[sdiy] Formant?

[Brown David]

As a builder of the original Format, I endorse Ingo's comments.  The design
was very good for its time, but is now well out-of-date.  uA741s can be
replaced by TL071s, and MAT-02s could (probably) be used in place of the
obsolescent uA726s. However, greater functionality / better performance can
nowadays be achieved using newer designs and far fewer components.  This has
been made possible by the use of ICs (such as the CEM chips and their
successors) that implement major synth functions.  I don't know what's in
the MSS2000 (Formant Pro) but I would advise against it (particularly for
the beginner) on account of the large number of errors that are said to be
in the schematics and PCBs.  Also I believe the manual is only available in
German.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ingo Debus [mailto:debus at cityweb.de]
Sent: 25 September 2001 13:47
To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Formant?




modlar at gmx.de wrote:
> 
> > Would the Formant Synthesizer be a good idea, too?
> >
> 
> Yes, a very good idea. But NEVER try to build the new formant MSS2000 (or
> so).

Was this a question for a beginner's project? IMHO the (old) Formant is
not a good choice for a beginner. Out-of-date design, 741s all over the
place, some obsolete parts, poor effort-to-usefulness ratio. Perhaps
some modules are good for a beginner, but not the whole synth.

Ingo
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