New Arrival: SIEL Orchestra.

SIEL Orchestra MK1

The SIEL Orchestra is an analogue synth I've been looking for for a while. I bought it today from a keyboardist from Turin. Interesting price, perfect conditions, completely working. And it's not so obvious, since this keyboard is more than 30 years old!

Little history, taken from wikipedia.
"The Siel Orchestra is an analogue subtractive synthesizer, which was produced by Italian manufacturer Siel from 1979 to 1982. The original Orchestra was very limited but still a very characteristic instrument for its time. It produces its sounds from a divide-down oscillator network and therefore has 49 note (unlimited) polyphony. Although it contains 4 sections of presets (Brass, Strings, Reed and Piano), each which contain two sounds, the only parameters that can be edited are Vibrato (LFO), Brilliance (for the Brass, which also has a separate 'Brass Attack'), Attack and Decay. This ultimately means that the Orchestra cannot produce many different sounds; however because of its Italian origin and its distinctive routing, the Orchestra sound is not matched by any other similar synthesizers.
The Orchestra was later bought by ARP Instruments to be slightly modified, relabeled and then sold as the ARP Quartet. This version replaced the Reed section with an Organ one, however aside from that the synthesizer was almost identical.
The Orchestra does not support MIDI or any other means of communicating with other electronic instruments, however it does include a volume pedal socket which could be mistaken for a MIDI port."

I can just add that one of the main reasons why I was looking for this synth is the end of "Machine Gun" by Portishead. That "terminator-like" sound is made with an "Orchestra 2", but can easily be made also with the first version of this keyboard. I definetely love it.
And looking forward to matching it with an analogue delay like a Deluxe Memory Boy (arriving next Friday).