From rvb@out.phys.msu.suThu Nov 30 09:09:19 1995
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 16:09:55 
From: rvb@out.phys.msu.su
To: ANALOGUE@hyperreal.com
Subject: Soviet synth OPUS

Hello Analogue!

I'd like to inroduce you to another my synth, which most of you not heard of
i think. If you remember i have already told you about the ALTAIR 231, VENTA
and some other Soviet stuff. This another one is the biggest and heaviest
among my synthesysers. I brought it from ~100 km outside of Moscow and now it
lies here on the floor taking significant part of my badroom/studio. Its name
is OPUS ad it was produced in 1985 in Soviet Latvia. It weights 40 killogram
and is 1005x500x210 mm in size. Fortunately i have got all the manuals with
it. It is black metal top and dark wooden parts. It has 3 pedals (volume,
filter cutoff and sustain), 1 line out and 1 headphones out. There are ring
modulator, selectable Low Pass, Band Pass or High Pass resonant filter and
phaser. The synth is polyphonic. The keyboard is 5 octaves and it has the
Pitch Bend. The front pannel consists of 2 long rows of knobs. The names on
of the knobs are in English unfortunately. Here are the names of the parts
on the front pannel (from left to right):

Ring Modulator (3 knobs) - Depth, Coarse, Fine.
Filter (8 knobs) - PED/MAN/Glide, Start (init cutoff), Stop (cutoff),
       LP/BP/HP selector, Wah-Wah Rate and Depth, Duration (between Start
       and stop cut off points), Resonance.
Bass (8 knobs) - Drum (adds BD to the attack of the sound), Bass On/Off (if it
       On, the 1st and the 2nd octaves play bass sound and other play pads;
       if it is Off, the whole keyb plays with pads), Level (Master vol. of
       the bass) and the other are volumes of Bass components - Subbass 16',
       Rectangle 16', Tibia 8', Funk 8', Piano 8'. All components play
       together and can be mixed with different levels.
Piano (7 knobs) - Phase/+Ring/+Filter (which elemnts the sound goes through),
       Level, Piano, Harpsichord, Honky-Tonk, Tremolo Rate and Depth.
String Organ (7 knobs) - Phase/+Ring/+Filter, Sustain, Repeat (freq of
       repetition of the notes), Tremolo/Off/Repeat switch (when it is in
       Repeat position the sounds are being repeated cosntantly while the
       note is on), Level, Tremolo Rate and Depth.
Vibrato (3 knobs) - Delay, Rate, Depth.
Phaser (2 knobs) - Rate, Depth.
Mains - On/Off switch (power).

The sound. It is very metallic (if it correct to say so) and quite unique.
Also it can give a very warm brass or strings as well dark bass. It also is
very good in producing some metallic jawharp-like sounds with the HP filter
and phaser.

Thank you if you found my message interesting. I am sorry, but i am not
subscribed to the list. Reply to rvb@out.phys.msu.su

Roman

P.S.: I am thinking of making a Web page with pictures/samples of Russian
synths. If you would like to have a link to it, just write me.