Article 20963 of rec.music.makers.marketplace: Path: news.u.washington.edu!netnews.nwnet.net!ns1.nodak.edu!news.uoknor.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsjunkie.ans.net!newstf01.news.aol.com!newsbf02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: lloydt6975@aol.com (LloydT6975) Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.marketplace Subject: INFO on PEAVEY SPECTRUM SYNTH!! Date: 9 Apr 1995 22:08:10 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Lines: 46 Message-ID: <3ma3ua$rhr@newsbf02.news.aol.com> The Peavey Spectrum Synth was originally created to emulate analog synths. As it progressed, it became apparent that some digital waves could be added to the already powerful synth engine. Before we get into the features, let me say that no other hybrid synth offers this much for so little. Retail price is only $399. For $399, you get 24 osc, 12 note polyphony, 4 part multi, 12 dynamic resonant filters that can be 4 pole lp- 2pole lp- band pass- or high pass, 4 AHDSR envelopes, 24 LFO's, hard sync, Poly, Legato, and Solo modes, stereo outs ( also dynamic panning), and 2 meg of the most awesome wave rom on the planet. Now for the details. Let's start with an osc. This can be any wave you choose. You can set the wavestart to vary the phase relationship ( as a real analog osc ) either manually, or with any of the 16 modulators. Osc pitch can be the same as above, and you have several ranges which you can fine tune to get even the slightest amount of pitch change. The DCA's for the osc have a level and 2 mod sources ( 16 modulators), with mod sensitivity. Also note that hard sync is available to use on the osc pair. The filter section has cutoff, resonance, 2 mod sources with sensitivity, Resonance mod source with sensitivity, and a dedicated filter envelope with amount. As mentioned earlier, you have a choice of 2 pole or 4 pole low pass, band pass, or high pass. This filter is probably the closest I have ever heard to an analog one. Lots of resonance, and very big and fat sounding. There is portamento with the same feel as the classic analog synths, and portamento time mod!! As for panning, well you can go crazy and assign it to hard pan ( L,R) or use the two mod sources ( w/16 modulators) for anything from dynamic panning to " hold on to your hat" spinning !!! As if this wasn't enough to get your mouth watering, we have "sample and Hold." Remember when you listened to ELP for the first time and heard all these random notes flying everywhere, THIS IS IT!" This is just one of the many things you can do with this excellent feature. There is a 2 voice mode which stacks 4 osc for killer bass, lead, or any other sound that needs to be huge. Think of the detuning possibilities. And if you have 2 or more Spectrum Synths, use the Autoflow feature to increase polyphony or just to stack lots of sounds. And last, but definately least, is the sound rom. The tonal palette of this monster was sampled from the very best of the classic synths. like the Prophet VS, Minimoog, Prophet 5, ARP 2600, Jupiter's and many others. The list reads like a who's who of analog history. I hope this answers your questions abought this new synth. If you crave vintage, as well as unique new sounds, you really need to check this out. None of the other "VINTAGE" clones can compare with the features any price of this one. If you have other questions, please EMAIL me and I will try and answer them as quickly as I can. " ANALOG RULES !!!" and this is the only acceptable substitute. Message 1/30 From Lx Rudis Dec 9, 96 04:10:29 pm -0700 Comments: Authenticated sender is Subject: Re: Matrix 6? Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 16:10:29 -0700 >The Peavy Spectrum synths are being blown out for about $200 at various places. >Its a 12 voice rackmount that is supposed to be or sound "analog"... Rompler, with a lot of fun mod routings. the filter emulation ain't exatcly "analogue", but sounds interesting and "good" anyway. i like the sound of this instrument. >You need an editor or slider box to make custom patches...the front panel >is very minimal... beyond minimal. you have access to patch change, transposition, midi mode and that's about it. this thing lives thru sysex...the internal ROM has ability to "download" a complete editing template to the PC1600 controller. very nice. >Has anyone here used these? about a year. >Any gotcha's? several bugs. one crash bug, that RANDOMLY pops up, mostly when the thing is tryihng to deal with "multimode". an "overflow" bug where the thing assumes there's another spectrum at the end of midi out - so it tries to overflow voices to that spectrum, even if it's only a midl line going back to the MIDI patchbay...you can only have midi in hooked up, so downloads of sysex are a bit tricky... >Any comparison to the Matrix 6 >or 1000? yes, lotsa routing possibilities. definitely not an analogue filter, but if you've alreaty got representatives of that sound, no big deal. i'd have to characterize the peavey as sounding like a CZ "AM" type synth, with a "big" sound, and snappy envelopes. i complained about the crash bug, peavey sent me new firmware, and it still crashes. for some reason, it seems to "get better" the more times you run it on a given piece of music (this makes no sense to me, either), but i still wouldn't rely on it for live performance. quiet, clean sounding, with hundreds of cool waveforms to mangle with the onboard synth stuff. the filter turns into shattered glass if you boost resonance too much, and like some cheap filters out there, when you lower emphasis and cutoff, it just tends to make sounds more,,,errr,,,"muffled". multimode "filter": low, band, hi. S/H separate from the two LFOs per voice. you can stack two of the two oscillator voices to make a single four oscillator voice. most of the presets are interesting sounding, and i've written several tunes based on them. strange limitations in editing due to the crudity of the internal "edit" system, and no easy way to reverse analyze how peavey did some of the presets. PC1600 is _a very powerful tool_, but using those 16 sliders and 20 pages of slider setup to program a synth is less than intuitive. you could do a hell of a lot worse for two hundred bucks. Peavey apparantly was a bit of a pig to some of the sound designers who supplied waveforms. endrant. <^><^<^>><^<^<^>^>^<^^<^<^>^>^>^<>^>^^>^>^>^<^<>^<^>^<^>^<^<^>^>^^<>^<^>^> > Lx Rudis, Grand Creator to the Court of FHT DEV.C0RP. < < MediaGulch Prefecture, SFcaUSA > > lx@fht.com < <^>^<^^<^<^>^>^>^<>^>^^>^^> http://www.fht.com <^^<^<^>^>^>^<>^>^^^>^<^>^>