JEN SX1000 - Cheaper than a Korg, but is it any good?!
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- Synthesizer Sundays with @LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER
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#synthesizer #electronics #history
remember, reverb prices and buy it now prices are no gauge of a value, as they are one sided prices and usually dont sell for that. to get a better gauge of seeing what something will go for, look it on ebay and select completed listings, you will then find recent past listings that sold, and usually those prices are 3-4 sometimes even 5 times lower, dont ever pay buy it now prices or even close! as it inflates prices for everyone. the last one of these sold for £150 the other week on uk ebay.
At 150£, that's a really good deal.
I bought my two jen each around this, but they were non-working.
I managed to do one with two, and finally achieved to repair the other one. Perfect for a beginner synthrepairman like me.
I installed the subosc mod. They are plenty of other mod possible.
Anyway thank you for this entertaining video 💪💪
Excellent advice! Prices seem to go back to a more realisitc level anyway. And never get to enamoured by an instrument before you own it anyway. If it's meant for you, it's meant for you. If not, it's not.
Reverb does have a graph, showing the selling price history as well, it can be quite interesting to see the fluctuations. Itd be interesting to correlate these with their appearances on influential UA-cam channels.
Cheaper than a korg… until this video gets some views
The techmoan effect
Can't seem to find one online for less than $1000 lol but maybe that's because I'm not looking on uk or Italian sites
Up.until now they've been about £350 on the fleabay, but now I expect the price to shoot up. I wish I still had one - apart from.scratchy pots it had the second fiercest resonance of any of my synths and could destroy tweeters with ease. I'm sure the LFO on mine went up to much faster rates and greater depth though.The foibles of these old synths - they're all a bit different, especially with age.
This was my first synthesizer, I took it to primary school when I was ten and a girl with a portasound felt sorry for me because I couldn't play chords.
hahaha, amazing!
Yeh but where’s Portasound girl now?! 😅
@@andywatts8654she goes by PJ now
UA-cam comment of the month
She was just jealous!
It was notably used by Broadcast on their first and second album. I wanted one 10 years ago
WHICH SYNDESIZER NEXT?
Ensoniq esq-1. Loveed that synth
Clef B30 Microsynth - still got mine that I built from a kit but the keyboard was horrendously unreliable with its stretchy contact springs! Modding it for CV now.
Concertmate MG-1 or Polivoks, unless you haven’t tried them already.
Shruthi
I just looked at the circuit diagram and data sheets. The oscillator is a DCO. The M110 chip scans the keyboard and outputs a square wave for the 2" 4" 8" 16" octaves and an exponential current. These are used in a sawtooth waveform generator to generate the sawtooth and puls waveforms.
Nice one! Yep! Same as chip siel synths too !
If I am correct it also isn’t a pure digital osc. Isn’t that waveshaper circuit still analog? There are a lot of such hybrids out there. Depending on what sounded hot some brands even simply changed the lettering on the front panel. Wasn’t Siel actually one of them?
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER Yep, just looked it up in Peter Forrest A to Z version 1. Siel had 3 Iterations of the Opera 6. Type 1 and 2 seem to have claimed VCO’s. Type 3 suddenly claimed DCO’s. No idea if they actually differed on the inside. The there are the various DK evolutions and Suzuki plus Kiwi rebranding. Those darn Italians. 😁
The Jen is nice and to the point . Just just enough. Love that PWM its a nice crunchy sounding sound square war vey !.
Thanks for sharing Sam , you the man must make it down to your museum at some point this year wothout fail
Just enough! Yep that's the sentiment :D
I've got a tape with my oldest recordings: Jen SX1000, Sequential Drumtraks, a record player doing a loop by raising the tonearm so it skips, recorded straight to stereo cassette, then a few on a 4 track Tascam Portastudio with multitracked synths.. need to get it digitised before it gets lost in the sands of time/tat.
Definitely digitise it!
Yesss record it in and upload it somewhere!
Time to excavate the cassette machine from the cupboard of doom, thanks for the encouragement I'll post a link here once I upload them ♥
Good demo. Had one of these in our band over thirty years ago. It added a good bit of character alongside a Casio CZ 1000 and a Kawai K1. Still got the CZ, very underrated as it was affordable and quite capable.
Nice!
The CZ 1000 is a beast! I love my CZ 101 and I can actually program it, unlike a DX7.
@@althejazzman Agreed a lot of BANG for the Buck!
I would love to visit this museum someday
I've been planning to do so for the last 2 years!! Going to get some time for a spring open day this year, I hope!
Still use mine to this day, had it 30yrs and still works a treat.
