The Monster Bass Synth Soviet Children Played

[@Hainbach]

Like Soviet Synths & effects? Try the Wire Recorder Plugin I made with AudioThing: www.audiothing.net/effects/wires/ Sounds and Music from this video: patreon.com/hainbach

[@vladimirkuzminpolivoks]

Yes it was invented by my wife's father and was the 1st electronic musical instrument in our plant, the start of the whole direction. And it was awarded by the medal of VDNH USSR - the central exhibition of economic achievements of the country.

[@Hainbach]

Beautiful, thank you for sharing that! And so nice to see you here again.

[@sysOpModular]

That's a cool interesting story, thanks for sharing!

[@Death_By_Media]

Looking forward to your Polivoks mkII or whatever you will be calling it . Keep your partners in that venture on their toes .

[@kevinbirge2130]

I bet it was prized by children.

[@TallicaMan1986]

USSR arguably had the best doors in the world.

[@DeadWhiteButterflies]

It sounds like Earthbound crossed with Metroid. Love it. One of the few things on the channel that I can first both get and use, and second, might be affordable to do so.

[@davidkellett4794]

both of those soundtracks were programmed by the same composer! Hirokazu Tanaka is the best; he co wrote the Earthbound soundtrack with Keiichi Suzuki but Tanaka was responsible for putting the songs into videogame form and choosing the sounds.

[@DeadWhiteButterflies]

@@davidkellett4794 That does explain a lot. Both amazing soundtracks in their own right.

[@valdisk3502]

This was my first synthesizer. Very educational. And yes, it came with complete circuity schematics in the manual, as was the norm in USSR. It was quite rugged, but the key contacts were unreliable and would oxidize and malfunction.

[@nazimelon6653]

Man try just getting a general direction for fixing a car nowadays, meanwhile in the mothetland, you got full on schematics in kids´ toys. thats kinda dope.

[@westsenkovec]

@@nazimelon6653 this is not Russia specific. Almost all electronics came with schematic diagram. Some had a manual while others devices had it printed inside, like TV's, for instance.

[@alakani]

@@nazimelon6653 They said “was”. Cronyism won there too

[@mattpowell557]

@@alakani not Cronyism, neo liberal market reforms

[@GungKrisna12]

Maybe the rights to repair is highly enforced there

[@radarmusen]

Like the Russian ‘right to repairers’ schematic included. The sound is retro gameish ,was thinking about Tetris at the start.

[@TradieTrev]

Tetris!! I think you hit the nail on the head there!

[@Grenade80]

And Tetris was also invented by russian :P

[@MoraFermi]

The schematic wasn't a luxury or a representation of some lofty idea, it was an absolute necessity in basically any electronic gear. Components were often of dubious quality and failures were common.

[@Max_Mustermann]

We had an 8-bit Soviet bloc microcomputer when I was a child. The manual came with the full schematics too.

[@Ostin3232]

Dude this is my first synth! Laugh! I was five years old and my grandmother took me to a toy store and instead of choosing a car or another toy, I definitely wanted only this FAEMI! Holy cow, how I tortured my relatives with this sound!)))

[@justmayo6097]

The feeling of seeing an instrument in a thrift store, garage sale or toy store when I was a kid and being able to get it was a great one lol, love instruments, especially ones with keys

[@oleg.ptiitz]

Ору

[@AlexBallMusic]

When you switched over from the speaker to the direct out it was like a totally different instrument. Fun review as ever, I've never heard of this thing. In UK schools we didn't have anything with that character. We had those keyboards with the "DJ" button that everyone would press repeatedly. A friend of mine is a teacher who found a way to plug all the keyboards into the same loop so he could cut the power to them all in one go when the "DJ! DJ! DJ! DJ! DJ! DJ!" pressing got too much. He would have struggled in Russia with these things.

[@chriswareham]

You must be much younger than me - all we had at school were an out of tune piano, xylophones missing a bunch of notes and a Casio CZ-101 that our teacher considered to be "not a real instrument". I often wonder what happened to that poor Casio that we weren't allowed to use, I hope it's enjoyed a second life with someone who appreciates it.

