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Gemclub up and alive again

Any keyboard/synth not covered by a dedicated section.

Moderators: Derek, parametric, Saul

Jokeyman123 United States of America
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Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by Jokeyman123 »

What a surprise....the GemClub is now back up, and in full force. Dave Williams is moderating it again, a tremendous amount of archival work must have been done to restore this. These are still viable unique music workstations IMO-this is well worth reviving. Ditronix in the UK is promising to re-manufacture some of the once impossible to get hardware upgrades for these. I am glad I kept my Equinox-I even see a pic of a promised new Equinox version, but vaporware has always been a common problem in the music industry so we will see. The drawbar functions on my Equinox-still compete favorably with many of the newest i've seen and played, still sound amazing in 2021. and the SK auto-arrangements-were one of the few that changed depending on chord qualities-something else I have not come across with most of the newer auto-arrangers, and not done as well. Still miss my SK-76 for that feature alone.
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Saul Ukraine
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by Saul »

Good to hear that there is once again, support for these often very underrated keyboards.

Is GemClub free or paid because I have a vague recollection that is was a paid membership, or am I thinking of something else?
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Jokeyman123 United States of America
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by Jokeyman123 »

Dave Williams, the original moderator-is asking for donations-the original was a paid membership which I had signed onto back then. and this website is still in "beta" but checking some of the download areas-I see at least some of the important OS binaries for many WK's, genesys, Equinox. I am in process of obtaining a rather rare WX2-which will need a new floppy drive. Very similar to the original S2. i am on this group right now trying to source what I can for it. Will need some work, but is supposedly operational. another rather unique keyboard-i have a secret use for it-I have been trying to suss out an external video connection for the fusions, and this WX I think will have the very rare rgb video card in it for connecting to an external monitor or TV screen was used for "karaoke" stuff. But that's another group post!
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by ffafchamps10 »

Hello, Having recently found (2 days ago) a GEM Equinox 76 I am pleasantly surprised to discover its sounds a little different from other better known workstations.
I unfortunately bought it without the original floppy disks and without any additional sounds.
Is there a site somewhere where it is still possible to find resources for this synth? or, could someone with this model send me some files by email?
I registered on the "GEMclub" and I paid my membership for 1 year (around 12 €) but I can't find any new sounds, even on this site.
Thanks to the good people who can help me.
Jokeyman123 United States of America
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by Jokeyman123 »

You might post something in the Gemclub Facebook group, if you are on Facebook-I would try to send an enquiry directly to Dave Willams there, the Gemclub moderator. Unfortunately it is not as simple as downloading a file of sounds onto a floppy and loading into the Equinox-unless you have a file that has the complete disk structure intact. I have a few that might work-I'm not sure-I will check with Saul, this group's moderator-to see if it is OK to upload a few of my Equinox files.

Here is the other tricky part. How will you get these files onto a floppy disk? I am not sure, from my memory-if this can be done with a USB outboard floppy drive, I think you can but I'm not sure. The Equinox uses standard 1.44MB high density floppy disks which need to be formatted in the Equinox-I have a hard drive in mine-and transferred most of my floppies in there, but still have a pretty good collection. if all is good, and Saul is Ok with uploads-I can upload a few intact disk contents here-would have to be in compressed ".zip" format-and you wil unzip these, and transfer the contents directly to a floppy.

Each floppy structure for the Equinox has an "all" master folder-and within it are subfolders which will have sounds, samples, songs anything that is in that disk-and will load as an "all' file. the Gemclub does have the 76 and 61 key operating system as a file that can be downloaded last I checked, I have these too. You can also load smf ".mid" fomat song files directly into the Equinox from a floppy-the trick again is to be able to get your files from the computer to a floppy drive. You will need a USB floppy drive, or a computer that still has one-and it has to be a high density drive to get a full Equinox disk-some of these will take up all 1.44MB, not the older 720K.

I just ran a few of my floppies through my outboard USB floppy drive-and can read and write directly to an Equinox formatted floppy. If Saul gives me the OK-and this user group is ok with .zip files (some anti-virus anti-spyware doesn't allow this) I will post a few of my disks.
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by Jokeyman123 »

The Gemclub database is far from the original-which had a huge collection of files for most of the Generalmusic boards-which is why I tried to "archive" everything I could at the time. Its my hope that Dave Williams will continue (somehow) to source more files from the original club-and if you contact the Danish company that is trying to revive the GEM/Generalmusic keyboards-there is a website-they might have some sources although I have not done this.
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by ffafchamps10 »

Hello,
Thank you very much for your answer.
it would be really great to be able to download the files you have for the equinox because I search on the internet, forum, etc ... but I really can't find much.
We can see that this synth was not very coveted at the time.

If you need my mail you can email me via the <Contact> balloon on the right . . . . . .

Regards.
Last edited by parametric on Sat Aug 21, 2021 12:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Best NOT to publish your email address in the open forum - Spam-Bots collect those they can SEE
Jokeyman123 United States of America
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by Jokeyman123 »

ff...check your PM's. I posted something there for you to take a look at.
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by ffafchamps10 »

Merci, j'ai répondu. :)
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by ffafchamps10 »

The site is still up now, what's going on?
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Saul Ukraine
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by Saul »

I haven't checked on Gemclub for a while but it looks like the Facebook group has been deleted or taken down for some reason, usually copyright issues etc. The website is still running although it shows an "under maintenance" notice at the moment.

https://gem-club.com/

By the way, it is fine to upload any GEM files you have either to this section or the downloads section of the forum👍
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Jokeyman123 United States of America
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by Jokeyman123 »

Saul-I just noticed this post from back in january-Id been extremely pressed renovating my mom's home out of necessity for several months, barely been on board anywhere excep the Fusion group. I will look through my files for the Gem keyboards-and upload some more of my files here if anyone is interested. i have a good collection primarily for the Equinox, but sill saved many documents from the original GEMClub, including service bulletins and sounds, song disks.
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Re: Gemclub up and alive again

Unread post by Saul »

Thanks, JM. It would be greatly appreciated👍

Having files here is a good safety blanket in case links go down elsewhere :)
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