Elka synthesizer

Generalmusic was an Italian musical instrument manufacturing company focusing on digital and acoustic pianos, synthesizers and arranger workstations. The company had been producing three lines; musical instrument series called GEM, various studio equipment series called LEM and amplificator products called ELKA.

Generalmusic's first successful arranger workstation models were their WX series, which offered a large blue LCD display, a user-friendly interface and some vintage synth sound presets like Oberheim, ARP 2600, Prophet or Elka Synthex. Although designed as arranger workstations, WX series had some professional synthesizer capabilities like filter and cutoff (resonance) editing with an integrated powerful 16-track sequencer. The company also offered more sophisticated versions of the WX series as S series synthesizers. The S2 was similar to a Kurzweil K2000 for its functionalities such as optional sampling, and layout and patch manipulation.

From the 1990s to 2000, Generalmusic made a physically modeled, digital half-rack piano module called the RealPiano Expander. It featured realistic, physically modelled grand pianos with continuous damper pedal functionality. The RealPiano Expander has a delicate LCD readout that is prone to failure. This is due to the internal placement of the LCD ribbon wire in proximity to the top front edge of the plastic front bezel. To prevent damage to the LCD ribbon wire, users should not place heavy objects on top of the module. Users have replaced the LCD ribbon wire themselves. A damaged LCD ribbon wire does not affect sound quality or other functions at all. The device also has a few bugs related to key velocity that were never corrected in the upgradable EPROM firmware.

The RealPiano Expander was succeeded by the GEM RP-X half-rack module in 2006. The RP-X featured the DRAKE (DSP RISC Advanced Keyboard Engine) which simulates a Fazioli F308 and Steinway & Sons grand piano among other instruments.

...
Wikipedia