[@cyn0_]

I love those DJ keyboards, an iconic sound of my childhood

[@MrTomDangerous]

In my secondary school we got a load of some cheap sampling keyboards when they came out in '86 or '87. I don't remember exactly which brand or model, but probably Casio. It had a mic on cheap telephone coil that slotted into the unit. It probably only had a couple of seconds of sampling time. But those machines were a hit with us. The reason I bring it up is one of the funniest things I remember from school. One kid sampled the phrase "Mr. Jenkins is a wanker!" and repeatedly played the input sample up and down the keys, much to the delight of himself and the kids around him, only some of whom slowly noticed the emergence of Mr. Jenkins from another room. The teacher stood directly behind the kid as he continued playing his "Mr. Jenkins is a wanker!" opus, a huge grin on his face. I should add, it was the boy who was grinning. At least, he was until he got a tap on his shoulder.

[@TobiasRoest]

I still have one of those, it was my first keyboard when I started playing! To be honest, the strings from that "crappy" old keyboard are some of the lushest I have in the studio, they are insane!

[@skyrocketautomotive]

I remember regularly leaving music glass feeling like I'd gotten a six pack from laughing at that coming down the headphones (did you have the hubs that allowed everyone's headphones to connect to the teacher's keyboard? God your comment brought back some hysterical memories 🤣🤣🤣

[@Hainbach]

Some good comments on the Livestream: apparently there were three versions of the FAEMI, and only the first is Germanium based. The one that I am playing here is the last version, made with ICs. If anyone makes a comparison video let me know and I will link it here. Very curious how they differ!

[@Hainbach]

Russian synth channel kzbin.info wrote me: "There were three revisions of this device. 1 rev. - from 1976 to appr.1984. It had a metal bottom, was quite heavy and the schematics was based on germanium transistors. 2 rev. - from appr.1984 to 1990. It was mostly the same device, but based on silicon transistors. 3 rev. - from 1990 to appr. 1993. It was built on micro-circuits and had a plastic case" I am playing a Rev 3, which has super stable tuning. Rev 1 has the fatter sound, which I would love to hear.

[@jayerjavec]

@@Hainbach Germanium you say? I wonder how Plutonium version sounds like :)

[@JonnyNM1986]

Any chance you will be sampling this and releasing?

[@alexskibicki2262]

That sounds phenomenal for a kid’s synthesizer. Some of the synths sounds very video game like. Reminiscing of Nintendo and the Atari 7800. Very impressive for a 70s made children’s synth.

[@AlexeyFilippenkoPlummet]

Замечательно! In Soviet Russia, we had hard electric bass through a nasty speaker for the lullabies, as expected.

[@АлександрНикитин-б3с8я]

Только суровость, наша родина - СССР,

[@prokhor_music]

The word “FAEMI” is a mixture of an acronym “EMI” (which stands for Electronic Musical Instrument) and two note names, FA (solfege for F) and MI (solfege for E) as the keyboard range is almost three octaves F-E

[@ilyakrylov3827]

With love from military plant 😂

[@Validole]

X for doubt: the actual name of the synth is transliterated "FAZMI", there's just too many videos by westerners who can't tell the difference between З(Ze) and Э(E) EDIT: Yeah I take that back, that's an Э. Could've sworn I saw the shadow on the backside of that letteron the Front of the synth... Apologies.

[@corvusalbus9219]

I have one that I found in the local garages, the hobos have vandalized the shell and tore the gold plated chips out (that's the late 90s version, the 70s one used separate transistors), so I had to put new chips in and hand-solder them to the broken traces. Then I put a soviet multiplexer with some logic on top and put the resulting monstrosity into a hard frame from aluminium profile tube. It became my beloved sequencer which I own to this day and sometimes play

[@DissonanceEngineer]

I would love to see that if you ever decided to post it.

[@Nicole-pt4bx]

@@DissonanceEngineer i second that

[@meep.472]

upload you playing it on yt!

[@dikbozo]

I love it when someone like you, a musician, sees the potential in something someone else might overlook. This 'toy' is just one such example. Thanks.

[@SQUIZZLER24]

4:22 sounds like a lost Disasterpiece track from Fez II. Absolutely love it and the sound this basic but surprisingly effective synth makes.

[@PeterYiffin]

YESSSSS Disasterpeace deserves more attention

[@theRiver_joan]

I used to be really into photography and sometimes photographers would get mad when someone started bringing a lot of attention to an amazing vintage camera or lens that one could find cheaply second hand. They get mad because then the prices go up and yeah yeah, I kinda get it. But I’m more excited to see people buy these and start modding the shit out of them and finding cool ways to use them.

