Old Gear

A musician is nothing without his instruments. Eivind Fivelsdal has played several. This list contains some of the most significant instruments previously played by Eivind Fivelsdal. On the links page you will find usefull resources related to these fine items.

The MiniMoog.

In 2001 Robert. A Moog recieved the Polar Music Prize for this instrument. It was the first commercially available synthesizer a normally fit person could carry around. It's still popular due to it's tight bass. However, people using it only for it's bass miss a lot. The true masters are Kit Watkins, Jan Hammer and Chick Corea. Eivind still regrets selling his mini. He used small multicoloured scotchtape-triangles to remember important patches on stage.

Introduced in 1970, built until 1981, sold approx. 13.252 units.

PPG Wave 2.2.

The synthesizer was introduced 1982. Approx. 300 units were made. Eivind traded his old Wave 2 for the 2.2. The PPG Wave 2.2 was the flagship in Eivind's setup for several years.

The PPG Wave 2.2 was capable of some 2000 different waveforms and had a built in sequencer. It's a hybrid synth with digital oscillators and analog filters. PPG later went bankrupt because of develpingcosts of the PPG Realizer. Technology is however well preserved in Wolfgang Palms present company Waldorf (Wave, Q, MicroWave etc,)

Yamaha DX-7

Manufactured 1983 - 1987. A quantity of some 160.000 made this by far the most popular synthesizer ever. A strange record considering the fact that it's method of synthesis is among the thoughest to master. Unlike the MiniMoog and the PPG all programming took place using buttons and only two sliders. Navigating through it's menus took some time to master. Native Instruments released a FM-softsynth late 2001, the FM7. Among other things it can import old DX-7 sounds.

Korg Mini-Korg 700S

Not much known about this synthesizer other than it was one of the first Korg ever produced. The S meaning that it has two oscillators instead of only one on the first miniKorg 700. It was also Eivinds very first synthesizer. It's a simple synth with few controls, especially poor envelopes. But it had a ringmodulator and the overall sound was very good indeed. It also had both high and lowpassfilters. The miniKorg featured the best filtercontroller made to this date (the traveller, basically two linked faders) one could tweak both filters with one hand.

Mellotron M-400

A machine with a large frame containing prerecorded tapes inside, one for each key. When a key is depressed the tape is pulled over the tapeheads. Maximum length of a note was 8 secs. The concept of the instrument was originally invented by Harry Chamberlin as early as 1946. Total sale of the M400 was 1800 units. The mellotron played by Eivind was owned by Pete Knudsen who let him borrow it for several years. The unit was very unstable with a motor that drifted out of pitch as it constantly got warmer. The solution was to leave it cold and turn it on some seconds before playing it. The Mellotron is loved for it's sounds and hated for it's mechanics.

Yamaha CP-70 Electric Grand

One of the very first pianos that was both playable and transportable. The CP-70 utilizes real pianoaction. The CP-70 transports in two units, with the harp separated from the action. It doesn't sound like a grandpiano at all. Nor does it sound like a real upright piano. Because of it's short strings it has a sound of its own. Eivind played the CP-70 with Scandinavia (the progrock band) during the mid 80's. According to Eivind you should look into the physics of pianotuning, buy a key and do the tuning yourself. Some notes will always need some overhaul after transportation.

Roland D-70 Super LA Synthesizer

Built as a follow-up on the popular D-50, this machine is basically a sampleplayback synthesizer. Roland introduced a tequnice to it called diferental loop modulation (DLM), but this feature did not survive into later machines. It's 76 note keyboard splittable into 4 zones and it's full masterkeyboard implementation made it a popular masterkeyboard-controller. Eivind still uses his D-70 for it's masterkeyboardfunctions. It's worth mentioning that this unit has been in daily use since 1990.

