The PAiA Talk site

[Mark Hammer]

Cliff Schecht has a link to it on his sig, but hasn't really shone a spotlight on it.  There is a whole lot of choice stuff there, virtually every single PAiA assembly manual ever (albeit in fairly modest, but still redeemable resolution).  Check it out.  http://www.paia.com/talk

[sean k]

Thats all I need to get interested in my half finished Fatman

I wish I was a millionaire sometimes but only so I could buy everything that Paia does!

[Cliff Schecht]

Thanks for posting this Mark, it's much appreciated. I guess I did neglect to mention that we are posting our entire back history of schematics on the forum as well as sound samples, service Q&A, mods and more. I haven't posted on there much yet but I'm hoping to get into some trouble here soon.

This is actually a great resource for people interested in future products as well as my boss frequents the forums and is very open to new ideas. His username is paia-brad and I'm sure he'd be glad to see more people hop on there discussing this and that. We have a LOT of new products that we are hoping to get introduced here soon, but I won't say anymore without the proper authority to do so :-x.

Thats all I need to get interested in my half finished Fatman

I wish I was a millionaire sometimes but only so I could buy everything that Paia does!

You should! I have two Fatman's and love to whip them out in the middle of a jam session. I also have the tube mic preamp, MS stereo mic, some of the cool inexpensive miniature kits we sell (http://paia.com/KRU_kits.asp) and a 9700 synth. I've built a lot of kits not only out of interest though, sometimes I have to try to figure out what the hell John Simonton was thinking when he created a circuit. The AR generators on the 9700 series are a great example, it's a clever circuit that isn't fun to reverse engineer. But one has to admit that his stuff always works well and is very reasonably priced. Of course mods are always mandatory as well .

[Mark Hammer]

I'm in the process of helping the wife of the late Peter Snow, a longtime forum member/contributor who passed away just about a year ago, dispose of his collection.  Among the things we have to find a new home for (hopefully at a price which his wife deserves) is a Tubehead in rackmount, the entire 9700 series, and a Fatman.  It's a tiny wall-o-PAiA.  I expect to find a half-completed Phlanger in his pile of unfinished projects.  He even had one of the ancient ancient PAiA drum machines from the early 70's with programmed rhythm and cheesy sounds.

Peter and John may be gone, but PAiA still rocks.  Kudos to them for making the whole catalog available.

[Cliff Schecht]

Yeah I read about Peter recently, very sad news .

We have an old Oz in the office which is one of my favorite things to play on. All I need is an octave and a half keyboard and octave switch to solo anyways . I also haven't played on a Tubehead yet but have heard good things. We still sell that huge Craig Anderton/John Simonton vocoder as well which I may build soon. I've always gawked at how large the board is on that thing and wondered how good it sounds.

If you are interested in higher quality copies of the manuals, we are going to be selling our press quality PDF's for a buck or two as well. You may scoff at paying for a schematic/manual but each file is over 20 megabytes, and usually larger than that.

[Mark Hammer]

We still sell that huge Craig Anderton/John Simonton vocoder as well which I may build soon. I've always gawked at how large the board is on that thing and wondered how good it sounds.

THAT was the other thing on the rack that I couldn't remember!

If you are interested in higher quality copies of the manuals, we are going to be selling our press quality PDF's for a buck or two as well. You may scoff at paying for a schematic/manual but each file is over 20 megabytes, and usually larger than that.

The one shortcoming in the manuals, whether hi-res or not, is that the PCB patterns are not PnP-ready.  In other words, to use them one would have to flip the image.  Other than that, though, the request for compensation for high-res versions is entirely reasonable.

I have to say that, from time to time, people on this forum tell us that they work at this place or that, and I get moderately jealous.  In your case, Cliff,  I'm planning the mob hit as I write this!   PAiA is one of thoose places that has scruples up the wazoo, and the sort of tradition that employees can be proud of.  It's pretty much where DIY started.