BONTEMPI AZ 1200

[migraneboy]

This is a big synth I got a while back.( almost a meter long) It says Digital-PCM-Stereo-Midi-Synth on the cover.. Made In Italy!
It has wave envelopes, lots of sounds, accompanient, bassfollowers, rythms, stereo chorus, easy chord, intro/outro fill ... lots and lots of buttons and functions.

I Haven´t found ANYTHING about it on the net, and as it´s a smooth sounding synth I´ve been hesitating to bend it. But yesterday I tought "fuck that, let´s open it and stick some wires in there"..

It has 1 x 40pin IC and 5 x 28pin IC´s that all give instant bending, one 62pin IC that so far crashed it (from the few pins I was brave enough to test it), and a shitload of smaller IC´s that do bend.

It has been very stable (exept for the 62pin IC) and the sounds are just magic.. from easychord IDM to slow noise drones, it´s been very cool..

Drop a line if you know something about these types of Bontempi synths..

[andy_wheels]

the only bontempi i've fiddled with is one of '666' ones. it did some great 'sa' style crashes before killing itself.

i have a bontempi 'memoplay' to play with at the mo. think it's another squarewave synth. should be fun.

[iqoruvuc]

I dusted down my Bontempi ES 5300 last night which I started bending but forgot about it for a while.  It has three big IC's on the board: one that just triggers keyboard sounds and does nothing particularly interesting, another one that looks like it an EPROM or something which I decided I should not play with and one that alters the rhythm sounds.

The bends I am working alter the timbre of the drum sounds, usually just one part like the snares and can be controlled by pot or body contact. Some are so sensitive that you only need to pick up the wire by its insulation and it effects the sound.  You can cut out the kick drum with one bend and on another cut the hi hats.   The drum sounds alter in a way that sounds like when the batteries are dying or you have installed a voltage crash pot.  i have not tried a crash pot yet, not sure if it will work because my batteries were low and it just stopped working; no crazy freaky sounds beforehand.

I haven't been able to alter any of the keyboard sounds unfortunately, but maybe there would be some scope with the third IC I have so far neglected.  It's different from all the other IC's and is mounted in a socket with just a white label with some computer printed numbers on the top.  I don't know if it is an EPROM becuase i have never seen one before I don't think, and I do not know if they would use one in a keyboard like this.  I don't know if anyone has seen anything like this before in other Bontempi keyboards?

[andy_wheels]

i found a bontempi AZ 1200 this morning... what a big, odd looking machine... midi too which is nice. always a bonus.

looking forward to some major ic bending. guess a patch bay is the way forward?