Built in 1979-81, the Soundmaker has Synth, String and Piano/Brass Sections. The Monophonic Synth section has 12 preset sounds (Tuba, Trombone, Trumpet, Sax, Clarinet, Oboe, Flute, Piccolo, Violin, Accordion, El Bass, El Guitar) and one Free patch which lets you use the controls to create your own sound. Basic controls for the filter, the one ADSR for the filter and/or the VCA, and the LFO are laid out plain and simple.

The Polyphonic Preset Synth section has Volume & Brightness controls for its four preset Piano type sounds (Piano, Electric Piano, Honkey Tonk, Brass).

The String section offers a fairly decent string sound with Volume, Brightness, Attack and Sustain controls for a choice of two preset strings (8" footage or 4" footage).

The Soundmaker is a bulky synth, weighing in at 27kg! Its keyboard may be split (at middle F only) and the Strings and Poly Synth sections play with the left hand and the Mono Synth plays with the right hand. The keyboard also has polyphonic aftertouch which can be used to control the Mono Synth Brilliance, OSC (vibrato), Synth Glide or Brass Brilliance. The String and Poly Synth sections can be switched to monophonic at the same time. The Farfisa is not the best String Machine you'll ever hear, but it is very rare and that alone gives these machines some serious vintage appeal.

Alex

January 26, 2011 @ 11:54 am

I also bought one here in Italy in 1982, it was my first synth. At that time I did a lot of exhiting sounds using filters, obtaining sounds very different from original. Unfortunately I left for a while in a basement with some humidity problems and now the case is a bad condition, and also both poly and mono sections need to be re-tuned.

jamie

October 4, 2010 @ 6:41 am

Also have one..bought a year ago for 500EUR in very nice condition, everything works fine. Soundmaker deffinitelly have an incredibly wide range of interesting sounds, using the combination of mono and poly section. Sweet function is holding the tone + LFO + splitting the keyboard. Keys have a very good response, its fun to play on it. Im really interested in information how much of these were made, so they are so rare at these days.

Emanuele Placidi

February 7, 2009 @ 8:10 am

Wonderful instrument..seems to be rare also here in Italy! I repaired one of this last week and its sound is absolutely amazing! You can create tons of different sound on the mono section by using the "free" register and then modify Filter responde and Envelope of the presets.

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