[sdiy] powertran transcendent 2000

[Richard Wentk]

At 12:46 24/06/2003 +0100, Julian wrote:
>Hi there,
>
>just wondering if anyone has any information on this synth.  I believe it
>was kit built in the 70s or somthing, but there dosnt seem a lot of
>information about it on the net.
>
>Any comments on its sound either?  I believe it uses a cem3340, but i know
>littel about the filter, althogh ive heard the bandpass is nice.

I built one of these as my first kit synth. Everything was on a single huge 
board (except the key contacts), it worked first time, and it stayed more 
or less in tune. The sound was surprisingly good for a single osc synth 
with a 12b/oct filter (built out of 3080s), although obviously it's not up 
to Minimoog standards. The extra filter envelope (ASR) was a useful extra, 
and the LFO was cunningly arranged to provide far more effects than you'd 
expect from such a simple unit.

Physically too it was a solid design, with the obligatory wooden end 
cheeks, a bomb-proof alu panel, and huge big very twiddly knobs. The only 
real drawback was the lack of proper pitch bend and mod wheels. There was a 
pitch bend pot, but it was too damn hard to do bends on it to for it to be 
really useful.

If I hear a massive chorus of 'Yeahs!' I suppose I could even post some 
MP3s of tracks I did with it on an old four track Portastudio and a creaky 
old open-reel tape delay.

>I dont suppose anyone has the construction plans / schematics, do they?

You'll go mad trying to build one unless you etch the large PCB, because 
there are a lot of parts involved. And the PCB is LARGE, so you're going to 
find it hard to print/etch in any of the usual ways.

There's no reason someone couldn't do a modular version though. That would 
work quite nicely as a simple beginner's project. Each part of the circuit 
is (almost) self-contained so it should be easy enough to build on strip 
board.

Richard