[@niichuuko1095]

Very different scenario for vintage cameras honestly. They get hype for no good reason at all

[@beemelonhead1]

Is that why the new Kodak Super 8 that was supposed to be released never cane out a couple years back? Seems like it just disappeared and was never produced and sold, even though there are people out there that own them.

[@petermuller161]

Surely the price of this won’t blow up….

[@BuckeyeRutabaga]

As a person who was born and raised in the Soviet Union before it fell apart, most of the soviet synthesizer stuff you show I'd never even heard about lol! And I actually went to a formal Soviet music school for six years when I was a schoolboy. Your channel is awesome!

[@standudinski]

my piano teacher at the music school back in the day was horrified that i got a Polivoks. i think most schools shunned electronic instruments and synthesizers on a whole.

[@magnopere]

@@standudinski never listen to teachers they usually end up being wrong 40 years later

[@kairon156]

I remember having something like this kicking around back in the 90's Canada. No idea what model it was but it was a white keyboard that was pretty small, There was a black one too that had 100 samples on it, that was cool.

[@mixternnik]

I have this one, and I 100% agree! The bass tones on it are crazy!

[@jtvj8423]

It's fun to use these little kitsch-y keyboards to just noodle around, and then create a new layer and noodle around on top of that. I plugged my Casio VLTone into a guitar pedal board and recorded 4 or 5 layers and you get some neat little moments like you'd pick out of a band jamming.

[@chriswareham]

I'm always expecting to see another Soviet curiosity on your channel - the Lell 22. It's a weird hybrid between a transistor combo organ and a string synth. It sounds very ethereal and I think it would be definitely something you'd enjoy.

[@TheDeadScientist1]

is it just me or do you just love the sound of this and want to fall asleep to it?

[@xKrizel]

Already excited for this one! 🔥

[@sry525]

this thing both blasts my ears and sounds great at the same time

[@id.unknown1283]

I was looking at this synth the other day on reverb when I was looking at Russian folk instruments to make lofi digital samples of and tape loops. It popped up in that feed and here it is in this feed. It's like the comos is tell me to buy one.

[@thedangersofoxygen135]

I'm just now finding your channel, thanks to The Magpie. I love it

[@arrolate]

Loving those sounds

[@nunofernandes4501]

I always thought you looked familiar from the moment I discovered your channel and finally I know why. Hainbach, you look just like Ralf Hütter in the 70s when he wore long hair and glasses in the first years of Kraftwerk!

[@wyoaqjuuvn6420]

that sweater is so cool

[@perfectparadox7389]

Just imagine bands like daft punk getting their hands on these

[@samkng]

Been binging your videos the last few days and just wanna say your videos are so educational and inspiring. One of the best channels on here. Now I’m gonna be keeping my eyes peeled for all of these dusty, vintage pieces of gear that I never would’ve had any interest in before haha

[@AudioPilz]

Nice! Still a better speaker than Volcas or Boutiques;)

[@lundsweden]

Hey leave the Volcas alone (somebody loves 'em)

[@Leather.Cyborg]

Очень классные видео, продолжай в том же духе!

[@LaOxidada]

Never been too big into ambient music, but that track around 5:00 is incredible Would love to hear it in full

[@mintystellar4268]

Those frequencies almost literally exploded my head. I love it

[@euanmorrison663]

Thoroughly enjoyed this!! Nice work (:

[@nickfertner3831]

that sounds so good. such nice tones.

[@soundcheck6885]

I somehow ended up with one of these in the 70s. It drove my music teacher crazy!

[@sysOpModular]

That monster sounds crazy!:) Amazing find (and use btw:))

[@kloakovalimonada]

Incredibly gorgeous sound with the reverb

[@basmatine]

You should mod the vibrato and pitch potentiometers on back to have knobs on the front panel.

[@eranjin]

you deserve a bigger fanbase hainbach 🔥

[@markvorobey2547]

Очень жаль, что их осталось так мало! Живя в Беларуси, я очень редко встречал советские синтезаторы, а может я не знаю где искать. Единственное мне повезло купить ТОМ-1501, хороший инструмент.

[@ВанечкаЗвезда]

Часто вижу на олх(украинский авито). А вот всяких стринговых действительно мало осталось, помню раньше постоянно висело несколько ТОМов в объявлениях, а теперь это очень редкий зверь на этих просторах

[@asanisi]

В России на Авито продаются за

[@SeTiNgFlash]

в РФ на авито ТОМ-1501 продаётся за 5к рублей (~$66)

[@jayerjavec]

Zdravstvuj Hainbach. You pretty much bend-it like Simon does :) Cool stuff and as always, thanks for sharing.

