6 ms·

Loumavox, the Forgotten, Mysterious Synthesizer from Louise and Marc Voksinski

32 points by VieEnCode 5y ago

Mizza 5y ago
I've been building synths lately and the hardest part is getting them in tune, and to have multi-octave tracking. It's still hard these days, amazing that they were able to get it working without all the tooling and collective knowledge we have now.
- black_knight 5y ago
  What kind of synth building? From components? Do you mean tuning or calibration? Or designing the oscillators with decent tracking? I ask because I use some analogue synths, but they track quite well. Tuning is a hassle but not really hard. But calibration seems to be a different story.
  - Mizza 5y ago
    I've been building from components, but now designing my own circuits. It's easy with chips like the 3340, but still requires calibration. With just basic opamps though, getting v/oct and good tracking is really, really hard and is really temperature sensitive, so requires mechanical work like epoxy resins and heatsinks, etc..
    - black_knight 5y ago
      Awesome! Synth design is definitely something I would look into if I had more time for hobbies. I feel like hardware synths are really getting a revival these days.
detaro 5y ago
via Hainbach, some arguments for why it might be fake: https://twitter.com/Hainbach101/status/1471798144698658821 https://twitter.com/Hainbach101/status/1471798144698658821 (mentioned domain doesnt exist, knobs look 3d-printed, ...)
- lil_dispaches 5y ago
  The knobs look like resin to me.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Probably the one labeled "SOUTEiN" — appears to have that "layered" look.
    - wazoox 5y ago
      Also the fact that the words are word-to-word translations of Attack Decay Sustain Release is weird; why would they use exactly the same terms if invented in isolation? Particularly the choice of "déclin" and "soutien" are weird, and "relâche" is clearly wrong ("relâchement" would be the correct term).
      - S_A_P 5y ago
        This. Think of other early synths like the minikorg 700s. The filter is called the “traveler” for instance. I don’t think that most of the “synth jargon” was coined just yet. Even the mini moog has non standard labeling. Aside from being a hoax, if the synth is real it’s definitely a very cool project and from what I heard quite usable as a mono synth.
- rvense 5y ago
  I want it to be true, but the notebooks don't really look like they've been in a shed for 50 years either...
telesilla 5y ago
Lovely fake doc that excites the imagination. There are plenty of actual and real unknown synths out there - my personal favorite is one I have had the pleasure to play personally and that moment is one of my favorite life memories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANS_synthesizer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANS_synthesizer. Analogue synths are amazing beasts.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Regardless, history is for the hardware that changed music, changed the field. A device that never made it out of the inventor's garage should not be a "synth history changer". It can of course be a curiosity.
  - mountain_peak 5y ago
    My personal favourite is the McLeyvier Amadeus [0][1] - a synth that just barely made it out of the garage. Timing was key, as the McLeyvier was a digitally (full-fledged computer)-controlled analog synth released just around the same time as the Fairlight CMI, which was a game changer. The company that backed the synth (Hazelcom) subsequently used the parallel processing technology to develop the GIS industry with PCI Geomatics [2], so the development of a synth that was doomed from the start turned out to be a game-changer in another field. [0] https://collections.nmc.ca/objects/275/mcleyvier-amadeus https://collections.nmc.ca/objects/275/mcleyvier-amadeus [1] http://retiary.org/ls/writings/cmj_mcleyvier.html http://retiary.org/ls/writings/cmj_mcleyvier.html [2] https://www.geospatialworld.net/article/first-person-dr-robert-moses-a-doctor-who-knows-the-neurons-of-computer/ https://www.geospatialworld.net/article/first-person-dr-robe...
dreamcompiler 5y ago
Cute. The dead giveaway in the documentary is that nobody bothered to pick up a screwdriver and open the thing. In 1968 the only way to build such a device would have been with individual transistors, and quite a large number of them given that it had a sequencer. The box would have been jam-packed, and the linear power supply alone would have made it quite heavy. Today you could probably build the thing with an arduino.

