Crumar Musical Instruments User Group.

I desperately need the schematics for a Stringman. I have had this since the 70's and can not find anyone locally to repair it.
Please if anyone can help I would be most grateful.

Oh WOW Chris this is awesome - You will not believe how grateful I am for your info.
Many many thanks for this invaluable information.
 
Physically this one has also deteriorated considerably and needs a contra bass rocker switch to be replaced.
I am sure that in a while with some T.L.C. it will be back to it's former glory.
This machine was hired by the recording studios here, in preference to all the others that were available at the time.
I will most definately keep in contact regarding the progress.
 
Man oh man this is unbelievable - May you and yours have an awesome Christmas holiday.
 
Best regards,

Dave Evans


________________________________
From: Christopher Mountford <chrisjmmountford@...>
To: crumar@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 1:53 AM
Subject: Re: [crumar] Crumar Stringman


  
Hi, I have a Crumar Stringman as well! I bought it 2 years ago in a sorry state but in that time I've given it some thorough restoration and it now fully works - apart from the chorus effect. 

The Crumar Stringman was also sold as the Univox Stringman in some countries. You can purchase a schematic here: http://www.musicparts.com/products.asp?Company=Univox

That's what I did and I can verify the schematic is the same as what's in my Crumar.

If you need any help, mail me.

Chris

On 21 Dec 2011, at 18:03, dw.evans wrote:

  
>I desperately need the schematics for a Stringman. I have had this since the 70's and can not find anyone locally to repair it.
>Please if anyone can help I would be most grateful.
>
>

Hey Chris,

Sorry to hijack this thread... I'm curious if the Stringman anything like the orchestrator string section? My orchestrator has an issue with just the string sound producing a "clipping" sort of sound - almost like the level is too high. All other sounds work fine... it's just the string sound that does this. I've been trying to figure out what the problem is forever. I recapped everything except the divider boards and tried adjusting the BBD/chorus board levels to no avail.  The schematic is a total pain  to navigate... If you have any tips (based off the Stringman), please let me know.

Thanks - DT

--- In crumar@yahoogroups.com, Christopher Mountford <chrisjmmountford@...> wrote:

>
> Hi, I have a Crumar Stringman as well! I bought it 2 years ago in a sorry state but in that time I've given it some thorough restoration and it now fully works - apart from the chorus effect.
> 
> The Crumar Stringman was also sold as the Univox Stringman in some countries. You can purchase a schematic here: http://www.musicparts.com/products.asp?Company=Univox
> 
> That's what I did and I can verify the schematic is the same as what's in my Crumar.
> 
> If you need any help, mail me.
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
> On 21 Dec 2011, at 18:03, dw.evans wrote:
> 
> > I desperately need the schematics for a Stringman. I have had this since the 70's and can not find anyone locally to repair it.
> > Please if anyone can help I would be most grateful.
> > 
> >
>

Hi Dave, no trouble at all.


I'm actually a guitarist but I wanted some vintage analog synths to dabble with so I bought my Crumar Stringman on eBay a couple of years ago in a so say 'working' condition. It did work to an extent, but needed a thorough sorting out, the sound would clip and was nowhere near usable.


Back then there was practically no useful information around at all bar a couple of external photos and some history. They seem pretty rare these days. In fact, until I requested it not even that schematic was available, and the few synth specialists here in the UK didn't offer much help.


With no previous synthesizer experience but some basic electrical knowledge how from maintaining valve amps and building effects pedal, I managed to fix most of its faults (bar the chorus effect) and it works great. Really nice lush sound.


On mine, I replaced all the electrolytic capacitors, a few resistors here and there, and had to replace a few SAJ110 chips (which can be difficult to get hold of).


Hope the restoration goes well, as I say, mail me if you need any assistance, I hope I can help.


Merry Christmas,


Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: dw kitbird <dw.evans@yahoo.com>
To: crumar <crumar@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Dec 23, 2011 2:36 pm
Subject: Re: [crumar] Crumar Stringman


  
    
                  

Oh WOW Chris this is awesome - You will not believe how grateful I am for your info.
Many many thanks for this invaluable information.
 
Physically this one has also deteriorated considerably and needs a contra bass rocker switch to be replaced.
I am sure that in a while with some T.L.C. it will be back to it's former glory.
This machine was hired by the recording studios here, in preference to all the others that were available at the time.
I will most definately keep in contact regarding the progress.
 
Man oh man this is unbelievable - May you and yours have an awesome Christmas holiday.
 
Best regards,

 
Dave Evans



From: Christopher Mountford <chrisjmmountford@aol.com>
To: crumar@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 1:53 AM
Subject: Re: [crumar] Crumar Stringman


  
Hi, I have a Crumar Stringman as well! I bought it 2 years ago in a sorry state but in that time I've given it some thorough restoration and it now fully works - apart from the chorus effect.


The Crumar Stringman was also sold as the Univox Stringman in some countries. You can purchase a schematic here: http://www.musicparts.com/products.asp?Company=Univox


That's what I did and I can verify the schematic is the same as what's in my Crumar.


If you need any help, mail me.


Chris




On 21 Dec 2011, at 18:03, dw.evans wrote:


  
I desperately need the schematics for a Stringman. I have had this since the 70's and can not find anyone locally to repair it.
Please if anyone can help I would be most grateful.

Hi DT,


Hmm, I've no experience with the Orchestrator but I assume the basics are fairly similar.


