stephen_rainsbury's Reviews
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Not for everybody
This unique piece of history owes more to home organ design than the few synthesizers that were about during the early 70s. The single oscillator, which should probably be called a tone generator, can switch in 4 output waves at octave intervals, and different wave forms, but nothing as subtle as individual volumes. Envelope can either be fast percussive, slow percussive or organ like on off, and you can have vibrato off or at one of two different speeds. This all gives you the choice of over 200 basic sounds, all of which can be modified with a built in photo sensor, not unlike the Roland d-beam, to add pitch modulation or "waa-waa" effect, and what you get depends as much on how you play it as how you set it up. The "keyboard" is an extended version of that found on a standard stylophone, and I have to confess that when I bought mine it was tarnished and pitted so not terribly reliable. I have stripped it down and cleaned it which helped, but I wouldn't want to do this too often and the silvering appears to be very thing and I don't think it would take much to get it back to bare copper. However the 350s has one final party piece which I haven't seen on anything else since. It has two stylii, and if you select the "re-iteration" and use both styli at the same time the tone generator will arpeggiate between them. Not exactly polyphonic but if you feed the output through a short delay and them maybe a phaser you can soon build up some very dense swirling sounds. I love mine, but it isn't a go-to machine for building up a song. more of a machine to experiment with and develop ideas that can be built up into a new piece. Recommended out board effects would have to be the Zoom CDR-70 and Boss Bass synthesizer for some really funky bass lines.
Inspirational
I originally wanted this just for the long "Fripertronics" delays, but soon found myself making and playing along with loops. Not so much Ed Sheeran but more like the Radiophonic workshop from the 1960s
Cheap, fun and often overlooked sound source.
Out of the box this appears to be very limited, short keyboard, no envelope control and only one sound modification option, however that already makes it more flexible than many orchestral instruments, and they seem to manage. For me they really come alive when you start adding effects pedals, and then the imperfections in the sound can turn it into a snarling, sweating beast from beyond. My favourite options are the Digitech RP55 or a Behringer BSY Bass synthesizer and Nux Time Core, you would be hard pushed to recognise the sound source, but you know its dirty and by heck its fun.