32 points by VieEnCode 5y ago

I've been building synths lately and the hardest part is getting them in tune, and to have multi-octave tracking. It's still hard these days, amazing that they were able to get it working without all the tooling and collective knowledge we have now.

black_knight 5y ago
What kind of synth building? From components? Do you mean tuning or calibration? Or designing the oscillators with decent tracking? I ask because I use some analogue synths, but they track quite well. Tuning is a hassle but not really hard. But calibration seems to be a different story.
- Mizza 5y ago
  I've been building from components, but now designing my own circuits. It's easy with chips like the 3340, but still requires calibration. With just basic opamps though, getting v/oct and good tracking is really, really hard and is really temperature sensitive, so requires mechanical work like epoxy resins and heatsinks, etc..
  - black_knight 5y ago
    Awesome! Synth design is definitely something I would look into if I had more time for hobbies. I feel like hardware synths are really getting a revival these days.

detaro 5y ago

via Hainbach, some arguments for why it might be fake: https://twitter.com/Hainbach101/status/1471798144698658821 https://twitter.com/Hainbach101/status/1471798144698658821 (mentioned domain doesnt exist, knobs look 3d-printed, ...)

lil_dispaches 5y ago
The knobs look like resin to me.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Probably the one labeled "SOUTEiN" — appears to have that "layered" look.
  - wazoox 5y ago
    Also the fact that the words are word-to-word translations of Attack Decay Sustain Release is weird; why would they use exactly the same terms if invented in isolation? Particularly the choice of "déclin" and "soutien" are weird, and "relâche" is clearly wrong ("relâchement" would be the correct term).
    - S_A_P 5y ago
      This. Think of other early synths like the minikorg 700s. The filter is called the “traveler” for instance. I don’t think that most of the “synth jargon” was coined just yet. Even the mini moog has non standard labeling. Aside from being a hoax, if the synth is real it’s definitely a very cool project and from what I heard quite usable as a mono synth.
rvense 5y ago
I want it to be true, but the notebooks don't really look like they've been in a shed for 50 years either...

telesilla 5y ago

Lovely fake doc that excites the imagination. There are plenty of actual and real unknown synths out there - my personal favorite is one I have had the pleasure to play personally and that moment is one of my favorite life memories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANS_synthesizer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANS_synthesizer. Analogue synths are amazing beasts.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
Regardless, history is for the hardware that changed music, changed the field. A device that never made it out of the inventor's garage should not be a "synth history changer". It can of course be a curiosity.
- mountain_peak 5y ago
  My personal favourite is the McLeyvier Amadeus [0][1] - a synth that just barely made it out of the garage. Timing was key, as the McLeyvier was a digitally (full-fledged computer)-controlled analog synth released just around the same time as the Fairlight CMI, which was a game changer. The company that backed the synth (Hazelcom) subsequently used the parallel processing technology to develop the GIS industry with PCI Geomatics [2], so the development of a synth that was doomed from the start turned out to be a game-changer in another field. [0] https://collections.nmc.ca/objects/275/mcleyvier-amadeus https://collections.nmc.ca/objects/275/mcleyvier-amadeus [1] http://retiary.org/ls/writings/cmj_mcleyvier.html http://retiary.org/ls/writings/cmj_mcleyvier.html [2] https://www.geospatialworld.net/article/first-person-dr-robert-moses-a-doctor-who-knows-the-neurons-of-computer/ https://www.geospatialworld.net/article/first-person-dr-robe...

dreamcompiler 5y ago

Cute. The dead giveaway in the documentary is that nobody bothered to pick up a screwdriver and open the thing. In 1968 the only way to build such a device would have been with individual transistors, and quite a large number of them given that it had a sequencer. The box would have been jam-packed, and the linear power supply alone would have made it quite heavy. Today you could probably build the thing with an arduino.