Vintage Synth Explorer

Hammond • 102200

Around 1974/75 Hammond Japan released the 102200 Preset Synth - a single oscillator keyboard that was intended to complement (or sit on top of) your Hammond Organ or Piano. It is in the same league as the Pro-Soloist from Arp, the Satellite from Moog and the SH-1000 from Roland.

There are a desultory six presets. These are French Horn, Tuba, Violin, Sax, Clarinet and Solar Echo. The two things that make this synth very cool indeed are its rarity (around 200 were made and most of them were probably junked years ago) and the patch matrix that allows even a simple organist to get some pretty synth-like sounds by selecting buttons alongside a graphic of what the button does to the sound.

There probably is divide-down technology in there somewhere as the manual suggests multiple selection of octaves. A square and a triangle wave are available at 32',16', 8' and a saw wave only at 4'. There are over 300 possibilities using the matrix which is divided into: Tone Pitch, Tone Filter, Filter Rise and Fall, Attack and Decay, Pitch Bend, and Modulation. There's a filter modulatable noise source too.

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Posting Rules: Please keep your comments relevant! Do not post requests for help, do not use for sales, do not post unless you have something interesting to say about this instrument, or we may delete your post.

 

Kirk Slinkard

Posted 310 days ago

A unique monosynth, nothing else quite like it. No really huge or lush sounds, but it has a lot of personality. Using pushbuttons in stead of knobs reduces some of the flexibility and subtlety. It has parameters like "burble" and razz", and a respectable degree of modulation options can do some nifty sound effects and weird voices.

Steven Jones

Posted 373 days ago

I owned of these in 1978. I bought used for $4000 it was my first synth. It is a very weird instrument as it is a "synth" as only an organ manufacture would build one. There is a high frequency VCO which drives a top octave divider. The keyboard selects on of the 12 outputs of the TOD which in turn feeds a series of divided by two circuits for octave and wave shape. You can select either square or stair step wave in one of 4? octave ranges. Unfortunately with an overrated sence of ability at the age of 17 I tore it apart with the intent of making it polyphonic. Never did put it back together....

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