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10 May 2023
;)
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This custom purple modular synthesizer was built by Roger Arrick in 2002 and has been owned by several people over the years. Here's a quick history of it.
I built the purple synthesizer in 2002 just for fun - only one was made. It was finished in September. The build took several months as I spray-painted individual panels and worked them into production. Each panel was screen-printed by me which was typical of the time period. PCB assembly and final assembly of each module was done by the employees. I built the MDF cabinet in my Colleyville garage and installed the vinyl at work as I did most portable cabinets back then. The vinyl is grey with a cloth mesh backing that I bought at a local fabric store. The hardware (corners, edges, feet, handle) are all standard we used on production portable systems. All of the LEDs are blue instead of red.
Early on the purple synthesizer acquired the nickname 'BarneyCom'. I've also heard it called the Purple Haze.
The purple synthesizer has a module complement similiar to a standard QCS22 22-space portable system of the time but also has a Q150 ladder filter. Here's the product list with:
1) Q104 MIDI interface 1) Q105 Slew limiter 3) Q106 Oscillators (VCO) 1) Q107 State variable filter (VCF) 2) Q108 Amplifiers (VCA) 2) Q109 Envelope Generators (EG) 1) Q110 Noise 1) Q112 Mixer (3 knobs) 1) Q116 Ring Modulator 1) Q117 Sample/Hold 1) Q124 Multiples 1) Q125 Signal Processor 1) Q130 Clipper/Rectifier 1) Q137 Power Control/Interface 1) Q150 Ladder Filter (VCF) 1) QPS1 power supply 1) QDH20 power harness 1) Q138 Logo panel 1) QCP22 22-space Portable Cabinet with grey vinyl
The system has had several owners throughout the years and at one point I talked with an owner about buying it back but that didn't happen.
-Roger Arrick,
Synthesizers.com founder
In 2002 photography wasn't that great so what I have are 640x480 and 1024x768 images from a camera that wrote directly to a 3.5" floppy disk :) Here they are:
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The best pictures of BarneyCom come from ebay listings in 2009 and 2015 and here they are:
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If you currently have the purple synthesizer, or know its where-abouts, please send me an update on how it's doing :)