[@humanser]

Thanks for your reviews. I would never know that USSR prodused so much kinds of synts. Greets from Russia!

[@vladimirbabitsky5639]

Most of them are bad copies of foreign synthesizers. except theremin :-)

[@Wabalin]

уау "Фаэми" у нас в ансамбле была такая, использовали только когда играли "крутится волчок" ;)

[@krystiankrewniak]

Wow. You make even the strangest devices sound beautiful. 🥰😍

[@PM-ke9ry]

Thank you HAINBACH this sounds fun to play with !

[@nunyabidnis3815]

That thing sounds excellent!! I absolutely adore it. Clearly you're not a fan of the default sound, which is fine. I however, really enjoyed it's gnarly tone.

[@alekostrovsky9212]

Fantastic! THX for video, that toy is my childhood dream)))

[@prokhor_music]

Is this FAEMI (ФАЭМИ)? I had one long ago! Cool thing

[@RAVE_GHETTO_BLASTER]

WOW! I've don't hear about this one! Thanx!

[@mark6302]

oh that sounds deliciously retro

[@d.engvin]

It's cool how he uses an on/off switch as a "fun" effect

[@j1m1j3nkins5]

I really like the imperfect way of it. The randomness actually sounds like electricity.

[@DarkSideofSynth]

Another instrument we didn't know we wanted until Hainbach came around ;)

[@AlexAlex-gk1gz]

Спасибо за замечательный обзор! Это единственно высококлассный обзор, раритетной техники , на просторах тернета!

[@Hainbach]

You are welcome! I also have the MK1 which is better in every way

[@YershJRSZ]

I can only imagine Liam Howlett, Richard D. James, Chemical Bros, or Boards of Canada playing on it.

[@Someone89a]

My thoughts exactly - it suits their sounds perfectly

[@compechdev]

Hahah this synth literally reminded me of Syro

[@Eugensson]

That dive-bomb effect makes me want to replay Battle Toads

[@K-ORA]

Sounds like an old school SNES rave in a box. Love it

[@sovietwave]

Классное видео, спасибо! Мне очень понравилось! 👍🏻

[@mrKozmoz]

This is one heck of a space sounding far out instrument, love it

[@antoncristian]

Listen to Rodion GA! 🙂 He made few cool albums with this keyboard in 80's!

[@81huron]

Screw Фаэми, никогда не встречал этот синт, только в детстве слышал о нём, классное видео, респект)

[@localhost4460]

VG-Line is awesome, really incredible group of people.

[@snailnight]

В детстве родители подарили мне такое чудо. Но он не держал строй. В сервисе выдали заключение, что это заводской брак, поэтому я сдал его обратно в магазин. Через пол года это чудо снова появилось на прилавке. На отложенные сбережения я опять купил синт. Он оказался с такими же проблемами. Но когда сверил серийные номера, оказалось, что это тот же самый экземпляр! Синт вернули на завод, но там не долго думая, просто сделали новый технический паспорт и отправили на продажу в тот же город, куда и в прошлый раз. И по воле злого рока он снова достался мне.

[@ofacid3439]

Обалдеть, история

[@snailnight]

@@ofacid3439 Ага, забавная) Думаю, что проблема была в конструктиве этого изобретения, поэтому завод просто не придумал лучшего решения, чем пытаться заново продавать эти несчастные девайсы

[@ofacid3439]

@@snailnight Это в каком году было?

[@snailnight]

@@ofacid3439 Это начало восьмидесятых, точнее не вспомнить

[@Morberis]

Omg that shirt. I am in love

[@Mrhellacat]

Sounds alot like my yamaha portasound PS-3. Its alot like a 70s home organ on a chip lol. Little Square wave keyboard with subtractive synthesis! Id love to find a Soviet keyboard like that and try them together!

[@Wulfhard1965]

Looks like the rocker switches for the octaves just pass the signal thru.So with pots the registers could be continously mixed and these and the volume and pitch could be replaced by vatrols and thus be controlled by Eurorack!

[@ccobkaify]

I had one back in the mid 70s... Great synth.

