WERSI WERSIMATIC II

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"It's still here and we love it - so here we go again with new music :
The Wersimatic II - the previous generation of the Wersimatic 24 auto-accompaniment machine and probably familiar to fans of the Elgam Carousel, Böhm Solist 78, Elka Wilgamat and Godwin Drummaker 45 units.

The Wersimatic II has 4 sections on board:
Bass line tone generator
Drum machine with individual mute options
Various chord sounds
Various Arpeggiator sounds (same sounds as chords but with busier patterns)

The bass sounds great - very nice and analog.
Drum sounds are very analog - this is sound generation in its infancy - the hi-hats scare me :)
The chord and arpeggiator sounds were processed through the Digitech Synth Wah - a relatively cheap envelope follower pedal that’s a great bang for the buck.

The sounds and controls are across the board identical to the Wersimatic 24 unit as far as we can tell but the difference being the Wersimatic II was never made as a stand-alone unit - it was part of a large, double manual organ called Wersi Helios.
This particular one is unique : it has been transplanted from that organ into a smaller box with a twelve buttons acting as chord control instead of the two bottom octaves of the organ.

Special thanks to Organfairy for the rare schematics that were necessary to complete the repair : dude you f-ing rock

Vintage Audio Institute is a gear vendor and recording studio in the hills of Florence"

Additional Wersimatic II posts

"Jungle Gardenia" - on Elka X-1000

video upload by organfairy

"One of the lesser known instrumentals by Mike Oldfield. It was the B-side of his 'Crime of Passion' single from 1984 but I don't think it was on any albums except as a bonus track on later releases.

Here I play it on my Elka X-1000 organ."

Exploring the Wersimatic II

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Another take with the Wersimatic II, the older sister / brother of the Wersimatic 24 auto-accompaniment machine and distant cousin to the Elgam Carousel, Böhm Solist 78, Elka Wilgamat and Godwin Drummaker 45.

The sounds and controls are across the board identical to the Wersimatic 24 unit as far as we can tell.
The Wersimatic II was never made as a stand-alone unit but was part of a large, double manual organ called Wersi Helios in the mid 70s.
This particular one has been transplanted from an organ into a smaller box with a twelve buttons acting as chord control instead of the bottom keys of the organ.

Special thanks to Organfairy for the rare schematics : dude you f-ing rock

The Wersimatic II has sections on board:
Bass
Drum machine
Various chord sounds"

Additional Wersimatic II posts

VAI 35 : Wersimatic II / Farfisa Syntorchestra

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Another take with the Wersimatic II, the younger sister / brother of the Wersimatic 24 auto accompaniment machine. The sounds and controls are across the board identical as far as we can tell.

It was never made as a standalone unit but part of a large, double manual organ called Wersi Helios in the mid 70s.

This particular one has been transplanted from an organ into a smaller box with a twelve buttons acting as chord control instead of the bottom keys of the organ.

Special thanks to Organfairy for the rare schematics : dude you f-ing rock

The Wersimatic II has sections on board:
Bass
Drum machine
Various chord sounds

Melody played on the Farfisa Syntorchestra String machine and Mono synth."

VAI 34 Wersimatic II / Farfisa Syntorchestra

video upload by Vintage Audio Institute Italia

"Analog auto-accompaniment machine produced by the German organ manufacturer Wersi sometime in the mid-70s. Originally part of a big, dual manual organ called Helios, this auto-comp section was probably removed from the organ and squeezed into a Teak cabinet, crammed with circuit boards, all beautifully snug inside - a very good job by whoever built it.

You control the harmony and key with the black 12 buttons on the front replacing the one octave that was probably at the bottom 12 keys of the organ.

The Wersimatic II has sections on board: Bass
Drum machine
Various chord sounds

Melody played on the Farfisa Syntorchestra String machine and Mono synth.

Big thanks to Organfairy who helped us find the right schematics to repair it.

Vintage Audio Institute Italia is a gear vendor and recording studio in the hills of Florence."

You can find additional posts featuring the Wersimatic II here, and additional Vintage Audio Institute Italia posts here.

"Hvad gør vi nu lille nu" - on Roland SH-2000

Published on Mar 18, 2019 organfairy

"I realize that I am walking on paper-thin ice here. "Hvad gør vi nu lille du" (~ What now, little one) is a song by one of the two most popular bands in Denmark ever: Gasolin' (with an apostrophe) whose popularity in their heyday was similar to that of the Beatles. This means that attempting to make an instrumental cover of one of their songs is bound to get me a lot of negative comments - maybe even death threats. So if I suddenly in the near future stop posting videos it is probably because I have been brutally murdered.....

Anyway

I play it one note at a time on my monophonic Roland SH-2000 while the rhythm comes from a Roland Rhythm Arranger."

Old Danish Christmas Songs Played on the Roland SH-2000

Published on Dec 24, 2018 organfairy

1. Old Danish Christmas song #1 played on Roland SH-2000

"Børn og voksne i kærlig krans" is a well known (at least by people of a certain age) Danish Christmas song. It comes from an old theatrical play called "Nøddebo Præstegård" and was written by J.P.E. Hartmann in 1862.

I got it out of an old piano book and purists will probably demand that I play it on piano. However, I don't play piano very well and I actually don't have a piano.

But I have for quite a while been wanting to try and make music on synthesizer the way they did back in the days where synthesizers were always monophonic: One note at a time building up harmonies with a multitrack recorder.

