Much more than my wife thinks

I hear that! Perhaps that explains why I'm now divorced.

(nah, just one contributing factor)

Well it is getting a lot closer now. Here is a copy of the Schmidt manual that I received yesterday from Stefan at EMC. So now, you can take a lot closer look at the feature set of the Schmidt. Really interesting stuff. The manual is actually pretty well written also.

Mine is done and ready to ship. Of course, they decided to take the next two days off. Frustrating!!!!

Just waiting for you to post your receipt for the new Moog modular ;p

since you're going to be busy for the rest of your life with all those knobs and buttons, you should sell me some gear.. or i can just wait and buy half your esteemed collection off your wife

You are my best friend, right?

Just had a look through the manual. There are quite some interesting/odd decisions in terms of interface design on this machine. The most obvious examples:

- no classic pre-filter mixing
- 3-step resonance for the dual filters (and the same for both of them)
- two dedicated LFOs for the multi-pulse waveform (exclusively)
- fixed modulation assignments
...

Brave stuff. I´m pretty sure there are plenty of good reasons for all those design decisions and I love it when an instrument has character. It kind of makes me want to play with one...

Edit: I love the idea of sub-oscillators that can actually run a couple of octaves above the main oscillator.

The oscillator design is pretty insane. I am dying to try out that multi PWM mode waveform set. The phase cancellation compensation is a really interesting thing also.

There is pre-filter mixing and the resonance is 7 steps not 3. Still, why not continuous??? Maybe that can be added. There are several slots reserved for new features.

No arpeggiator :-( Hopefully, that is a software fix. That was real surprising to see. He should be able to fix it because he put in unison mode which didn't exist last year. Also, no midi panic button combo I could see. Glad to see you can send and receive patches and banks using midi-ox.

What kind of warranty is offered? Given that it will probably be 5-15 manufactured, will they service it for a long period of time? Always iffy about these very rare machines since no techs are familiar with them, so I'm wondering what kind of guarantee Schmidt is offering on such a huge investment.

I believe it has a one year warranty but as a practical matter I would probably try to fix and debug it from here. The shipping costs for this are enormous and the synth weighs almost 100 pounds. Hopefully, nothing will go wrong but I have to say I am concerned with the voice cards being stacked the way they are. It is going to be hard to dissipate heat if they get hot.

I have had several email exchanges with another Schmidt purchaser and we have been talking about service logistics. Like me, he can handle servicing his own keyboards but we both asked for schematics and got none. Maybe we will get them in the event that we have a problem. This is what Paolo Groppioni promised me for my GRP A4 if I had a problem. That synth is so solid, though, I seriously doubt it will fail in my lifetime.

What kind of potmeters are used on this instrument? Sealed, or Alpha type...?

any pics /demos of your new pet ,kspiegel?

I'm guessing it will be shipped tomorrow based on previous info.

We share in your anticipation kspiegel!

Where do you go to place an order for one?
Also, do you all think they'll have a bogo sale around Christmas?

I haven't been able to get the final invoice including shipping quote from Stefan yet so right now the synth is sitting in Germany. You would think after all this time working on it and finally finishing it they would jump at the chance to send me the invoice so I could pay for this and get the shipment on its way. We nailed down the shipping quote so there is absolutely nothing that should be holding this up. Very frustrating.

...maybe the other 24 shipping quotes waiting in line?

There are only 5 finished units. I am pretty sure that isn't it No response despite several emails including one last evening. Let's hope there aren't any problems with the synth once I get it if this is what communication is like now.

Any famous soon-to-be-owners that anyone knows of???

i can see Vince and Trent and Martin Gore and perhaps Nick Rhodes getting one???

Who else???

Maybe some sound designers (Hollywood)?

wow . imo kpsiegel thats ridiculous. schmidt seems arrogant.

Probably a case of the tiny company of enthusiasts caving under extraordinary market pressure. They'll probably have a fraction of the workload to deal with any support issues when all the units have been completed and shipped.

With just a couple of dozen customers? Unlikely they'll have issues handling ongoing support, assuming it's well built and debugged to start with.

How often do you have to call support for a synth? How much time do you need from them?

One support guy could deal with customers calling once a month and spending the whole day on the phone, I doubt they'll be doing that.

It could be an explanation for the delays in initially shipping units though, since I can imagine the first day or two after receipt of something this complex the customer might be calling up quite a lot.

even dsi with thousands of keyboards out there and only 4ish people on support always answer the phone for me and help me out (the two times ive had to call).

Yes, that is what I meant. They've probably busted their butts getting these units together and working, but once the initial craze is done I hope things will be smoother and more predictable, both for their sake and that of their customers.

I heard from Stefan yesterday and Stefan Schmidt today on some technical questions I had asked. The synth is going to be shipping earliest middle of next week because EMC is 200 km from Stefan Schmidt and they want to be able to get all the keyboards going out in the first shipment at the same time. This is perfectly reasonable to me.

As far as technical support, I had asked Stefan from EMC if I could just communicate directly with Stefan Schmidt because waiting for his responses was not fair to me and the rest of the Schmidt owners to be. Since he put me in touch with Stefan Schmidt he must have agreed.

We will see how things go moving forward but this is at least some progress and it looks like the shipment is at least reasonably in sight.

Excellent, sounds like you will actually have this bad boy in your hands within the next two weeks. Looking forward to your verdict!

About the production numbers - on the pics from the build in process there are 6 cases (maybe some of them empty, I don´t know); you said they´ve build only five.
You know for sure, is this everything they´ve built so far? Last year I heard they were planning to build around 20+ units...

There are 25 units being built but they are being staged in groups of 5. I was in the first group getting a unit shipped.