Salamander Dual Oscillator 97, courtesy of Chris Muir
A maker of modular synthesizers which existed from approximately 1975 to 1985. Based in San Francisco, CA, USA, Salamander was noted as a no-compromises maker of high-end equipment, with many functions and features which were novel at the time, and some of which are seldom found in other equipment even now. The equipment was priced accordingly; Salamander made few attempts to reach a lower-cost market.
Much of what is known now about Salamander is from Chris Muir, who worked there for most of the company's existence. In Chris's Salamander Web site, and two Matrixsynth articles (all links provided below), Chris writes that Salamander's bread-and-butter products were its stage lighting consoles and equipment, which were profitable; the money from that supported synthesizer design and manufacturing. The physical format of the modules was based on the dimensions of the standard 19-inch rack (although, among the variety of cabinets offered, only some used this width); the module height was 8.75" (22.2 cm). The basic horizontal unit was 1-1/16 inch (27 mm); most modules were 2U or wider, although there were some 1U modules.
Electrically, the modules attached to a backplane which carried unregulated voltages of +/- 18V and +9V. Modules that were 2U or wider contained onboard voltage regulators that regulated these down to +/- 15V and +5V. (1U modules did not have room on board for the voltage regulators, so some other arrangement, not described in the available documentation, was made for powering them.) All signals were +/- 10V, and outupts were driven by very-low-impedance amplifiers so that an output could easily drive multiple inputs. The backplane also carried keyboard CV/Gate signals and outputs from some commonly used control voltage sources; Salamander made some cases with integrated keyboards, and these would route their signals to the backplane. On some modules, the backplane signals could be picked up as inputs via a switch on the module, without having to use a patch cord. Modules used 3.5mm phone jacks for interconnect. Among the more notable modules were:
- The Dual Oscillator 97, a dual VCO module including a set of waveshaping and mixing circuitry. Each oscillator also had a precision control voltage source that allowed a desired octave and semitone value to be dialed up using a set of thumbwheels. This module was based on circuit sub-modules obtained form E-mu Systems, and were the same as what E-mu used in its own modulars.
- The Outside World Interface 101, which included an envelope follower and a rough pitch to voltage converter.
- The Frequency Transmuter 103, which included sets of octave divider and octave multiplier circuits.
- The Analog Delay 154, a voltage controlled analog delay capable of delays up to 0.5 seconds.
- The Digital Quantizer Sample-Hold 214, an interesting variation of a sample and hold circuit. The sampling was implemented with a 8-bit A/D converter, which then sent its output to a D/A converter for analog output. In between the two was an interface for external circuitry, which could manipulate the bits.
- The Programmable Envelope Generator 240, a set of eight microprocessor-controlled ADSR envelope generators. The module included patch memory, with 32 memory locations.
- The Voice 400, a voice module including two VCOs, a multimode VCF, a VCA, three envelope generators (two ADSR and one AR), a low frequency oscillator, and an analog delay. This also had patch memory with 32 locations, although there was no way to transfer patch data in or out.
Salamander apparently wound down its synth manufacturing operation after 1985. Founder Dennis Saputelli then founded a company called Integrated Controls, which is still in business as of June 2020, offering some lighting control products and contract manufacturing services.