Jennings Univox J6

Exceptional condition. Overhauled, modified and ready to play.

Demo of a similar J4/5 below.

The Jennings Univox is an all-valve ‘synth’ whose design dates from the fifties. It’s not dissimilar to the Clavioline (as used by Joe Meek on Telstar), but for me has a touch more cool factor.

CONDITION: Superb cosmetic condition. Every part is exceptionally clean, especially for a unit of its age. The case has its cover peeling away slightly around the corners and edges. The internal surfaces are outstanding with almost no dust, dirt or grime that is common with 60s amps. See photos for more information on cosmetic condition.

Made by Tom Jennings (of Vox amps fame), it comes in a faux snakeskin case that houses the valve amp/speaker and keyboard.

The keyboard was designed to sit under a piano keyboard – these units originally featured a knee lever for hands-free volume control. It’s very loud, and the bottom end is pretty monstrous. Rocker switches below the keys control various filters/tremolo depth etc: some are more effective than others. The three speed switch to the left is for tremolo and on the right is the switch for high/med/low octaves.

They require an immense amount of time and work to bring up to a useable state: the keybed and keys often need a lot of careful adjustment and rebuilding, and the scaling and tuning is very labour-intensive (and doesn’t end up perfect – we feel within +/- 10 cents is pretty good) – requires careful selection/matching of resistors.

We have ours modified with an inline breakout box between the keyboard and amp. This allows the use of effects (in the demo we’re using the lovely Echoplex EP-2 for delay), and features a line out option if you want to record direct – you can choose whether or not to use the amp/speaker.

Please get in touch if you need more information about this instrument. 

Demos of this machine coming soon (get in touch if you want to see them first). Demo of a similar model (a very early J5) below (a better player than I can really make these sing, but it gives you the general idea):

A post shared by Soundgas Limited (@soundgasltd) on Oct 15, 2017 at 12:15pm PDT