who knows more about this piece? i found only few informations about it. seems to be a 24 track sampler with pitch shifter.

thanx

It's an effect box. Kinda like an old 480L in that it has dual 'machines' (2 pair stereo channels). Cool device. We have two of them around and they are *always* in use.

They sell for $1500-$2000 on eBay in good working condition.

Pray that you never need service. They repair gear about as fast (not) as Burgess at Sontec...

Yeah, I think you have to send it to the manufacturer in France. It took them almost a year to repair one for a friend of mine. He thought he'd never see it again.

I don't know very much about it..... but imho it is not a sampler. It is a multi fx processing machine. I believe one of the first, if not THE first to use digital processing.

I think it does everything from delays, chorus/flangers , pitch / harmonisations , reverbs , echos ... etc etc ....
Probably has some kind of sampling function integrated to use realtime together with their FX processing ..... sampling delays


I also know that although it is old, there's still people holding on to them because they are supposed to be good. I saw a bunch of them one time in a rack .... some experimental studio group doing contemperary music and using it to create the weirdest live effects. The brussels opera has two of them but they hardly ever use them I think. This is the kind of stuff probably the IRCAM in Paris can tell you more about.

Every time I have seen them they had something to do with experimental music, which makes me think that they must be able to do some realy strange stuff. At least for those days ....


I also think that they were VERY EXTREMELY expensive .... think someone told me once that a full option one, was like 15.000$ back in the early and mid 80's

I invented a sound using one that was the the signature drums sound on Siouxsies & the Banshees "Cities in Dust". It was an Ambience program (gated) with a phaser inserted between the send and the Publisons input.

yuktyy

Jon...it took a year & you live there!!..used to be the best pitch corrector...no one could demo it like 'Pierre' (i think) as he is an accomplished singer...but they filed all the chip numbers off to prevent being 'Berringer-ed'

I have a couple. The sampler aspect is great if you're doing drum replacements and you are living in 1988. It's really the other aspects of the machine that make it worthwhile to own. Every piece of gear has a sound to it and to me the IM-90 adds a musical quality to whatever is being processed by it. It's pretty easy to use and can be run as dual mono or stereo. It's a 2 in, 4 out config, so you can get a mono in, stereo out on some programs. What it does best is reverbs and the pitch shift/delay programs.

Things to look out for when buying - make sure it's 100% functional and the seller knows how to pack a box well becasue right now, the only repair option is to ship it back to France.

It had a lot of options - the remote unit is actually very useful since it has all the front panel plus a rotary encoder which is a lot easier to use when incrementing/decrementing delay times, etc. Note that the remote needs a card in the machine as well as the remote head and cable.

Standard memory config was 5 seconds of delay/sampling per channel with options up to 5 minutes. Common expanded times are 22 seconds and 84 seconds per channel. It's a theory (currently under investigation) that if you have certain revs of the OS, more delay time is as simple as popping out the old RAM and popping in larger ones.

A very rare option is the SMPTE board.

MIDI was standard. The unit is very deep (physically and intellectually) and when you start reading the MIDI section of the manual lots of possibilities come to mind for creative uses. If you have tons of gear in your rack, you'll probably use this for some nice delays, ambiences, and reverbs and rarely get intot he very weird. However, it does reward exploration with astonishing sonic results.

hope that helps.

I worked as service engineer for a large proaudio dealer back in the day who had one in rental stock. I had to keep it running and explain how to use it and consequently used it a lot.. It was about 15 to 20K$ (Can) with all the options, if memory serves. May have had the SMPTE option. I had to service it several times. I remember an insane number of TTL logic chips, 74HCT's, (some scraped) on two large heavily populated PCBs, making up what would later be a one to five chip typical processor system in other similar high-end boxes. No service manual or schematics. I recall phoning France and walking through the troubleshooting process with my very poor French and the Publison guy's non-exsistant English. Somehow we prevailed. Several times. As I recall it sounded God-like, seriously good and the user interface wasn't too bad. The switch membrane on the front was shyte, as all of them were. The verbs were great and the pitch shifting way better than Eventide at the time. Just a great neutral, pleasent, non-hyped sound. Once in a while you run across a piece of audio gear that just has "it". Whatever that particular gumbo might be........
The TC Electronics2290 is another such box and I use mine, even to run guitars through with delay at zero. Just puts glass on the top end. The low bit/ 1mHz sampling rate does some kinda magic? I haven't seen a IM 90 in a while but would probably chew my own leg off for one. Any out there, ready for a new home?

Loved.

Nothing else sounds like it.

Best regards,

SM.

back in the day (1998-2001ish) I assisted a mixer that used to swear by the IM90. We used it exclusively as a micro pitch shifter on vocals.
mono FX send => Dolby A 360 encoder (in "record" mode)=> Publison IM90=>Stereo Return or faders
Bling! instant smooth, magical bigness & sparkle
Backstreet Boys, Britney, R. Kelly...all things Jive records.
If the Publison was in the shop (often) 2nd choice AMS DMX, 3rd choice H3000 micropitchshift

That's a great description. It was THE +8/-8 pitchshift sound back in the day. Nothing really compares. It had a classy "sheen" to it.thumbsup

I call it the Prince -O- Verb.

ya - for me it was the 1.003 / .997 , 1 ms thing - on tons of stuff. it was its own vibe for sure. does anyone know of a plugin that comes close to this sound at all?
id actually use pitchshift a lot more again if i could find this sound.
thanks

s

Man , I used to get the biggest kick out of that weird French dude who would demo the Publison for hours on end at AES, etc. Had kind of a an afro hairdo and always wore an ill-fitting sports jacket. Straight out of an old (which means good) Woody Allen movie.