So I split the piano arrangement into bass, string 1, string 2, and melody, and played the whole pile on my old monophonic Roland SH-2000 synthesizer. I added some reverberation in post production. But apart from that everything is made on the Roland synth.

2. Old Danish Christmas song #2 played on Roland SH-2000

"'Kimer i Klokker' (~Bells are chiming) is an old Danish Christmas song. Just like the one last week I play this solely on Roland SH-2000 analog synthesizer using only the VIBRAPHONE preset - because this was what came closest to a bell. However, I do use an extra gadget: I thought the vibraphone didn't have enough bass. So I used my old Boss OC-2 octave pedal to give the bottom voice some more........well, bottom.

And with this video I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas!"

Bass unit revisited

Published on Oct 22, 2018 organfairy

"I made this bass unit back in the late 1990s but I thought it was about time to revisit it and see if there was something I could do better with the knowledge I have now.

The music is something I put together on my Elka X-1000 organ."

A relaxed music item played on Yamaha SY-1 and Elka EP-8

Published on Aug 13, 2018 organfairy

"No further description necessary....."

The last DJX video

Published on Aug 6, 2018 organfairy

"at least for now. I will probably make more later, but not for the next year or so. I need to get back to the organs :-)"

Yamaha DJX-II trying to speak

Published on Jul 9, 2018 organfairy

"BeskrivelseThere are many human voice bits in the library of the DJX-II. I got the idea that I could try and make a song with words out of them. But unfortunately I could only construct the sentence 'the real bass'. So this is what the voice is saying in this video."

Elka DMP-18 repair

Published on May 21, 2018 organfairy

"I bought this pedal controller some years ago in a music shop that had a closing sale. The button for preset #5 was broken but I couldn't find the right switch in any of my usual electronics supply stores. But then one day when I was shopping for something else online I found one that looked right. So I ordered it. Now I can get this pedal controller working completely again.

The music is 'The whisper' by David Essex which I play on my Roland JV-35 synthesizer."

Repairing and cleaning a BOSS DR-660

Published on Apr 23, 2018 organfairy

"The demo starts at 3:25.

In my repair and cleaning series about the pile of musical items I bought at a second hand shop I have now come to the drum machine: The BOSS DR-660. There wasn't any serious problems to take care off. Just a dead RAM battery and the unit was even so informative that it automatically told me that this was the problem.

The music - apart from the demo - is 'Children of Paradise' which was originally a disappointing single for Boney M and marked the beginning of their decline in the early 1980s. I play it on my Elka X-1000."

BOSS DR-202 cleaning and repair

Published on Mar 26, 2018 organfairy

"The sound demo starts at 5:00

I mentioned, in the description for the DJX cleaning video, that I bought a second instrument from the same seller. This is it: BOSS DR-202 drum machine/groovebox.
It had a problem with the power plug and the power supply was also faulty (I don't show the repair process for the power supply in this video). And as usual it needed a good cleaning.

The music is 'This is your song' by Telex. I play it on Roland JX-8P synthesizer, Yamaha HE-8 organ and SY-1 synthesizer. The rhythm comes from a Korg Rhythm 55 drum machine."

Wave folder

Published on Mar 5, 2018 organfairy

"Jump to 4:34 to avoid the annoying artificial saxophones.

Lately I have been trying to make things I haven't made before - something else than sequencers, VCOs, VCFs, VCAs, etc.
I have never tried making a wave folder before. As a matter of fact until recently I didn't know what a wave folder is. But I found a good explanation somewhere - the one with the folded paper - and decided that this could be interesting.

The music is something I made on Technics SX-C600 and Yamaha HE-8 organs, and the Roland CR-68 drum machine made the rhythm."

Toy keyboard Christmas demos - Casio SK-5 - Jingle bells

Published on Dec 26, 2017 organfairy

"This is another Christmas toy keyboard demo and at the same the most ill-placed and badly timed dog in the history of toy keyboard demos."

Toy keyboard Christmas demos - Yamaha PSS-190 - Silent night

Published on Dec 25, 2017 organfairy

"It has been a while since I have played the smaller items of my humble organ and keyboard collection. But this time I will let some of them play all by themselfes.

I have noticed that often toy keyboards have at least one Christmas song on their repertoire of demo melodies. This is probably because in the 1980s and 1990s many of them were given as Christmas presents.

But since Christmas is here once again, I will play (if you can call pressing a button that says 'DEMO' playing) some of the Christmas demos that my toy keyboards are capable of playing. The first one is a Yamaha PSS-190 that plays 'Silent Night'."

Some vibraphone music on the Siel DK-80

Published on Oct 2, 2017 organfairy

"It has been a while since I used my Siel DK-80 synthesizer. But now I have made this little MIDI piece featuring a vibraphone-like sound.

The rhytm comes from my Roland JV-35."

The unstoppable Wersimatic

Published on Sep 18, 2017 organfairy

"Normally 'unstoppable' is a positive word. But when it is used in the same sentence as "drum machine" it tends to be annoying.
My Wersimatic II was literally unstoppable so I had to do something about it. It turned out to be a defective logic gate. Quite and easy fix but still something I had to do.

The music is 'Knuden' which was a minor hit for the Danish band Shu-bi-dua back in 1978. Apart from the Wersimatic II I play it on my Wersi Prisma DX-5."

"Crazy" - on Yamaha SY-1

organfairy
Published on Aug 7, 2017

"'Crazy' was a big hit for Gnarls Barkley back in 2006. Here I play it on Yamaha SY-1 synthesizer and Elka EP-8 organ. The rhythm comes from a Rhythm Ace FR-8L."