In my junkbox I found this vintage 1977 (or so) 76477 synthesizer chip- this model used to be used in arcade machines. It was gonna be another Matchbox Synth - you can see I have the case all prepped - but, whether because it’s old and broken, or because I wasn’t using it right, I couldn’t get any sounds out of it except for these.
Still, you may not have seen and heard the last of Syntho ‘77!
Yesterday’s Thing was a breath controller- blow into it to control the volume of today’s Thing: the Fish Organ, so named because the box used to contain smoked fish. And it sounds a little something like this.
The keyboard is copper tape cut to shape. It’s tuned (approximately) to the twelve tone Just scale based on 2’s, 3’s, and 5’s. When the little red plug is plugged into the "No breath" jack, the thing plays at full volume without the breath controller.
A little electronic goof-off, late 80s Acid House style. Not really planning this for my Thing-A-Day…just playing around in Reason 3 with my mouse and no MIDI controller, adding drum machine layers, sweeping filters on the Subtractor synth, and recording live to Cool Edit Pro. Kinda meh, kinda meh.
Her’s the mp3:
http://www.mediafire.com/?d1mygwmjjb6
I’ll probably get back to the Chicago notebook tomorrow.
