A quick and dirty drawing and translation for non-Cyrillic-readers of the main control panel of the Estradin Altair (Эстрадин Альтаир) 231. (A rough copy of the Minimoog built in Ukraine in the mid-1980s.) The drawing focuses on clarifying the points I’ve found confusing while trying to learn about the instrument, either due to my limited Cyrillic or the unexpected nomenclature.
There were different versions of the box lines and dials, and the original cap colours seem to vary. This concentrates on the words, [1] and doesn’t show one specific version of the rest. Or screws. For clarity, I’ve simplified the waveform shapes. It may not be exactly to scale or be too accurate about knob shape, as I’m working from some indistinct photos. (Hoping to get exact measurements one day.)
Like the earlier Estradin 230, the Altair replicates most of the controls (if not the sound) of the Minimoog, but leaves off the output switch and has only a single key CV → cutoff switch. [2]
Translation notes: Most of these words were translated into Russian from English/Italian/French/etc. in the first place. What are the differences between the literal and interpreted versions?
- RATE I think is a bit less confusing than SPEED for portamento, as you usually associate speed with an oscillator? (And it is slew rate.)
- MIX rather than MIXER. I’m not sure why the translation into Russian (of Moog’s “modulation mix”) used mixer here to begin with.
- PITCH and CUTOFF MODULATION to clarify their function if useful.
- KEY CONTROL and KEY MODULATION rather than KEYBOARD because they’re different control functions, rather than a mod. source, or each other.
- RESONANCE is a more familiar term than the literal BRILLIANCE for Q.
- DEPTH rather than EMPHASIS, which is an unusual usage and is easily confusable with Moog’s “emphasis” used for Q, if you’re trying to compare to the Minimoog.
- DECAY is more familiar than the literal FADING.
- SUSTAIN is more familiar than the more literal SUPPORT . . . but sustain may be a reasonable literal translation in this context too. [3]
- RELEASE is a more familiar term than Memory. Some Russian-language synths use ‘memory’ because the Decay setting is being ‘remembered’ (or at least re-used) for what Moog sometimes called T3, in the transient modulation signals. (The Minimoog has this switch on the keydeck, labelled “Decay”.)
- REFERENCE may be entirely unnecessary but A-440 is a reference tone which can be used to tune the main oscillators to . . . as long as it’s accurate in the first place. These old VCOs need frequent retuning.
- AMP (‘Amplifier’ didn’t quite fit) is a little more familiar than Contour, which in any case doesn’t really tell you that this is an amplifier (envelope), and may be confusing to those looking at a Minimoog, which has two different mentions of contour.
I’ve used LO for both versions of the low-frequency position on the Register switches as both Moog and Estradin (on the 230) used that, and LOW (literal translation of нч) might be a bit long.
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Notes
- Typographical note: I have no idea what fonts were available in the Soviet Union in 1984, but I have no font which exactly replicates the features seen here. It’s a little weird that I have no sans-serif font with Л and Д in the simple original triangular form of Lambda and Delta. Estradin’s original choice clearly shows that such fonts were available, so they should still be? But it’s weirder that I was able to use DejaVu Sans Condensed for this — but only by using the actual Lambda and Delta characters, which are in triangular form. What happened to consistency? If I do an update (or SVG) of this one day I might need to go fonthunting . . . ↖
- The Minimoog seems to do 1:1 Key CV with both switches on, and lower CV levels with each switch. I imagine the Estradins do 1:1 with the single switch, but I haven’t seen this demonstrated. Hoping to be able to prove or disprove it one day. ↖
- Note that Sustain was translated into Russian here as поддержка (podderzhka) but as пьедестал (pedestal) by Formanta. ↖
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