I've never spent so much money on one thing in my life. It took me months to save the thirty-five hundred to buy this instrument and enough patch cords to make patching more intricate. That said, the world of analog synth's in general is an expensive world and after looking around I decided on this one because it looked like a good entry-level modular synth, it has three VCOs two Envelopes, a multimode filter mased on the Korg MS 20, a ring modulator, joystick, eight step sequencer, two lfo's, and the basic utility components that every synth needs: multiples and a mixer. It also has midi which is pretty much standard for anything these days, and I'm glad it's there. The Vostok also has one other feature which sets it apart from all the other standard modular systems and all but a few of the old ones: a pin matrix for creating patches without the use of patch cords.
I think this is the place to begin because it was this along with the sequencer and joystick which first got me hooked.
I was already sprung on getting a fully modular synth some months ago as I watched my ill-fated experiment with a prophet 600 I bought off of Craigslist came to an expensive and depressing end, but as a friend of mine said to me about Craigslist: the odds are good but the goods are odd.
Matrix patching has a long though obscure life that traces itself back through the British synth company Electronic Music Studios (EMS for short) Who started manufacturing electronic instruments for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop back in the 1950's and 60's. EMS is really legendary for two products which are still commercially available and much sought after: the VCS3 and the Synthi AKS (also a suitcase synth) the AKS was made famous by prog rock bands like Pink Floyd who used it to program the sounds on Dark Side of the Moon (it's the instrument they used to make On the Run with). And everyone from Jean Michelle Jarre and Cabaret Voltaire used the AKS.
The EMS instruments were all patchable internally by these tiny peg-boards, called pin matrices. The internal components (Filter, Oscillators etc...) were all normaled to this board and you'd put a slender metal pin inside to create the sound or rout the voltage to other parts of the instrument. it was very neat, very tidy and very useful. A few other, smaller British synth makers also incorporated this design scheme but it never caught on like the patch cord, probably due to the price and relative fragility of the pins and the fact that tiny hols fill with dust over time and if you don't or can't keep the instrument covered it may start doing odd things on its own after a long time.
Ok so enough history for now.
This guy Tom Carpenter, who is the man behind a new synth company in the UK Analogue Solutions he brought it back and put it on this synth.
Probably sensing that he couldn't make a Synthi clone easily or affordably, or perhaps wanting to move forward taking the good ideas and leaving the past where it was, he decided to make an instrument that doesn't even look like an AKS and makes it very clear on his site that it's not supposed to be.
I really need to post some demos of this thing someplace because most of them on youtube aren't my cup of tea and where sometimes these things can be really helpful in making up ones mind to buy something these didn't, not at first any way....
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