in my life to the hobbies I follow. These magazines & build series instructions were so good, like supplying the PCB etching prints on an A4 sheet, circuit diagrams, theory, evolution etc. Just brilliant. They were absolutely a massive influence in my hobbies.
I absolutely love the aesthetic of this one! And, it sounds pretty epic too!
Our 3-year-old asked me what musical instrument made a particular synth sound in a song he likes. I knew just the video to show him. 😁
That demo really hit the spot. So much talent
Comment keeps getting deleted. Let's try this...
This is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels on TH-cam. I used to work for a company that starts with the word radio and ends with the word shack but they're out of business now. Cleaning up the back room one day I found a box of old catalogs from the 70s. They were called another name back then that rhymes with randy but starts with a T, not R. Those old randy but with a t catalogues had some crazy stuff in them. Awesome video.
I guess mentioning company names is banned here because the comment is sticking now that I've modified it.
aaah yeah no idea how it actually works!
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER it's all good, man. I had a channel at one time and dealt with the same thing. TH-cam is weird sometimes.
I can clearly remember the hours spent pawing over a "Randy" subtitute R for T, or M aplin catalogue as a teenager just wishing i had more money....
Tandy radioshack.
Absolutely love your passion with this. Fun, modern and informative (edit - and very talented)
Fantastic, I really wanted one of these as a kid, and I still have both the original magazines and the photocopies of the articles Dad made when we looked into building one. Never got a modular and I don't really have room for one now, with all the other studio gear, so thanks for showing the Formant being put through its paces.
This thing sounds like the theme to every 80s technology show on the BBC AND I LOVE IT!
That is so dang cool. The magazines, the concept, the overall builds are awesome. I'm currently learning electronics the hard way. So far I've learned a backwards cap can / will go BOOM and that SOICs are very picky about voltage directions as well. Apparently they also explode. I've also learned to wear eye protection haha. Great channel!
@monsieurtechnical I had a (reversed :-/) tantalum go BLAM! (complete with small mushroom cloud, I kid you not) when I single-stepped a debugger to the line that turned the volts on. A very weird feeling.
When your shadow covers/uncovers the board, it looks like a dynamic color change based on the sound frequency. Cool way of looking at it.
So cool how you just know your stuff around these devices Sam. Always get great vibes from your tunes!
Oh man, that thing sounds soooooo sweet. It's got it's own sound. what a gem. I'm jealous!!!
Still my favorite youtube channel! Just want to say thanks for all the great years of sharing!
Elektors office is in a Castle in the village where I live. I remember reading about the Formant back in the day. Once in a while you see one for sale loacally on marketplace
It sounds absolutely gnarly! What a time, when you could build from scratch a synthesiser, even without having much knowledge or experience, just sheer dedication.
never more true than now my friend! i love the old stuff too though.
You still can - and it's easier and cheaper than ever now.
Find your design, get PCB's made, get the parts in, start soldering 🙂
What a find for this channel. I was about 14 or 15 when I decided to build the PE Minisonic. It took me ages to get the parts together only having a paper round. I built the circuit on veroboard, but much of the print out in the magazine was wrong and it took me ages to debug. However, that process taught me so much about electronics and fault finding and has stood me in good stead all my life.
I built the keyboard out of an old upright piano, lots of rubber bands and copper braid from coax cable. It was great, but so out of tune and flaky. I sold it to two guys who I think were amazed that I'd put it together. They got it for a steal (£50 I think). I wish I knew whether it was ever used. It had a proper sloping upright case and I used two bank of push switches to do various routings. I built a cut down one which I still have and keep meaning to get it working again, but it was the cost of a proper keyboard that always held me back. Then I discovered that girls were fun too :) and computers...
Thanks, looking forward to browsing this channel.
Brilliant! It's these 1970s / 80s electronics magazines that got me into electronics, and why I chose Electrical Enineering in Aeronautics as my 1st degree! Wow, those mags brings back memories.
Mega ! I, mostly, leaned electronics from the Everyday Electronics in the 70s great to see the old mags popping up again. Thanks for the links.
Thanks for sharing the links to the magazine archives. I know nothing about synths but looks like it might be fun to build some of these modules.
Woah! Was not expecting it to sound that GOOD! Might have to get back into the diy modular scene!
Loved this video. I still have my original copy of the Formant book. Also, that Practical Electronics with the Minisonic on the front cover was the first issue that I ever bought (November 1974 I think) - that started my life-long interest in Electronics. I have the book on the Transcendant 2000 from ETI some where too. Amazing stuff back in the day.
I once had a non functioning Roland SH5. It was 1982 and I couldn’t find anyone to repair it. I eventually tracked down a guy who lived near Blackpool, rang him and he asked me to bring it to him. Turns out he was the owner and creator of Digisound synthesizers. A lovely guy who built modular synths in his garage. He fixed my SH5 and let me have a play on his synths.
