There seems to be a bit of a confusion on what exactly Vangelis gear is, what is direct, what is custom etc.
This is by no means a complete list, as a lot more was done in smaller projects, but mainly, there were 3 subsequent systems.
It roughly started with the Zyklus MPS-1, a commercially available product, however, it didn’t sell well (only 40). This is what we are currently cloning and hoping to open source for everyone to build & use if they want. More on that later though.
Through the record “Direct” and its usage in a few concerts in 1987 and 1988, and probably also due to its rarity, the machine got a bit of a cult following among Vangelis fans.
Zyklus was Bill Marshall, Pete Kellock and Graham Mair.
Because Vangelis liked some of the aspects of the Zyklus, he asked the developers to create something based on the MPS and other ideas which ended up to become the VRS (Vangelis Rythem Sequencer), which Vangelis ultimately named “Direct”.
In short, Direct is a system which allows the user to easily control 8 synthesizers from one simple panel. No menu diving, no programming. While there are some features in Direct that are unique and ‘out of the box’ – it’s mostly about an easy user interface to shorten the time. And most importantly, to control the synths without ‘note hanging’ while changing settings during playing.
Later software versions (and thus functionalities) are probably lost forever unless someone still has an archive of them somewhere…..
Along with Direct was another module, called the “Transposer”:
The white box with the red displays is the original Transposer unit. Two units were made, for each Direct box one. They could also be used stand-alone. Very little is publicly known about the workings of the transposer units. They were closely tied to the particulars of Vangelis midi setup and the way he organized his midi channels and keyboard layouts. Apparently, an earlier – 1 unit high – prototype version was created as well and should (hopefully) still be in Vangelis’ archives somewhere. No schematics or source code remained of these boxes that I know of.
Direct and the transposer were build by a company called “Decade”, but the people behind it were, Bill Marshall, Pete Kellock for the first few iterations, Mike Crisp who designed and build the main circuit boards and when Pete moved to Singapore, Richard Hooker was tasked with programming. These were entirely custom for Vangelis and while there were plans (and even a prototype build) for a commercial variant, this ultimately never came to pass.
Although nearly 40 years old by now, Direct and the transposer were quite the hardware feats. In those days, a lot of this hardware was extremely expensive, especially memory. These days, a simple Teensy setup could easily do the same and more..
Also, it’s important to note that these were tools to aid in the creative process, but didn’t replace the creative process in any way. I’m sure this applies to his later systems as well. Ultimately, it was the musician, not his tools, that was creating the music
These systems were used by Vangelis until roughly 1994, after which a new system was used, supposedly called “System 1”. I know very little of this system, other than that it was by “Yes Audio” / Willi Buys from Alyseum and from what I’ve understood, Frederic Rousseau and other people were involved in designing, developing and programming the system. Some of the equipment has a similar look to the original Transposer Module from Decade but they are not related or named Direct. This is the system with all the fancy preset selector boxes and pedals, as seen in a few documentary videos.
The functionality is radically different from “Direct”, although there maybe some overlapping with the transposer.
And finally, a newer version was created with updated hardware and quite likely functionality, but as far as I can tell, Vangelis didn’t get to use it much – if at all:
