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LEE GROVES (leedgroves@blueyonder.co.uk)
writes:
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Greengate DS-3 is sample package using the brains of an Apple 2E with a keyboard bolted onto it. I Picked up this collection of boxes in the late 80's for £150, only because I couldn't afford to buy a 2nd hand Emulator 2, or a Mirage. I was going to use it to dump the contents of my small synth collection and generally tinker with the sounds. Not being a Wakeman or Howard Jones, I thought this might be fun. Clearly, we are talking in terms of dark ages with regard to memory and software capabilites, but I used to get a genuine buzz out of trying to get the cleanest input source I could find, (pre CD in my case) and achieve a grubby but usable 0.5 to 1 second sample and click free loop. It came with a ton of software versions, midi board and a good library which all in all added up to a poor mans Fairlight prototype. The guy before me was obviously serious about it, as he wanted to connect a 5MB hard drive, but on board RAM and interface never worked, and any Tech Support had long since vanished. Overall by todays standards it's an electric toothbrush really, but you could use it as a 4 track mono drum sequencer, sound clips generator, or mono lead synth(if you don't mind lack of sample pitch control and missing filter section). It still works faultlessly, even though its been stored for years, but you need a lot of space for all those boxes. I've forgotten most of its build history and functions, but there must others out there with some experience of it. I think they built a DS-4 to supercede it, but I can't be sure. Slow, quirky, rare but amusing. A musical "could have been" if the company had stayed together, and should not be forgotten.
Comments About the Sounds:
As expected, short and thin, but with careful looping, and a modern input sound source, quite usable, apart from lack of pitch correction.
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(Thanks to LEE GROVES for this info.)
and Paul Of kv5.vo.uk for the pic
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Released: 1980ish | 
