This video captures a rare VHS-era intro to the E-Mu Morpheus and Z-Plane Synthesis.
Synthesist Gerry Bassermann discusses the Morpheus hardware and then digs into creating sounds with it.
The Z-Plane Filter, introduced with the Morpheus, lets you control the characteristics of the filter precisely, including frequency, bandwidth and degree of peak. This lets you get a wide variety of filter effects and also lets you morph between filter settings.
via Ran Jurgenson
About as difficult to use as the Yamaha Fs1R.
Nice video of a great synth that was incredibly exciting at the time.
Only problem is an apparent bug or glitch in the legato/solo mode which means it’s not really useable for lead sounds.
Nostalgia
When instructional videos were fun.
Shame this technology morphed out real quick.
The sound module and workstation era, that market was pretty saturated back then.
I remember Dave Bristow demoing this at a trade show in Rotterdam.
If it looks familiar here’s why…
https://youtu.be/utm5WLbZvJI
I got an Audity 2000 (still waiting for the plug in expansion boards) and I found the filters underwhelming considering how they were sold to us
The concept is still cool. The sounds are still meh.
I just ran across this VHS last night while searching for some old sample disks. Definitely one of my favorite modules from the past.
Eight-point function generators, controlling loop points for the on-board samples, a modulation matrix, 7 stereo resonant filters per voice, external signal routing, and some expansion via the internal ROM slot, not to mention the external ROM card. There’s a lot of potential that can get overlooked. This is probably due to the tiny UI.
I think it’s not terribly easy to work with, but it’s not as lackluster as may appear on first look.
For instance, here’s a very nice example of someone using it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2T3HpT8pFo