One of the main problems I had with the Stringman was that with some keys, rather than play a typical delayed string sound, I would get a sharp clipped spike instead. To solve that, I had to replace the electrolytic capacitors for each of the notes.


So, each note has it's own circuit controlling the 'delay' time of the note, the 'delay' created by a 4.7uf capacitor. Replacing it fixed it.


Maybe that can help, but I'm by no means an authority on synths, just a dabbler really.


Merry Christmas,


Chris



-----Original Message-----
From: scituate_mass <sneakyflute@gmail.com>
To: crumar <crumar@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Dec 23, 2011 2:36 pm
Subject: [crumar] Re: Crumar Stringman


  
    
                  
Hey Chris,

Sorry to hijack this thread... I'm curious if the Stringman anything like the orchestrator string section? My orchestrator has an issue with just the string sound producing a "clipping" sort of sound - almost like the level is too high. All other sounds work fine... it's just the string sound that does this. I've been trying to figure out what the problem is forever. I recapped everything except the divider boards and tried adjusting the BBD/chorus board levels to no avail.  The schematic is a total pain  to navigate... If you have any tips (based off the Stringman), please let me know.

Thanks - DT

--- In crumar@yahoogroups.com, Christopher Mountford <chrisjmmountford@...> wrote:

>
> Hi, I have a Crumar Stringman as well! I bought it 2 years ago in a sorry state but in that time I've given it some thorough restoration and it now fully works - apart from the chorus effect.
> 
> The Crumar Stringman was also sold as the Univox Stringman in some countries. You can purchase a schematic here: http://www.musicparts.com/products.asp?Company=Univox
> 
> That's what I did and I can verify the schematic is the same as what's in my Crumar.
> 
> If you need any help, mail me.
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
> On 21 Dec 2011, at 18:03, dw.evans wrote:
> 
> > I desperately need the schematics for a Stringman. I have had this since the 70's and can not find anyone locally to repair it.
> > Please if anyone can help I would be most grateful.
> > 
> >
>

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply.  I have the proper (or close enough) envelopes on each note, so I don't think that the keyer circuit (if that's what I should call it) is really the question.  At one point, I was having issues with multiple triggering from each note, but after recapping everything (except the boards for each note) the issue mostly went away.

Mine seems to have a different issue. With the string sound, There is a clipping  on each note. A very unpleasant, harsh sound riding in the higher frequencies that gets worse at high frequencies  (I can reduce it a bit by changing the tone to something darker).  There are three delay circuits under the keyboard which make the "string effect". Since the problem is only on the string sound, I suspected that something was amiss here. I tried changing the level of each one, but it didn't really help.  My efforts to trace where it started failed, as I am really really confused about the signal path in this thing. I've tried making sense of the schematics, but just keep getting lost with some of the ins and outs from each board.

http://yusynth.net/archives/divers/MULTIMAN-schematics.pdf

Does anyone out there have any experience with this clipping issue?  Or does anyone have any idea what else could be causing this?  Again, everything has been recapped except the individual cards for each note.... I don't really think this is the issue.

Maybe the orchestrator just sounds this way?????

Thanks,

Damon



--- In crumar@yahoogroups.com, chrisjmmountford@... wrote:

>
> Hi DT,
> 
> 
> Hmm, I've no experience with the Orchestrator but I assume the basics are fairly similar.
> 
> 
> One of the main problems I had with the Stringman was that with some keys, rather than play a typical delayed string sound, I would get a sharp clipped spike instead. To solve that, I had to replace the electrolytic capacitors for each of the notes.
> 
> 
> So, each note has it's own circuit controlling the 'delay' time of the note, the 'delay' created by a 4.7uf capacitor. Replacing it fixed it.
> 
> 
> Maybe that can help, but I'm by no means an authority on synths, just a dabbler really.
> 
> 
> Merry Christmas,
> 
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: scituate_mass <sneakyflute@...>
> To: crumar <crumar@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Fri, Dec 23, 2011 2:36 pm
> Subject: [crumar] Re: Crumar Stringman
> 
> 
>   
>     
>                   
> Hey Chris,
> 
> Sorry to hijack this thread... I'm curious if the Stringman anything like the orchestrator string section? My orchestrator has an issue with just the string sound producing a "clipping" sort of sound - almost like the level is too high. All other sounds work fine... it's just the string sound that does this. I've been trying to figure out what the problem is forever. I recapped everything except the divider boards and tried adjusting the BBD/chorus board levels to no avail.  The schematic is a total pain  to navigate... If you have any tips (based off the Stringman), please let me know.
> 
> Thanks - DT
> 
> --- In crumar@yahoogroups.com, Christopher Mountford <chrisjmmountford@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi, I have a Crumar Stringman as well! I bought it 2 years ago in a sorry state but in that time I've given it some thorough restoration and it now fully works - apart from the chorus effect.
> > 
> > The Crumar Stringman was also sold as the Univox Stringman in some countries. You can purchase a schematic here: http://www.musicparts.com/products.asp?Company=Univox
> > 
> > That's what I did and I can verify the schematic is the same as what's in my Crumar.
> > 
> > If you need any help, mail me.
> > 
> > Chris
> > 
> > 
> > On 21 Dec 2011, at 18:03, dw.evans wrote:
> > 
> > > I desperately need the schematics for a Stringman. I have had this since the 70's and can not find anyone locally to repair it.
> > > Please if anyone can help I would be most grateful.
> > > 
> > >
> >
>