New England Digital (NED) Synclavier 6400 1980s - Black

This is a totally original, fully turnkey Synclavier 6400 system.

These are the premier sampling workstations of their time. They were designed specifically for pro studio and or film / soundtrack work so they are like nothing else out there in terms of sound quality, reliablility, efficiency and hands on access.  They can handle multiple sounds of varying  sample rates simultaneously.  They look intimidating but they are simply a keyboard sampling workstation, but one that is built to be run 24/7, 365 so everything is made out of discrete parts to the highest possible standard. 

I purchased this unit in 2013 from its original owner who used it for commercial work as well as scoring tv shows. I saw the original bill of sale and it was somewhere around $175k.  This series of synclavier were some of the last ones made and it has remained the way it was delivered, with no modifications or tampering,  this is not a system that was put together from parts.

The 6400s are sampling systems only, they were never delivered with FM cards although I'm told it would be possible to  adapt an FM bin by converting the SCSI drives to SD card to free up space in the top shelf.  These systems are so overbuilt that reliability is very high and if something did go wrong there are parts available.

For those who may not know, the way these things are laid out is you have drives up top accessible from the front, power supplies on the bottom front, the rear is voice cards, RAM and output cards, and then the bottom is the ABLE computer which essential runs the OS.  this computer is not like a typical home computer, its essential NASA technology, a discrete computer that as far as I've seen is essentially crash proof. It connects to a terminal on the back which in my case converts from serial port to usb then, via a program on my Mac called Termulator this part essentially replaces the big old powermac you needed to run back in the day strictly for display duties.  you can access all of the functions like sample browsing, editing, sampling sequencing etc. on any mac or PC. 

This system is great shape, it was decomissioned sometime around 2000 and kept it warm storage, the VPK keyboard is in beautiful condition. 

Alot of people think that these types of samplers have been eclipsed by technology, on paper they have, but they have a few things that no other sampler out there can compete with,  the first thing is the sound..  you can sample a single note of a synth and it literally sounds better than the thing you sampled by a large margin,  better meaning it has a magical way of dealing with samples where they come out of the machine with incredible, size, warmth and seperation, since each note has its own hardware voice associated and nothing is really summed together, a single sampled note of a Rhodes for example, gives you the feeling of playing an actual Rhodes piano.  same thing with with a short sample of a string or pad from any synth you have kicking around will turn it into something that will literally bowl you over with richness and depth, even without any effects added.  With decent monitors, Its essentially the difference of experiencing a sound vs just hearing it.  It can also sample at up to 100khz so you have the option of choosing how much sampling arifacts you get as you pitch your samples down, either way sounds good. The other thing is the tactile aspect,  With the buttoney keyboard interface you are only one button press and one knob turn away from most functions, including sequencer functions. 

The system has 35mb ram and 32 mono voices, 16 hardware outputs, the 2 in 8 out midi interface, stereo 100k sample to memory interface, smpte time code,. which I believe is all somewhat standard for a 6400 system, Comes with 30 foot centronics keyboard cable.  I have some original manuals and spare disks as well. 

These systems are quite easy to use and very fast once you know your way around due to the keyboard having so many dedictated controls.  These are such amazing machines but the only problem is having the space for it, which is the only reason I'm considering selling. 

unit is located in Montreal, so attention Montreal and Toronto and Ottawa people.
contact me if you're interested and not locally based and see what's possible.

also have a Synclaver 3 interface for an extra 3K