Spectron or Spectre Video Synthesizer

Related records

• The EMS Spectre Video Synthesizer Handbook Bibliography

  The EMS Spectre Video Synthesizer Handbook. Hand drawn illustrations and sample patches. Innovative Video Synthesiser using analogue and digital techniques. * Digital Matrix Patch Panel: 53 inputs by 57 outputs. * Analogue Matrix Patch Panel: 16 by 20. * Manual, VCO and Audio controls. * Digital cou…

• Peter Donebauer, Richard Monkhouse and the Development of the EMS Spectron and the Videokalos Image Processor Bibliography

  Development of the EMS Spectron and the Videokalos Image Processor

• Stephen Beck Chronology

  Stephen Beck, San Francisco, builds Direct Video Synthesizer 1, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

• Standards Bibliography

  Collection of documents by Eric Siegel concerning modifications to the Portapak and development of a video/color synthesizer, dated 1971–1976. Includes an article Modifications to Portapak in Radical Software (Summer 1971); press material for the video synthesizer (1971); a document titled Siegel Processing Chrominance Synthesiser (1975); spec sheets for gen lock, proc amp and synthesizer plus correspondence (1976); standards (1971); technical design information for an electronic synthesizer; and a patent for a video synthesizer (1972).

• Design Device - A Unique Video Synthesizer Tools

  Proposal from WMHT TV to the New York State Council on the Arts for the Design Device, a hybrid video synthesizer conceived by Tom DeWitt and Phil Edelstein in 1975 after sketches in Poughkeepsie; DeWitt developed the design drawing on documentation from an NEA Fellowship and with graphic help from Vibeke Sorensen. The instrument was specified to combine vector and intensity approaches, include RAM-based memory oscillators, a RuttEtra display, a camera-controlled matrix switch, a colorizer-sync adder and interfacing to PDP-11/10 computers; WMHT and the Electronic Music Studio at SUNYA supplied facilities and some equipment, the NEA awarded a $10,000 grant in April 1975, and the proposal budget totaled $22,000.26.

• The Video Synthesizer - Review of Existing Synthesizers, excerpted from "Design Device" Tools

  Tom Dewitt presents the Design Device, a proposed video synthesizer to be controlled by a mini-computer reading a formatted picture language; the instrument is intended to perform video synthesis and signal processing and to let artists prepare and record programs on paper. He reviews existing vector and intensity-based synthesizers and modular, matrix, and computer-controlled patch systems, citing Rutt/Etra, Stephen Beck, Dan Sandin, EMS Ltd., Computer Image Corp., Vector General, Arp, Woody and Steina Vasulka, Don Buchla and Bell Labs. Planned features include memory oscillators for arbitrary wipes, an outline generator to reduce volumes to lines, rotation via low-frequency sine-cosine control voltages, and colorization approaches using luminance, chrominance and hue.