Roland D-50 LA Synthesizer

Introduced in 1987 as aDX-7 killer, this synthesizer is probably the most sucessfull in the history of Roland. The reason for it's sucess was more due to the fact that it had built-in equalizers and an effectsprocessor. Both vital features of sound-design. Typically for Roland, the synth came with great preprogrammed sounds that also added to it's popularity. Ofcourse, as with the DX-7 these sounds was used on virtually every record made in the late 80's and the early 90's. Eivind is no exeption here. Apart from some minor tweaking, he didn't do much synthprogramming in that period. It was when the D-70 was released that Eivind took up programming again.

As an optional addon Roland also manufactured a separate programmer the PG-1000 for the D-50 and D-550 (the rackversion).

ARP ProSoloist

This small monophonic synthesizer was designed more as an electric organ addon, than a fully fledged synthesizer. It's sound is quite pleasing and the ability to switch quickly between patches made it's way onto the stage of many bands. The keyboard is touchsensitive. One can add brilliance to the tone by pressing the keys. Tony Banks solo on Genesis' The Cinema Show is probably the best demo ARP could ever whish for this synth.

Eivind still got his Prosoloist, but it's rarely in use nowadays.

ARP produced this synthesizer from the beginning of the 70's until 1977 when it was replaced by the ARP ProDGX.

Rhodes 73 Stage piano

A classic electric piano (we know that the term electric isn't technically correct as this is an electroacoustic instrument). Originally invented by Harold Rhodes, the piano was manufactured by FenderRhodes 1965 - 1981.

Eivind bought his piano from Kjell Rønningen of Ruphus. It was, for some idiot-reason, built into a red flightcase. We had to paint it black. Many hours were spent finetuning and adjusting the instruments. The unit was sold to cover some of the expences for the CP-70.

Moog Taurus Bass pedals

Intoduced in 1976 this instument brought the deep drone to progbands like Genesis, Rush and Yes. It also challenged the basscabinets on large PA-systems. Moog Taurus went out of production in 1981 when it was replaced by Taurus II. Because of it's original moogfilters the Taurus 1 still remains the king of all basspedal-synths. It featured a 13 note pedalboard, 2 VCO's, 3 presets and one programmable voice. The presets was Tuba, Taurus and Bass. There are footswitches for protamento, octave switching and release.

The basspedals used by Scandinavia/FOxTROT is still in the ownership of the four original members of the band. They will never be sold. Eivind is currently planning a rehabproject on the instruments casing. The electronics are reported to be mint. Eivind will also be using this fine instrument on his next album.

ARP Omni 2

The Omni is a string synthesizer with four separate voices, violin, viola, bass and cello. It also featured a bass and synthesizersection that has a VCF and an envelope of it's own. The bass is lowkeypriority giving the player the ability to play a bassline while also playing chords from the same keyboard without having to split it up. The unit was manufactured during the period of 1977-1981. By far the most popular keyboard ever made by ARP.

The Omni 2 was a vital part of Eivind' setup during the early years. Most of the songs from that period were done by playing the Omni with the separate bassline - "sometimes quite odd stuff came out of that lowkeypriority thing", Eivind remembers. The Omni was later bought by Knut Valand (FoXTROT) who still have the unit. It's reported to be in the need of some techincal attention.

System:

1 x 4 octave keyboard with keyboardinterface.

4 x OSC (Ramp, saw, pulse, triangle, sine)

2 x 12db Multimode VCF

1 x 24db HP/LP VCF

1 x VCA

3 x LFO

2 x ADSR

1 x RFM (Filtermodule with 3 resonant filters)

1 COM (Outputs and voltagemonitor)

1 Hall and RM (Springreverb and ringmodulator)

The Elektor Formant was originally marketed as a DIY-project in Elektor magazine. It's a very "moogish" synth with a reasonable good reputation. We don't know who built this particular unit. Any information about the builder is welcome. On this unit the even the frontpanels are custom-made, making the appearance of the synth very different from the original basic Elektor Formant. It even containes an internal power-amp and has DIN-speaker outputs. The amp may have to remain disconnected though - unless schematics can be obtained.

The module in the upper middle is a mystery. It's got pushbuttons for oscillators, and may have some sort of frequency-counter attached. The lower display doesn't contain anything, no LEDs no nothing