Turtlerock Forum

I know it's a long shot, but quiet often you guys come through for me..

I'm looking for either of these bad boys.

Wanted Dead or Alive, Working or not.... I like a good project.

I'm in Sydney, but am fine organising a courier / freight.

The Arp Quadra is a prog rockers dream, and a has a horrible reliablity record..

The SCI Prophet VS is a early digital 'Vector Synth' with a sound straight out of 1986.

Kind regards
Mike

I bought a Quadra new in 1981. It was a 1 trick pony and so flawed that I kicked myself for not spending the $5000.00 on a Prophet instead. The phaser is really nice, the rest is infuriating. CPU is mask programmed, if it fails you will have to write an OS for it to get it going. Overall mean time between failures according to an ARP engineer was 19 hours. Hideous to work on, it is a frankenstein machine inside. If the mylar touch pads fail it's game over. Probably the best looking synthesiser ever made. The one in your picture is modified. I would much prefer and Omni II, an odyssey and a Biphase.

Prophet VS is nice, some very hard to get parts inside.

Quadra is rare as hens teeth, good luck finding one...

Thirteen wrote: I would much prefer and Omni II, an odyssey and a Biphase.

That's funny, I've got them.

I never new about the CPU. Maybe it's crazy dream after all.

Hey Steve,

When you say the Quadra is hideous to work on, do you mean like a Prophet 5 with the two boards sandwiched together can't easily work on it sort of deal, or just a mess of ribbon cables like a memorymoog sort of deal?
Or something even more hideous?

I'm genuinely interested in where you are coming from.

Mike

I have an Eminent Solina I'd probably sell.

Love the VS, but I sold mine over ten years ago due to the unobtanium parts.

The last quadra I played was in 1982 !
Wave station ad has most of the vs waveforms in it (as I'm sure you'd know)

I had my VS at the same time a work partner owned a Wavestation AD.
We never A/B'ed them, but I felt my VS was darker (more adult - sorry I know). The annoying thing about the Wavestation for me were the amount of pre-sets that had sequenced moving timbres.
Did they really sound similar, or could you program the Wavestation to do the same things as the VS?

Futureman wrote:Hey Steve,

When you say the Quadra is hideous to work on, do you mean like a Prophet 5 with the two boards sandwiched together can't easily work on it sort of deal, or just a mess of ribbon cables like a memorymoog sort of deal?
Or something even more hideous?

I'm genuinely interested in where you are coming from.

Mike

All of those.

ChrisW wrote:I have an Eminent Solina I'd probably sell.

Love the VS, but I sold mine over ten years ago due to the unobtanium parts.

Thanks for the offer, but I already have an Eminent Solina. Great bit if kit. Certainly is an awesome keyboard. What I love about the solina is that it can be very buried in a track, but still be a driving force in the song. All those tracks by 'Air' that have that lovely solina through then.. Great stuff.

Mike

Another Bump

Still looking for a Prophet VS.

Steve (Thirteen) may be shaking is head, but I finally got a Quadra.

(Much thanks to a local member here.. )

It's not 100% working, but the micro is working fine, as are the membrane buttons.

Physically it's in great shape.. 5 busted sliders, but I've ordered some replacements.

I've already fixed a few faults in it & ordered a hundred capacitors to replace all the tantalums.. compared to other things i've repaired this is looking very promising.

Can't wait till it's 100%

It's the Alfa Romeo of synths.

Oh dear.

Thirteen wrote:It's the Alfa Romeo of synths.

It sure is... but I moonlight as a Alfa Romeo mechanic... lol

Congrats Mike... Let me know in a few years when you want to sell it !

Congrats Mike... Let me know in a few years when you want to sell it !

Congrats Mike... Let me know in a few years when you get it working !

Thirteen wrote:Congrats Mike... Let me know in a few years when you get it working !

Now that a few years have past, I can say that it's nearly 100% working.

Had a few dead opamps, some ill logic IC's and a bunch of leaky tantalum caps.

I've got one dead transistor array IC (vca for strings) which I've ordered and the phaser needs work (haven't looked at the phaser yet)
But apart from them & a few other small issues I'm out of the woods. This turkey is gonna fly.

Cheers
Mike

Bumping this post.

I got my Tax back and am again looking for a Prophet VS or Roland SH7

I'm happy to offer market value for either of these.

Let me know if you know of one for sale!