(click to enlarge)

The rare Steiner-Parker Synthacon is a portable 3-VCO monophonic analog synthesizer that rivals the popular Minimoog with its fat tone, durable construction and stable, stable tuning. The Synthacon has the same circuitry as the modular SynthaSystem. Interestingly, the Synthacon's filter can self-oscillate like the Minimoog, but has an opposite polarity so it doesn't lose any volume when resonance is increased as do the Minimoog and Odyssey's filters.

Each of the Synthacon's 3 oscillators can be modulated by a variety of sources: LFO, EG1, EG2, VCF, sample-and-hold, and other oscillators. White and Pink noise make for brilliant ocean/wind sounds. The VCF filter is a multimode resonant beast switchable between high, band and lowpass filtering. It can be used to filter each of the oscillators and the noise gens. The shape of the filtering can be controlled by EG2, sample-and-hold, VCO3 or the keyboard. The VCA amp can control the oscillators, noise and filter. And there are (2) envelope generators which can control the VCA, oscillators, noise and filter.

Earlier models of the Synthacon had silver-faced front panels. Later a duophonic upgrade, the "Two Voice Synthacon" was released. The Synthacon has been used by Earth Wind and Fire, Joe Walsh, the Doors, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin - In the Light).

9 VISITOR COMMENTS

Kenneth

February 19, 2012 @ 11:26 pm

@bob: I'm right there with ya buddy. Getting pretty tired of all the synth demos where the player just sits there for 2.5-25 minutes just making the most grating, non-musical noise you can imagine. I'd really like to just hear some notes with a little filter swelling, so as to get a feel for how the oscillators sound in comparison to other models.

Bob

February 11, 2012 @ 5:00 pm

Well the demo gives no indication on whether this machine has any useful musical capabilities! A bunch of frozen turds in a metal bucket thrown down the stairs can make a racket too. So what.

matt

May 28, 2011 @ 6:27 am

looking for one ! boazjachin@yahoo.co.uk

Jakob

November 22, 2009 @ 1:07 pm

This was one of the many synths used on Depeche Mode's "Sounds of the Universe" album.

Benny

June 22, 2009 @ 2:18 pm

The Tuss (a.k.a. Richard D. James) also uses this, hell, he's even made a track called Synthacon 9, really awesome bass.

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