✨wow✨
That is probably the only time that home build has worked fully and been used properly. I admire your skill with this stuff.
Brilliant 🤍 not seen that kind of analogue stuff for years. So inspired right now! 👍🏻
Thank you for your time and effort. Bless your family and loved ones.
Oh yeah, the Formant. ❤️ Started to build one in my youth, but never made it past a single VCO, VCA, ADSR, NG and a power supply. 😎
Same here: couldn't afford a decent trafo but built one VCO, a VCA ADSR, VCF and then ran out of money and enthusiasm 😃
Awesome. I remember making the PE Minisonic synth when I was about 15. Tried to fit it into a box far too small, which made it so difficult to wire up. The oscillators never stayed in tune but the noise generator and filter was fun. Wished I'd kept it, but recall taking it all apart to use the components in other magazine projects, like wah wah pedals and noise gates! Great walk down memory lane.
America had something similar called "Heathkit" they had things from Ham radio, and Hifi audio to metering equipment. All of this was built by you. The most well known one was a tube transmitter, the sb-220.
America had something *more* similar called "PAiA". We still have it. I'm building several of their 9700 series synth modules.
@@Randrew cool, but high voltage is more fun in my opinion.
Read alot of the Dutch version of Elektor called then Elektuur when I was in tradeschool. The most amazing project of the time was the build yourself CD player but the total amount of the components was alot more then a off the shelf player.
That'd be crazy to see but I don't read dutch :(
Be interesting to see how they did the actual optics of reading the disc
@@nullsmack That was not that interresting, the complete laser assembly complete with loadtray was from Philips. Philips were always helpfull with these kind off projects, those diy dudes could end up as new personel.
which elektor was that, i own all of them, member since early 70s never seen any cd builder. how the fuck do you make your own goddamn fucking lens
@@MultiArrie Makes sense for them to offer the assembly and you do the electronics. I can imagine that.
Wow. That sounded much better than I expected. Nice. One of these days I'll actually build something like this; been on my "someday" list since I was a kid.
Thing looks like, it could be, from a musical starship. Love the look, of the module.
This sounds so effing great. Sounds way better than it looks. The dry examples were so nice. The formant filter sounds nice too.
I have an Elektor Formant myself. About twice as big as this one. I own it since the eightees. It's sitting in a closet, patiently waiting for me to bring it back to life...
By the way, I LOVE it that you gave a very inspiring musical demonstration in this vid!
Cool to see the first synth I’ve build (and could afford 😉) 40 years ago 😃⚡️👍🏼. Learned a lot by building it, and it still works!
Happy 55 year old ! My youth in music! Thank you!!! From Walter/Wendy Carlos to Kraftwerk delicious energy tweaking! Thank You
This is great! I also collect vintage electronics magazines and hobbyist books. Last I checked, they don't teach discrete analog and valve electronics at university, so this is all we have to go on. One thing I want to point out: at 5:15 in the video, when you're panning across the back of the units, the PCB on the right has an 8-pin DIP IC that looks like it's not all the way seated in its socket. It could just be that the socket wasn't soldered completely flat to the board, but you might wish to check it to make sure the chip is pushed all the way in
University doesn't teach electronics and hasn't for years. It's teaches the mathematical theory underpinning everything. As for valves that's really a niche technology now for high power RF amplification which is disapearing more and more.
@@Spookieham High-power RF and specialty audio. Guitar players still use valve amps
Ha i got one too! Saved it from a dumpster! Including the books etc :) they pop up every now and then over here. They sound amazing!!
I love that unique sound. There’s something oddly Moog about that. Could hear something like that in an old film for sure! Great work!
It definitely had its Jean Michel Jarre moments.
Sounds like a Novatron from thirty, forty years previous.
Just sublime, wow I love it and want one…well done !
i have the classical Fromant setup made in 1979. with the magazine as well. i love the deep deep bass - it's a beautiful sounding oldschool synth ... and the rfm really does a good tone shaping. this is a great synth :) happy
Elektor was one of my favourite back in the 90s, they had such seriously awesome projects - real quality! Impressive amount of work to put that back together.
Wow!! SERiously cool groove at about 13.40..FABtastic sounds as well..very nice.
I bought the odd copy of Elektor magazine back in the day when I saw it at a book/magazine seller that carried some specialty and/or foreign ones. I don't remember where exactly I got it but I obtained a copy of the Formant book. I thought about building the modules back then but never did. IIRC, the boards were meant to plug in to card edge connectors on a motherboard. It was a nice modification to bring out a few of the signals to the front panel.
Not sure if I'm more impressed with the Formant's sound or how well the BeatStep's functionality work's with it amazing stuff thanx dude
Fabulous - bringing this back to life! Sounds lovely!
Incredible song at the end. Just wow.
I have the keystep 37 and haven't used it enough, much like all the synth stuff I bought during lockdown, but the thing I love is how easy music can be made. If you work in C and just hit a load of notes in step mode, as long as you hit C as a home note, it sounds awesome.
