Paia – Preservation Sound

PAiA : Synth DIY circa late 70’s

chris — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:23:21 +0000

From the pages of various musician’ mags of the late 70s: The Collected Works of the PAiA Electronics marketing department. PAiA is, and has been for decades, the standard-bearer for good-quality kits for musical instruments and musical accessories. I am not aware of any other company that spanned the original DIY electronics era with the modern ‘circuit bending/group DIY ing/ craft-boutique-audio etc’ eras. They are still very much alive+ kicking and I’m glad for it. When I was in school I built a PAiA theremax theremin – it cost $175 complete at the time and went together with no issues in 6 hours – i used it on a ton of recordings, both as an audio source and as a dual-control-voltage generator for dramatic filter-frequency cut off in live performances (this was the Electroclash era, after all). Anyway. The other weekend a fellow was selling a decent-looking but untested PAiA 4700 modular synthesizer system from the mid 1970s. He was asking $800, seemed ready to take $500, and eventually got his $500 on eBay from an eager Swede via eBay. Let’s take a look back on what else this venerable company was offering in that era…

The PAiA Drum Percussion Synthesizer circa 1979 – seems to be like an 808 minus the sequencer

The PAiA GNOME micro-synth c. 1981

The PAiA programmable drum set c. 1979

The PAiA Proteus Synthesizer circa 1981

If you ever come across old used PAiA gear: remember: most were user-built, and usually by people with little or no experience in electronics assembly. So caveat emptor.

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Keys of the 70s

chris — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 13:13:50 +0000

Strings & Things Memphis advert for keyboards circa 1977.

Been looking through some mid-70s issues of “Contemporary Keyboard” (h.f. “CK”) magazine. CK later became simply “Keyboard,” which is still in publication; it’s part of the GUITAR PLAYER family of publications. NEways… 1976/7 was an interesting time in the development of keyboard instruments. Affordable polyphonic (IE., you can play more than one note at a time) synthesizers were still a few years away, and realistic-sounding electronic pianos were still about a decade away. So what you had was a very mixed bag of Electronic Pianos and ‘String Synthesizers,’ which are both basically hyped-up electric organs; some still-useful electro-acoustic instruments; and a pretty wide range of pretty experimental synthesizers, many from small manufacturers that didn’t stay around very long. In about 6 years this would all be blown away by advanced Japanese synths with built-in programming, patch memory, and all with polyphony; the Roland/Korg/Yamaha DX7 era; and this too would fall at the hands of the dreaded Korg M1, which ushered in the Rompler era. Anyone out there using an M1 lately?

The ARP pro-soloist, typical of the ‘preset’ synths of the era; preset synths offered interfaces optimized for live-performance rather than endless tweaking in the studio.

The Hohner Clavinet, HIP II, and Stringvox. The Clavinet has attained classic status, and many are still in use; not so sure about the HIP II and Stringvox.

A couple of Moogs from different ends of the spectrum. The Minitmoog was a ‘preset’ synth; the Polymoog was not a true synth; it was closer to an organ in terms of its basic operating principle.

Oberheim Expander

A few Paia synth-kit offerings of the mid 70s: the Surf Synthesizer, The Gnome, and the classic 4700. See this link for previous PAIA coverage on PS dot com.

An advert for the Polyfusion System A. See this link for previous coverage of the Polyfusion line.

The RMI Electra Piano. When we were growing up in the late 80s/early 90s, ‘electric pianos’ like these were about fifty bucks or less; no one wanted them, and that has not changed. They sound pretty awful but they’re still heavy and cumbersome!

The RMI KC-II Keyboard Computer. From what I gather, this device is essentially a RAMpler; not too different in basic principle from the epic Synclavier in that the user could input waveforms which would then be manipulated. This thing apparently cost $4700 which means that… yeah… there ain’t too many out there.

Roland MP-700 electronic piano

Sequential Circuits Model 700 programmer. I assume that this thing has a bunch of jackpoints that you would connect to various I/O points on yr modular synth… anyone use one of these?

The Steiner-Parker Synthacon. A rare Minimoog-esque unit. Apparently used on IN THE LIGHT.

The Strider Systems DCS1. I can’t find any info on this piece. Anyone?

Synare PS synth drums

Yamaha CP-30, yet another electronic piano

The Yamaha YC-45, the flagship model of their YC series. The YCs are unapologetic “Combo Organs,” which explains why they are still in use while the string synths and electronic pianos rest mainly in landfills. These are great-sounding, versatile organs; they also weigh a metric tonne so be forewarned.

Want more? Check out this site; this man has dedicated his entire blog to territory that I only dare visit.

Tomorrow: some interesting keyboard amps and FX from the era.

makin’ it

chris — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:48:14 +0000

What is goin on here !?

The May 1979 issue of DOWNBEAT magazine has a short article on the subject of Do-It-Yourself synthesizer kits. I’ve uploaded a scan of the entire article as a PDF below. Much of the article focuses on kits from Paia. Paia, if you are not familiar, is a very long-running company that makes audio kits. One of my earlier experiences building audio electronics was constructing their Theremax Theremin. I got the Theremax together in about a day, and it worked right away. No issues. I used it (mostly as a performance voltage-controller) for about a decade before I sold it at a moving sale. It was a good, reliable piece. I know that nowadays there are a lot of cheap theremins on the market, but 15 years ago it was a pretty unusual item.

DOWNLOAD ARTICLE: SynthKits_Dwnbt0579

Anyways… PAIA still makes and sells descendants of the synth modules that are described here, and the prices are extremely reasonable. A time-honored way of getting into audio electronics.

btw, dude in the pics here is not me, but it might as fukking well be.