Chroma Chroma

The presets are not bad but don't really indicate what this synth is capable of. Editing is quite difficult because the 50-buttons have many different values and the lcd is not very helpful. A huge colored chart of the different values was supplied with the instrument and is indispensable for serious editing. The manual was not bad.

In general, acoustic sounds are quite hard to create although it is capable of creating many wonderful soft piano sounds with very fast attack. The keyboard is semi-weighted and superb and reacts very well to velocity. An aftertouch pressure option was promised but only a very few were made available. There are no effects. The Chroma can create very buzzy and gritty sounds but also superb percussive sounds and not bad pads. Of the 20 or so synths I have owned, the Chroma remains a favorite as many sounds were quite unique and the keyboard was excellent. The Chroma has two arpeggiators, each capable of latching up to 150 or more notes, which was fabulous.

It worked fine for about 5 years but finally died. I haven't tried to have it repaired yet because it is so heavy, but I'm not getting rid of it. I bought a J. L. Cooper Chromaface midi kit for it but my model was so early it needed it could only send out midi and needed a different transistor to receive.

Unfortunately CBS did not support this instrument for more than a couple of years.

I would love to get a Midied Chroma in excellent condition. It's a sensational snyth. I also have an Oberheim Xpander, an Emu Ultra Proteus, a Kurzweill 1000P, a Moog Source, a Casio cZ101, a Roland D50, a Roland JV1080, a Yamaha tx7, tx81z, FM7, Profive, Waldorf PPG software, etc.