The SX1000 has a very specific sound, it would be cool to own one someday. One of the notable users is Zero 7, and that's how I came to know this thing - they had one on stage at their 2004 Glastonbury gig.
Altern8 were users back in the day☢️👍
I was given one of these about 6 yrs ago. It's on loan to a studio right now. It's still going strong. It has a midi mod I've never used, I use old gear to make soundscape, Industrial Dub, not music. It had a few crackling pots, to be expected, that white noise was a bit quiet on mine, it sounds a bit so on yours, no biggy. I reckon it'd be a great post punk electronic track. It's got that Soldier Soldier, Virginia Plain vibe going on.
Was my first synth, too. Paid £40 back in 2002ish and I put a jack in the back to run external sound sources through the filter too.
My first ever synth. Had a lot of fun with it making all kinds of great sounds. I remember recreating the sound track to John Carpenters Assault on Precinct 13 😄
The triggering brought back memories. I built a maplin synth back in the day and you could choose if it was retriggered
Did you ever play with a Crumar Bit One? It was a vintageish digital analog 3osc polyphonic synthesizer. Very basic, with janky IC based filters, but it had some nice sounds. I had one and then it disappeared from storage when i moved overseas for a while sadly.
How come the analog synths of today doesn't sound as phat as these old school ones?!?!
I had one of these underrated IMO. Anyway if you are a completest the original came with overlay cards with holes for the knobs and markers to show where to put the knobs for particular sounds, eg analogue presets lol.
Up until the late 90s, you could pick up a Jen SX1000 for around £35. The most I would pay now would be around £150 to £250, maybe a wee bit more if it was Mint Cond and had all of its coloured metal knob caps intact, or shall I say: all glued back on after falling off. Outside the UK I've seen them on sale for around £500 to £800!!! but that's cRaZy money!
Can confirm for the dutch speaking part of EU. Crazy prices if you can find one.
I got my SX1000 in 1987 from a shop's advert in the back of "Melody Maker". It was the cheapest synth available because everyone wanted a DX7 😂. My dad posted a cheque to the shop in the north of England and the Jen got delivered to my home in Caerphilly, South Wales. Turns out the company who imported all the Jen SX1000 s from Italy to Britain was 2 miles down the road from me!
Also, i put it in my mum's attic over 20 years ago and only dug it out a couple of years ago. Works fine! 😊
First synth. Thought I’d lost it but spotted it in one of the photos in the house I sold years ago on Zoopla!
A friend of mine had one of these. I was recording his latest album in the studio I was working for at the time and he brought it in one day to play with. Whilst I was messing about with it I made a sound that he really liked an we ended up using it on a track. I still have the album somewhere :)
I have this electro fantasy that one day Vince Clarke or Dave Stewart will turn up and ask if they can have a play around and record in the museum! Great video as always Sam.....
Was my first synth. I bought 2nd hand in the mid 80s . Had another up until a couple of years ago
My first synthesizer when I was 14! 🖤
sounds great!,
Sounds nice and if you want to give it the beans maybe run it through a JetPhaser od MultiTone pedal 😮
Sounds awesome to me, would love to be able to multi sample this.
Still got mine! You can get some interesting sounds out of it, especially as mine is really noisy. Great for sampling
oh, lordy, that reminds me.... I bought a NOS cd drive for my mk1 imac. long list of jobs to do.... couple of sh1000s (roland's first ever synth) to fix up too. you are an inspiration.
I paid £70 for my pro-1 in 1990!
In 1982, you could get this from the Argos catalogue.
My first synth...missed it loads over the years
My first analogue synth. Wish I still had it.
At 2:00, the SX1000 sounded really good for a funk backup.
sounds like some early front 242 style jams could be had with this one!
not the device makes you a star, what you are doing it makes you a star
Damn that square wave was phat!
Ooo, I quite like the sounds from that. Nothing I haven’t heard before, but fun regardless.
Yep! Just a good solid syndesizer
I had one 20 years ago and really regret selling it. I recently bought a broken one hoping to repair it. It seems to have a dead m110 chip. I really hope I can find a replacement one day.
www.untergeek.de/2019/01/midifying-jenny-step-1-replacing-the-m110-with-a-teensy/ if you are that way inclined!
@@THISMUSEUMISNOTOBSOLETE I actually started trying to build something similar with a pi pico. It's a slow project tho, the coding would be interfacing it with the 12v logic in the Jen needs more thought.
Theres a Jen dedicated facebook group in which a guy is currently building a replacement for dead m110's as Well as adding midi to the sx1000, I think He is currently searching currently searching beta-testers within uk
@@tactul7376 yup, Neil Johnson, of "Neil's Webbly World" website.
