Russian Reed Sets
Posted: 09 May 2019, 18:42
Now for something completely different, a pair of Russian reed sets. Well, tone sets to be completely accurate. Shaun put me onto them on eBay, they looked interesting so I made an offer for the pair which was accepted and a few days later they have arrived from Bulgaria. Has anybody else seen anything like these before?
They're both heavily based on the Graupner Grundig Variophon/Varioton sets. The transmitters are very similar in some respects, even though the cases look very different, the joysticks are basically the same and the circuits look to be the same as well (I got manuals with diagrams). And the receiver and tone modules are complete rip-offs of the Varitons, they look identical and will actually mate with the real Variotons. And the servos are replicas of the Bellamatics and Servo-auto-matic.
Having said all of that I'm actually quite surprised by the quality of the cases and joysticks, the case is very solid and the joysticks feel the equal of the Graupner Variophon sets. Both sets were made in 1972, by which time the West had moved away from reeds/tone sets and moved to using proportional for multi.
Rather than convert them (sorry Phil), I'm going to test them and if they don't work try to get them working again.
Cheers
Mike
They're both heavily based on the Graupner Grundig Variophon/Varioton sets. The transmitters are very similar in some respects, even though the cases look very different, the joysticks are basically the same and the circuits look to be the same as well (I got manuals with diagrams). And the receiver and tone modules are complete rip-offs of the Varitons, they look identical and will actually mate with the real Variotons. And the servos are replicas of the Bellamatics and Servo-auto-matic.
Having said all of that I'm actually quite surprised by the quality of the cases and joysticks, the case is very solid and the joysticks feel the equal of the Graupner Variophon sets. Both sets were made in 1972, by which time the West had moved away from reeds/tone sets and moved to using proportional for multi.
Rather than convert them (sorry Phil), I'm going to test them and if they don't work try to get them working again.
Cheers
Mike