Have you tried A minor ? ;)
Brilliant. love old electronic stuff...they teach you to build everything from scratch. something they simply don't do nowadays.
The way these old synths were configured using patch wires feels so raw, in a good way. I remember some software that tried to replicate that back in the 90's. With the slow processors of the day they had to write a lot of the code using highly optimized assembler. The software was pretty good, but there's nothing like actually patching together a signal path and having manual control of every knob. But for me screwing around with the software emulations were enough to convince me that I really didn't have any talent for making music.
The future was yesterday but I am here now!
Sounds surprisingly good! Very interesting.
what lovely analogue sounds
this is cool. look forward to seeing it used a bit more
I used to LOVE buying the British electronic magazines back in the late 70s and early 80s. I've still got a few on my shelf. They weren't cheap by the time they landed in Australia but they were well worth the $$$.
Always admired the stark graphic cohesive style of Elektor. They look like a high-end everything-is-by-design type of product with those smart panels and glossy collets. It’s interesting to finally get a glimpse behind the panel and see an equally impressive build using quality din backplanes with pins available for normalized patching schemes. This is really impressive. Someone could make a mil-spec monosynth using these available card designs and some nice rotary switches.
Just shows you can build something yourself using common place components, transistors, capacitors, resistors, for probably less than the price of a cheap controller keyboard and make mind blowing analog sounds that put many modern synths costing thousands of pounds to shame! Sounds amazing, especially those filters!
Nice looking back to those magazines! I had access to the Dutch version Elektuur, which also published the Formant synthesizer. Never built it, but I did build my guitar preamp from Elektuur. Good memories!
This jam at 13:37 reminds me of a song I've not heard for a long time now and I just can't remember the name...
Love your content Sam, I really hope I'll be able to visit UK this year to see the Museum.
Something by the group Motor(Mute Records) perhaps???
@@steenkoudahlfrederiksen6417 Yes, their music seems similar, but I think the song was by a more mainstream group, maybe Kraftwerk... I'll keep looking in my spare time and hopefully come back here with an answer at some point. Thank you for the suggestion!
I hope you will find it - Other groups that came to my mind hearing that part was Severed Heads "Dead Eyes Opened" or something ala Front 242
Thank you, even if I won't find it, your suggestions already made my day. New bands to listen are always welcome.
the piece at the end was sick. excellent work as always friend!
Awesome, awesome, awesome as ever! Loved that jam
My dad got most of those magazines in the 70s and 80s and built lots of hi-fi projects. My teenage listening would be interrupted by faint sounds of radio Moscow at night. I was a little obsessed with the Elektor Formant synth but never got as far as making it so maybe that’s why I gravitated to modular later in life.
Back in the '60s and '70s, you could send away for kits to build stuff like your own tube amplifier, FM radio receiver, television set, really any piece of home entertainment electronics. Thanks for another cool video!!
awesome bro, loving all this synth stuff you do. nice to see you mixing with the new, ie beatmaster looper, it really does come alive then! i could play with just those two things for a long time. 💣💣💣
I love that about stuff like that. You don't know the story, likely never will... but the stories it can tell, if you're willing to listen. :) They have charm in spades, something modern electronics rarely are able to convey if ever. At least in the 90's i'd find a gecko printed on an mother board or a cheer or a greeting. Those were the days.
Nice synth, nice size and surprisingly capable for a DIY synth considering the cost of mass produced synths when this originally came out in the 70's.
Ah, the sound of the 70s. Analogue synth and the Berlin sound :)
I love electronics and spent too much money on magazines over the years, I was always interested in synthesisers and understood each section and how they worked but as for making music from them that was totally alien to me. I'm impressed people use these things to make music but just can't fathom it out myself which is strange because I do have a musical background in that I have played in a brass band since I was about 8 years old (now 50) I need to visit your museum soon.
I actually had this Formant booklet (in German, I read the Elektor in my youth and built the "Junior Computer" with extension board, hand-coding a 6502 Forth into it). I used some of the circuits of the Formant in a project (mainly from the VCO, and I think there was a keyboard circuit board that I copied), but it was too expensive for me to build in its entirety. This was trip down memory lane for me!
that sounds so good cranked up on the stereo!
That thing sounds damn good. Not as many fancy features as new mono analog synths, but such a fat, satisfying sound.
Woah that’s cool! I never got the hang of electronics but your videos always make me want to try again!
Savage. Gotta love all the old hand drawn diagrams
9:40 great timing, I just plugged something into a socket here in my attic and was confused for a second where that noise came from 🤣
You got some great sounds out of this beast, there is life in it yet! Took me back to Tangerine Dream territory for a minute there.
Funny thing - as old as it is, those glorious analog sounds never get old - been into synth-music since the mid 80s and it just gets better and better!
I've GOT to get on a project like this.. would be incredibly worth it in my "studio"... also, Hi Sam!!