My first synth brought from empire stores catalog 😢
Ah love looking at crap in Snoopers Paradise. Also my old Jen gave me a nasty electroshock when I opened it up not knowing what I was doing.
Looks like the behringer poly d or something id love one sounds great
Watched through this whole thing thinking "I wish I'd bought the one I saw in Snoopers Paradise all those years ago" and then it turns out it's this very same model! 😂
First synth I ever played. £250 from great universal catalogue. Back in about 1981. Do you have any of the overlay cards for the knob positions?
sadly not!
I bet they are not cheap anymore after this video 😀
Ive got still got mine but it dont stand up to the synths of today,not my kind of thing anymore😢 will probably sell
Wow.
Got mine at a car boot for £25 back around 1997
Some Italian company makes keyboard that are used in known brand keyboard/synth, like waldorf, Arturia and others.
Also this format.
Would you dive in that? ... and plant your CEM3340.
Was that a Doug DeMuro reference?
I mate had one of these. Jealousy as ***k. Great little synth for bass lines.
Did it have portamento?
yes
Budget? First listing that came up was $1200+
last one sold for 150 quid in uk. its budget in uk
Man, the way these stands wobble about always makes me worry 😅 I know it’s usually fine but… damn
We always loosen the nuts off to get the optimum wobble!
What Mum, you're playing a computer!
Crying for midi or cv inputs
The filter gives me 303 vibes
Cheaper than a Korg? Maybe then but probably not now. A Monologue is £255 and is no doubt a little more capable.
Still cheaper. As mentioned last one went for 150.
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER Fair enough. But I suspect that any still around are likely to have leaky caps and other problems of age (as indeed I do); and how many are actually for sale these days? I'm not a big fan of ancient synths unless they come with a warranty...
I think you made a really good deal.
Love this synth. I have two at home!
The Jen was the worst anologue synth on the scene at the time, it sounded crap and the build quality was crap
i would never buy this because the name reminds me too much of that horrible day 1/6
Got mine from my mum’s catalogue in ‘81 and it’s still going strong now☢️👍
That's amazing
I bought one by chance circa 1990 in a charity shop for £20. Made some music with it (after I cleaned the rust off the key springs so the keys worked reliably again), then gave it back to charity a decade later.
Nice synth! I checked the prices online, and they're going for around US$1000 here online in Canada 😳
Naaaaa really? Maybe an abundance in U.K. last
Time I checked I saw a broken one go for 80 quid. And working as said under 200 still. Obviously buy it now silly price. But you'd be a chump to pay for any synth at the price they go for on buy it now listings :D
The average price un France seems to be around 500 €
add them to saved listings on ebay, this was the last working one that went 150 quid www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394984700034?hash=item5bf6ec3882:g:5FAAAOSw0L5lSpGp&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwN4KILnRRJgvO%2Fhw3GCJ%2F3rdRq45GeA6anc%2B5JQyuc1t%2FHSQVYMcNogcIxQNt09%2FsEah3SxEq5x7SIs6P4ay3XMJlYHw5NiAe01ELFS3kxyAWDFAOciLzIe3Ln188lKHFQrOBBqZqYmkh9SGczI0HyClqS7HifGJ2O37brWBNyacztwW4hutGXGJEbRzAoToGsTVgDkbzoaILb9kSZ%2BMe7hbN%2BH%2FSSOnscHvFEaTiNf6p6JD48OQ13vPKjd5JeIbHg%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR6aM1NucYw @@alexandremargat2350 it says makes noises so thats a good sign!
weird external links.@@THISMUSEUMISNOTOBSOLETE
Yup, I've wanted one for years. Almost had one for 500 in 2019 but was second responder to Craigslist listing. Now, here in BC, Canada they can't be had for less than $1500 plus shipping
Ladytron fans know what’s up
The reason the JEN SX-1000 is cheap and not popular is because it does not have a CV/GATE input. Of cause, CV/GATE input can be added with Kenton Retrofit, but it costs £270 (= $343).
It’s the very first synth I bought and it was brand new then. I still own it and also kept using it when I had more options. Basically I still do, especially if I want a synthbass with body AND presence . Need I say more?
Spen't most of the 80s using the Jen to hammer out octave, left hand bass riffs. The keyboards are reliable but many have taken a battering. It might be fun to breadboard now.
my grandad recently give me this little gem :) pots needs re greasing and would like to change them really but finding replacements has been difficult! but apart from that it is such a lovely sounding synth!
