seiko ds-250 additive synthesizer

pardon my lack of keyboard skills to demonstrate, this is just a short one for matrix since there wasn't much in the way of the seiko keyboards.

this was a craigslist find, hoping to resell but i might want to hold onto it for a little while. it does retro pads nicely. it reminds me of old organs i've used like the conn electric band sans spring reverb or the moog organ sans filter except the seiko is bi-timbral. it has some basic preset sounds selectable for each timbre which define timbre and attack while there are simple controls on each voice for volume, decay, modulation slider with a on/off switch for a delay into the lfo cycle. you can detune the voices up to 14 percent and you can assign each note of polyphony a few selectable intervals. a chorus reminescent of the old junos. single voice mode, bitimbral mode or split point voices. key transposable, volume controls, pitch wheel, on/off buttons and a nice layout with simple but nice led displays.

no memory but it's simple to setup. midi in/out./thru. midi seems primitive as i could really only get note on/off to respond although there is a way to recieve each voice over midi by a 16 way rotary switch by each voice 1/ voice 2 output on 1/4" also on the side panel is alternate summed mono output, headphone jack, pitch fine tune, stereo rca outputs. input to footswitch sustain (although mine wasn't working on a regular 1/4" footswitch) input for trs expresion pedal for volume. looks like there is room for modular expansion but i don't have any of the modular components to this keyboard. i could see how easy it would be to approach additive like this with really simple controls and some of the expanders but as you might imagine controls are limitied.makes for a nice retro pad machine. even though it's simple i like it because it's not trying to be anything else but itself.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• seiko
• ds
• 250
• modular
• additive
• synthesizer
• kawai
• k5000
• 310