[@bonemar66]

Sounds like the hum from the big amp from Back to the Future. (2:16)

[@NobodyHere539]

Привет. У меня был такой в детстве, спасибо за подаренную ностальгию :)

[@suga4all]

Nice! It has a beautiful late 80s games C64 or Amstrad CPC vibe to it!

[@viliusanceris]

so cool. i had this one when i was teenager

[@igorgilewicz1549]

Привет, Хайнбах )). Do you know the Bad Sector band? Their album "Cosmodrom" was creating using only old soviet synth. I feel that you know ). But if not just check them, I think you like the sound.

[@xanfus]

This thing has "great bones"! With a little more modding, it would be an amazing synth!

[@Hainbach]

Yeah, I think a skilled modder could make this a monster

[@G.Man-]

@@Hainbach Magpie 🤔

[@RAVE_GHETTO_BLASTER]

Thanx for samples - overall sound reminds me C64 SID. Also stylophone gen r-8 have cool symbiosis of c64 and moog'eque vibe.

[@fangjr.8552]

That jam on the tap machine ad wedge, holy shit

[@stevenh8174]

I want one of these !

[@seanspartan2023]

You are getting such amazing sounds out of that little synth. I wonder how it would sound played with my поливокс м

[@Asterra2]

It's the kind of bass that scrapes the ears and has you hearing an electronic flange if you suddenly take your headphones off, making you wonder if you just damaged your hearing.

[@KolaFiend]

is that how you call it? i think of it as the audio equivalent of staring at a moving pattern like a rotating spiral or something for a while then looking at a wall

[@Asterra2]

@@KolaFiend An excellent visual analogy. Pretty much the same kind of thing. Except I legitimately am worried about hearing damage. I liken it to hearing a loud noise and being briefly left with a ringing-everyone knows that's bad, bad news.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@Asterra2 in this case it’s a temporary “tensing” of certain hairs in the ear due to the specific overtones focusing most of the energy, so it is more like the visual analogy in that there shouldn’t be permanent damage like with loudness damage. Of course if you turn it up too loud it can damage!

[@CybertroninfiniteOfficial]

It sounds so good

[@scissorkicks]

As soon as you stated jamming on it, I was thinking to myself "get some Wires on that". And... There is is 💪

[@Couvrs]

love this

[@ravebrother]

У меня был такой в детстве. Он и от батареек работал. Ещё в комплекте был ремень и его можно было вешать как гитару и играть. Ну и чехол из кожзама для переноски.

[@ciatangallaghe2485]

That's a glorious jumper

[@SlyHikari03]

It sounds like a Nintendo system. Or in this case. The Denny (a bootleg based off the famicom). I want one of these now. Also reminds me of a farfisa organ.

[@MotiMota15]

It sounds positively ⬛🌊

[@TheArchibyte]

I had that one at childhood. Just a toy, nothing more

[@enginerdy]

2:57 opening scene of Back to the Future with the guitar amp

[@HelmutNevermore]

I grew up surrounded with Soviet things, but even my mind was blown by screwdriver-adjustable effects.

[@Coastal_Cruzer]

I wonder if I can modify one to be used as sort of an effects pedal for a guitar/bass alongside as a keyboard. Possibly by adding an input parallel to the section that generates the tones, though I have yet to give the schematics a good look over.

[@sleepnumber6]

Hainbach is the real deal

[@Coastal_Cruzer]

I need to get/make one of these. Shouldn't be too hard to make one given they literally included a schematic with them, meaning the circuitry is publicly available. Though likely not in English

[@Coastal_Cruzer]

Well so much for trying to get one

[@ChampionsFate4]

Is there a full version of the ambient time

[@Романроманоа-о2й]

Крутой видос. Спасибо. Cool video. Tanks.

[@bazedjunkiii_tv]

this immediately made me think of of felix kubin as well as the first incarnation of the astrastube venue in hamburg. i guess you get where i'm going with this.

[@kabalsekirei]

О, Фаэми) У меня была такая, доводилось ремонтировать)

[@joshjuanfifarek7382]

1st thing I noticed was that it is incredibly bass happy which makes me take this sneaky machine more seriously and looking to get one. Hope you got my link to uds guitar trigger?

[@Hainbach]

Thanks! I stopped looking for one as the UDS is now in storage.

[@ZXSpectrumHotel]

Never saw it in USSR. Just read about it in book. Thanks!

[@DMTCYMATICSDreamMusicTemple]

Sounds pretty good!