The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

Hi Tom,

I played around with a Putney VCS3 in college, only it had a keyboard.  Is this the same (or similar) beast?  I've actually never seen one without a keyboard.

Also, FWIW, the (in)famous opening riff to The Who's "Baba O'Reilly" is played on a VCS3 ...

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions\ufffd   http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group and HiNote moderator
978.386.7389  voice/fax
bruce@...

At 04:45 AM 7/24/2002 -0400, you wrote:

>In a message dated 24/7/02 9:14:14 am, sidstation@... writes:
>
>>hi,
>>i like the droid. i thought about droid to make my litlle friend;) 
>>what is the ems vcs3? never heard of it. is there a webpage of it ?
>>
>>-phonophobie
>>
>NEVER HEARD OF THE VCS3?!?!?!?!- Christ- the kids of today LOL!!
>Well it was designed in 1965 by David Cockrell (The man behind Akai's most 
>sucessful Sampler range- S-900/950/1000/1100). Electronic Music Studios- or 
>EMS for short- were (and still are) Britain's most sucessful synthesiser 
>manufacturers. It was that synth which was resposible for pretty much all the 
>BBC's Radiophonic material all the way through the 60's, 70's and 80's.
>
>Basically the EMS VCS3 is a small modular synthesiser, but instead of 
>patchcords, it had a 16x16 pinboard matrix- meaning you could do totally 
>crazy patches- making sounds that would literally take your head right off! 
>The basic machine had NO KEYBOARD, but a Joystick instead- Past masters 
>include; Pierre Henry, Brian Eno, Pink Floyd, Delia Derbyshire/ David 
>Vorhaus- White Noise, Faust, Kraftwerk, Jean Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, 
>and later, Sonic Boom, Howie B, Coldcut, Stereolab, Aphex Twin, Atom Heart 
>and hundreds more!
>
>check out;
>
><http://www.vintagesynth.org/misc/vcs3.shtml>http://www.vintagesynth.org/misc/vcs3.shtml
>
>Alternatively just put EMS VCS3 into the search engine!!
>
>IMO this is how ALL synths should be made- and as soon as I have 2 grand to 
>burn, I will buy one of these beauties!!
>
>Tom :-)