OMG I have had one of these sat needing a clean and repair for ages... Know what my next project is going to be.
The Jen sounds way better than is legal when driven a bit. A bargain if found for a under a couple of hundred for sure.
8:21 zombie shopping music!
This was my first synth, I bought it in 1979 together with a delay, dashed home and spent many happy hours playing the 'I Feel Love' sequence.
Yep had one myself. Followed by a Yamaha CS01 bought from a catalogue (£4 a week or something) Marvellous things
Was this the synth that had the overlays that you put on top of the controls with settings to different sounds?
Yep!
i like the format. also good on you to put out videos that don't require colossal amounts of work haha.
A friend of mine has one of these, and I think it’s a lovely machine. Super simple, but that makes it great for learning synthesis on. It sounds fantastic too. We get together and have little mono-synth jam sessions with that and a Micromoog (which is another extremely underrated 70s mono, perhaps you’ll find one of those and do another vid?). Good times!
I always remember seeing these in old electronics mags of the time and wishing. Never heard one though. Quite surprised about how much grunt it has considering it was a cheapy. I can defo hear the Korg similarities.
Not a bad little synth at all.
Yeah it's nice! A modded one would be even better
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER Absolutely. If I had one I'd probably go straight for bunging CV, Gate and that in there immediately. It'd get round that lack of modulation.
Gawd, I remember this! It had a weirdarse M110 digital chip as its frontend, performing both the key scanning and the basic setup for the waveform generation. Although it's been decades since I last saw the schematic for it I do remember that there used to be an amazing number of hacks for it including adding square wave subs and multiple sawtooth output across 4 octaves at the same time. I seem to remember that the VCF and VCA were based on LM13600s, which opened up another whole avenue of hacking.
The Jen sx1000 has been sitting in the corner for ages because it simply doesn't have a good filter. That's why you don't even bring it into your studio for 500,-- because it's simply not worth upgrading to cv/gate/vcf in for a very mediocre filter. These discussions about the Jen have been going on for decades. Nobody wants the thing...except for 200,-- ;-)
My first synth back in about '86 - sold it to a class mate for 30 quid :(. I have another one now, although it needs some TLC. I'm in the middle of fitting a proper switched IEC socket to the back.
Didn't find any under 800 €, so def not a budget synth anymore.
last one sold a week ago in uk for £150. and the one before that for 180. just people pulling legs on buy it now. but thats the same with any synth, list price is usually 4-5 times what they sell for
@@THISMUSEUMISNOTOBSOLETE I found an out of stock link from Ebay to the SGS M1101 chip kit of the SX1000 sold with 90 €, but the cheapest complete SX1000 synthesizer I found from Ebay was 406,54 € from UK and the most expensive was 1 138,69 €.
But when looking for those I found a Korg Electribe R EA-1 MK2 only with 310,44 €. Was that good or bad?
I have a multivox dual voice synthesizer I have to work on here soon…it looks has the charm and cheeks of this Korg but the sounds of a Casio….it’s fucking cool. Something’s up with the pitch mod…idk
It came with overlay cards to help beginners set up basic sonds. One was 'human voice' which funnily enough sounded nothing like a human voice! lol
ich hatte den 1987 für 500 DM gekauft und meine ersten Erfahrungen mit einem Synthesizer gemacht. Geiles Teil. Habe ihn 2002 für 50 DM verkauft an einem Freund. Der hat Ihn 5 Jahre später auch verkauft... für 700€!!
Sounds pretty damn good!! Nice video!
Dont you just love when you want to make a video on a synth about how its "pretty good and resonably priced" then the thing that was being sold for 100-200 is now 1000. Lovin the new format!
Hahahaha 😂
Oh I hope that doesn't happen. It's a double edged sword isn't it
The sound of this synth is good enough for me
vinyjunkie uses one!
I got the Doug DeMuro reference with "quirks and features"! Sam is the kind of guy to play a synth without reading the schematics first!
You had a Boycie moment in the end there, tryin to sell that one. 😄
They may be cheap in the UK, but here in the US they can go for $1,057.63. Depending on the condition.
Corks and features
i had one! it was great.. should have kept it
Sam, thanks for sharing! 😎😎🤓🤓❤
Sounds beautiful!
It reminds me of a C64
Very Koolz.
🎛🎚🔊👍👍👍
I got a broken jen brio 49p for $1, i have no idea how to fix it but there are beautiful hand drawn circuit boards inside.
We'll give you $5 for it!
@@THISMUSEUMISNOTOBSOLETE If you're interested I'd love for you to have it. I'm in New Zealand though, not sure what shipping would be like :(.