He would stand there holding some off-brand microphone, singing some pretty awful sounding jazz/scatting, comprised solely of the syllables "Weeee" and "Waaaa". Kinda like Weeee-waaaaa-weee-weee-waaaa-waaa-waaa. Can you hear what I'm sayin'? OMG, it was bad.

But that's actually the good news, because his demo schtick was to crank the Publison to parallel 4ths above and below his note. As you can imagine, the summation of all the above on a sad little hand-carry PA system was....... special.

The guy just killed me. Happy as a tick on a fat cow doing his thing, oblivious as to how awful it sounded. So bad, it was actually greatness. And you had to admire his tireless enthusiasm. I never failed to catch his "act" at the show. I would drag people over there, against their will. Probably accidentally sold some gear for him.

Just thought I would share. Anybody remember the moment with me?

surely there is a video of this guy. Youtube it! I need to see this!

HA....Brian I can see that guys face like it was yesterday. But additionally, correct me if I'm wrong. didn't that guy OWN the company? I think he did.
The Publison was one of those "driven by one guys vision" type companies that got pushed aside in the rush to digital in the 90's and early 2ks. I actually see more of those guys coming back now...the boutique dudes.

I only used a Publison on one project. My Eventide never quite seemed as cool after that.

I own 2x publison DHM 89 B2 machines and love em.... fixed one myself....

BUT cca 3 months ago bought 3x IM 90 for bargin.... nonworking
fixed one .... first day i got em
fixed second a month latter

for third I need cpu pcu that was missing in rack!! .. if anybody have..let me know

so I had 2 working recaped awesome sounding IM 90 and a box of spare in third IM 90

I sold one to friend and all we can say is WOOOOW

it have better reverbs than my 480L its one KILLER BOX.. we bouth love it!!!
pitchshifting is perfect and very musical
and sampling.. thumbsup

detected most of problems and ic codes (that publison sanded away) in box and I can say .. IM 90 is keeper FOREVER .. I JUST LOVE IT!!!

Mr. Publison was Peter Dean, I think.

A real character

A lot of common problems seen in used IM90's are as simple as recapping the PS.

The range of seemingly unrelated aberrant behaviors this can cure approaches bewildering.

Still using our IM90's most every mix.

Hilariously great box.

SM.

Un, deux, trois. Remember the reverse audio demo? My friend that worked at Power Station, who spoke French, was actually authorized to work on them. Always a high point at AES

Publison Infernal Machine - eBay (item 170482858980 end time May-13-10 18:06:28 PDT)

somebody should get this for that value !!!

just about my fav reverb and pitch shifter ever. 4th dimensional in every sense. i never found any reverb i liked apart from taking my gear into old cathedrals until i was luckily introduced to this. maybe i will posy some videos up of mine in action. a true sound phenomenon...

Yes...it was the best show in town.
He fancied himself as a lounge singer...i rode out to the NAB one year next to him & his daughter

I know this is an old thread about an older unit, but I have some new information... and since I always tell people to use the search function I figured I'd use it myself.

A couple items --

1) I've now sent both an IM-90 and a DHM-89-B2 back to Publison for repairs. In both cases, they performed the repairs quickly and thoroughly tested the units before sending them back. The DHM took longer because their burn-in testing discovered some intermittent issues that they addressed. Since I'm in the US, the round trip costs of shipping (times 2) plus repair costs were not cheap, but they work 100% now are are solid. I can provide an email contact if folks want to take that route.

2) I've discovered something that **may** be a fix for the common problem of a locked up IM-90 (powering up results in garbage display, a long beeeeeping sound, or just a brief beep and relay click and nothing else). If you currently have an IM-90 in this state, PM me and I'll send a couple things that may help.

The reason for not initially making it public is that I'd like a sample size > 1 before declaring it a fix and leading people to do unnecessary work on their IM-90's.

oh hell yes. love that song.

Good way to hear Publison machines are Francois Bayle Compositions from the 80s:

Nice sounds in the video.
BTW: meanwhile I own 2 Infernal Machines and I'm really happy to use them. :-)

A problem I had with my 90 was the ribbon cables.
They need to be replaced.
You can reseat them and it will work again.
But, it will fail again with the crazy display and all.
Until you reseat the ribbon cables again.
Just make some new ones and all is good.
Also recap the power supply, if it has not been done recently.
and replace the backup battery before it starts leaking.
Remember, these units are over twenty years old.

Denny

All good points and things that should be done. I had a unit that had been overhauled like that and was still having lockup problems. Also check the power supply points to make sure the voltages are correct.

see attached for some test points and values.

If all that fails to bring it back, there's still one more thing that you can try and that's why I've been posting look for another test subject...

well I came to idea to make new Power transformer .. with more power .. to me looks like sometimes digital rail don't have enough power .. specially when you have full ram , SMPTE card and remote … !! BUT that was just idea for IM90 but it is MUST for DHM 89 B2.. that PSU transformer is really under specs needed to run unit !!!

flat cable is MUST to replace.. and all those TANTALUM capacitors on cards… on one IM 90 I fixed problem was deal tantalum on engine card that caused shortcut and IM failed to boot!
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another things is .. I was doing research and in future it will be chance to replace IM 90 displays with Noritake VFD noel like ….. you can see here on Xpander upgrades that tech did great job !!

Oberheim Xpander restoration by Benden Sound Technology

Xpander, JX 10 and IM 90 use same displays

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another thing with IM 90 is FAN … I added Noctua SUPER silent fan it works super quiet now!

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and we here detected some ICS on IM 90

picture attached .. maybe that will help somebody

Im still trying to figure out what opamps are IM 90s using !!

I must find some time and make nice plan of known IC codes