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First synth luff


pighood

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Not necessarily the first synth you owned, but the one wot caught your attention and drew you into the knobbly money pit in which you currently reside. When did it first happen for you, and which was it?

 

For this Pig, it was a dark and stormy night in 1982 and a chance encounter with the Realistic MG-1 set up on display just inside the door of the Radio Shack in Laurel Mall, Maryland. I was sideways impressed it could make these choo-choo noises, unlike the Casiotones I'd owned (never more than one at a time). It cost a finking stortune ($499 is a flockton to a 2nd year psych student). I came to own one years later, and gave it to my cousin.

 

I need psych help now.

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The thing that set me on the path was in fact my first synth. Moog Rogue...the envelope contoured sync sound on that beast was unreal. :love:

 

Bought it brand-new in 1983 with money that was supposed to be spent on schoolbooks and food :freak: ...I was able to talk the guy at Guitars Ecetera down to $350. I was twenty years old. Things have kind of snowballed since then :lol:

 

At one point, it looked like this:

old1.jpg

old2.jpg

 

...but I sold a ton of stuff and have consolidated everything down to around seven synths now :D

Hard to believe I'm sure but its a bit of a slippery slope down to the bottom of the pit you speak of Piggles - so its even more of a trecherous crawl back ;)

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It was a Juno-60 in 1985. I was 12 at the time and into bands like Duran Duran and Tears for Fears, so I would hang out at a friend's house that contained his dad's studio. I got to fiddle around with the Juno-60 (which had long been neglected in favor of the DX-7 & TX-816). It sold me on getting something that could make pads, sweeps, and strings vs. marimbas, Rhodes, and slap-bass sounds. It wasn't a JP-8, but closer to one than a DX would be (in my mind).

 

I then begged the parentals for a Juno-60 or 106, but received a DX-21 due to the insistence of said friend's father of how FM was superior. I was bummed it wasn't a Juno, but also felt lucky just to have a synth when I was 13.

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An electronic music professor from the local University brought an early synthesizer to my mom's piano studio to demonstrate to all the local piano teachers.

 

It was 1969 and I was looking at a Synthi VCS-3. Switched On Bach came out later that year and I was hopelessly hooked.

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It actually started with cheesy console organs in the 70s. As a kid I'd sit in the keyboard/organ store at the mall and play for hours with headphones on while my mother did her shopping. Also in the 70s I had an old Magnus organ that a friend of my mother gave me, and I'd play it and imagine it was a real synth.

 

But the first real synth that I fell in love with was the Poly 800. I bought it used in perfect shape from a guy that had two of them (!!) set up alongside a yamaha drum machine. This was in 1986. When I drove over to look at it he demoed it for me and was able to play a live version of The Cars' "Drive". I was hooked. I bought the poly 800 and programmed the hell out of that thing. It's funny, I still have it, though it sits in the closet and hasn't been used in 17 years. It just brings back too many good memories.

 

That same year (86), I was at the now-defunct 'Only Guitar Shop' in Clifton Park, NY, and heard the Ensoniq Mirage and the Roland TR 707. That pretty much did it. Later that year I bought a 707 and an alpha juno 1, and within two years got a D50 and an EPS.

 

But the moment that the seed was planted was probably while watching the old Captain and Tenille show in the 70s. I remember on one episode the "Captain" was sitting at this huge synth and taking requests from the audience. They would name an instrument or a sound, and he would twiddle the knobs and make that sound. Then one guy stood up and said, "Can you make a snowstorm." The Captain twiddled the knobs a bit, attenuated a few sliders, and after probably a minute or two, he pressed the keys. Out came a snowstorm!! The audience went wild. I was sitting there, about 8 years old, and I couldn't believe it!!! This was in 1975 or 76. He even explained to the audience what a synthesizer was, and the basics of how it worked. That was the day I learned what a synth was. I'll never forget that.

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That same year (86), I was at the now-defunct 'Only Guitar Shop' in Clifton Park, NY

 

 

I guess I knew that would happen eventually, but it's a shame, anyway. It was a cool store, and one of the only things I liked about my short time with the Shenendehowans in the early nineties.

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In 1984, our local music store got in a Sequential Circuits Six-Trak and that was it for me!! I had a Rhodes Suitcase 73 at the time (which I purchased from former heavyweight boxing champ, Larry Holmes) but it was difficult to transport without some kind of assistance.

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I remember going into the local guitar stores in the mid-late 70's, after I started playing guitar, and checking out the synths as well as the guitars. I guess the first one to really make me drool and dream about it was the Roland Gr300 guitar synth - but there was no way I could afford 3000$ for something like that. Eventually acquired a CZ101 and an Arp Axxe as the 80's wound down, but the lust really hit again after I bought a Roland GR30 guitar synth and could control stuff from a guitar - thus resulting in the room full of stuff I have now. Thanks to Ebay, I have been able to score an old GR300 as well - and it rocks just like i remembered :)

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Roland SH-5. Bought for half-price from a bunch of gee-tards

running a music shop in Yokohama - they had it set to some

sort of random sample & hold patch and didn't know how to make

it stop (!) so they were glad to get rid of it. It took me about

6 weeks to get my hands on an english-language instruction

manual for it after bringing it home. Big fun. And I thought the

front panel was as close to the front panel of a spaceship

as I was ever likely to see.

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DX7, believe it or not. There was one in the local music shop, and I just couldn't get over how "real" it sounded. (haha!) The airwaves were filled with it at the time, too, so that only added to the GAS. I lusted after that for some time, but couldn't afford it. When I could finally afford a synth of any kind, it was a Juno-106, which I still have.

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My local store had a Synergy I used to sit and play, then an OB-Xa in 1981 or so? I worked all summer to buy one but all I was able to afford was a CS-15. No regrets! Finally got an OB-8 as my Obie fix just last year (after tons of other stuff)!

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xp-60.jpg

 

The Roland XP-60.

 

I had the JV-1000 and XP-80 before it but this is the unit I began to build a studio around. Power and portability of its' time. Later, a loan was taken and an Akai S2800 Sampler and a JD-990 were added along with a PC running Sonic Foundry's Acid Music and Sound Forge. Got a lot out of my head with this bit of kit.

 

Although I've been through a lot of kit since the above, my studio now mirrors the same concept.

 

 

Honorable Mention

 

mc-505.jpg

 

Roland's MC-505

 

I had SO much fun using this unit that it started me on the path of the groovebox.

 

 

I've come to realize that I cannot do without a workstation and a groovebox in my setup.

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First synth love?

 

jv1080.jpg

 

JV-1080 - Friend gave me one for a week. (back there in 1995) I couldn't believe this thing was real!! I hat to slap my face 4-5 times.... next thing i know, few months later i bought one and spent endless hours with it (couldn't afford a sampler, so had to do everything on JV). In fact, spent so much time with it, i no longer need to actually sit in front of it to build a patch.

 

Moving into JD-990 was breeze due to same programming interface.

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Started a lot later than a few of you. My first real synth was a Yamaha CS6X that my mum bought for me with the proceeds of a nice lottery win. Terribly fiddly to program, but had some great sounds on it and is still used today, although the MOSS on my Triton seems to be taking over more and more now.

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