What were synth shops like 25 years ago?

[triton76]

Mwalthius, I remember Hanich music. I was thinking about it when I read the thread title. I grew up in Hacienda Hts. nearby.

 

I don't think it was Hanich but when my older brother bought his first Jap. Squier Strat in the early 80's I went into a synth room with the new DX9, a Prophet 600, JX3p, Moog Source, and an Emulator (I think it was $8000!). My GAS was born that day; I'll never forget it.

[SaltyDogg]

It's funny with the New Year and all...

 

I remember 10 years ago, pining for the 80s (my childhood). I figured the Sun didn't quite shine as brightly in the 90s... that the world was exhausted, "reality" was somehow not the same, etc etc

 

The older I get, I realize how messed up I was. Way too idealistic amongst other things. Just FYI:freak:

[Ed A.]

Originally posted by triton76 an Emulator (I think it was $8000!)

 

It was just under $7000 (an EII), and like a sucker I bought one . It could have been worse, I was eyeing a Fairlight CMI back then.

If only I still had all that money I spent on gear right now, I'd probably blow it all in Vegas.

[zxcvbnm098]

In LA in the very early 80's it was store in North Hollywood called Goodman Music. Started as a piano and organ store in the 70's and eventually by early 80's carried all the main synths of the day. Great place, and even beat out GC in those days before they went on their expansion. Cool place, but not exactly fancy or anything. But they did have it all, and was the place many pros shopped....

[Darkstorm]

Untill a little over 10 yrs ago, most music gear stores I knew of carried synths too. Not just guitars and basses and maybe drums. Much harder to find music gear stores today that carry synths cept for GC. GC near me has pitiful small keyboard section, and only stocks some roland, yamaha & korg stuff. You wont find any nord, waldorf, Access, Novation, Kurzwell or even Alesis there unless its used. back in the mid 70's a few stores in town I lived in caried synths. Same for the 1980's & early 90's for places I was in.

[rugge78]

 

From talking to music shop owners in my home town (small town) the first synth that they sold was a Korg Trident Mk1 in 1980/81.

 

 

 

How Much for that synth in 1980? I still own an MKII which a friend of mine gave me for free.

 

Thanks

Davide

[rogerramjet]

Goodman's was where the nasty sales guy attitude was born. If you walked into the show to look at all the cool synths (one of the few places in town to see most of everything like Memory Moogs, etc) the sales people would ask if you were going to buy anything today. If no was your answer they would immediately cop an attitude.

 

The prototype for modern salesguys.

 

 

 

Originally posted by zxcvbnm098 In LA in the very early 80's it was store in North Hollywood called Goodman Music. Started as a piano and organ store in the 70's and eventually by early 80's carried all the main synths of the day. Great place, and even beat out GC in those days before they went on their expansion. Cool place, but not exactly fancy or anything. But they did have it all, and was the place many pros shopped....

 

[SaltyDogg]

Originally posted by rogerramjet Goodman's was where the nasty sales guy attitude was born. If you walked into the show to look at all the cool synths (one of the few places in town to see most of everything like Memory Moogs, etc) the sales people would ask if you were going to buy anything today. If no was your answer they would immediately cop an attitude. The prototype for modern salesguys.

 

I love how salesmen act like it's no big deal for you to drop 1000s, even if you HAVE it to spend. Is it just me or do such choices take careful research and planning??

[EJ2]

From my experience and perspective, music stores used to be a place where you could show up weeks, months, etc. to your favorite dealer and find the same friendly colleague who knew what the hell he was talking about. Today, most (not all) stores are staffed by idiots who haven't a clue about products - new or old.

 

Luckily, I still have a few places to get intelligent conversation/advice and/or a quick deal/discount as a preferred client without having to stand around for hours waiting for the idiot to check with his manager, followed by that manager checking with his manager etc. etc. etc.

[Kenny Smith]

Things were much better, everything we want now we used to have.

http://www.kennysmithsalesguru.com/blog/?p=68

[ChristianRock]

Welcome to KSS Mr. Kenny Smith

 

I'm sure a lot of people here (including me) will be interested in the stories that you have to tell us about the olde days of synt craze!

[stillearning]

PI Keyboards in Cleveland Ohio carried just about anything synth in the early 70's. Moog, Arp were the main lines then. Mid 70's brought Oberheim, Emu, Polyfusion. Late 70's brought SCI, Roland, etc... If you wanted to demo a synth, that was the place to go. Alas, they are no more. Closed in early 90, IIRC. Shame I can't remember, since I worked there as service manager. Wes Taggart Analogics http://www.analogics.org/

 

Ahh, the good old days at Pi. I worked there too, going all the way back into the early 70s, when they were downtown, across from The Agora. Matter of fact, the owner remains a friend to this day, and is the drummer in one of the bands I play in.

 

And yes, Wes, we know each other!

 

Free plug: Wes does great synth repair, and is an all around good guy. Highly recommended.

[stillearning]

 

Talkin' early 70's now, I bought my rig used mostly - my first B-3 was $500, and you could buy a wurli or clav any time you wanted for $50 - $75. Rhodes were around but I was playing rock and didn't own one until about 5 years later. But synths were expensive, brand new, and not available used. I always took out a loan to buy my expensive synths, and paid it off by gigging.

 

 

Yep, that's how I remember it too. Got my C3 for free, but had to pay a few hundred for the Leslie! Not uncommon back then. But mostly took out loans for synths. Owned an ARP Quadra and a P5 back in the day. Cost a pretty penny they did.

[soundwave106]

 

Here's a question... how did synthpop and new romantic bands get synths? Because it seems like they were often formed from the GROUND UP... so if you're not making cash, were they all rich kids getting their parents to buy them these synths... or were they taking out major loans?

 

 

I think some of the ones that formed from the ground up started pretty minimal (eg Human League).

 

Others probably were polished by labels / producers / studios which *did* have the cash. (In a sense, the way many record contracts work, I bet many of those New Wave artists *did* have "loans" of sorts...)

 

You could get paid decently gigging back then, so it's possible that the expense of a synth could be justified better than today (depending on how your band was doing)...

[carbon111]

I walked into a place called "Guitars Etc." in Seattle back in '83 or '84. They had a Moog Rogue, a Moog Source, a Moog Opus3 and an Oberheim OB8.

 

Eventually I bought their Rogue for $350 (my first synth!) - it was a great price because nobody was buying back then.

[ElectricPuppy]

Holy thread necromancy, Batman!

 

I remember seeing the Jupiter-8, new, for sale on a big ol' A-frame stand along with another keyboard, but I don't recall what it was, back around '82 or '83. I remember asking what the price was and being floored. "Wow, I could buy a really nice car for that!"

[ChristianRock]

I imagine the same experience can be had nowadays in repair shops

 

This past Friday I went to pick up a couple effects units that I had up for repair, and at the front of the store, laying against a wall, were a wall of synths, including a very dusty Jupiter-8 and a Yamaha DX7 (that looked much cleaner) along with several Tritons and Trinitys (I guess those break a lot?). Anyway, while I was waiting for my receipt, I felt the JP-8 keys (very light) and turned the knobs and moved the sliders - just to say I've done it before

 

When I told the front desk lady how much these JP-8s were catching on Ebay, she had that look of "yeah sure" in her eyes...

 

And this is a small repair shop not close to the downtown area, I bet Wizard Electronics (where our friend The Pro works) sees a lot more vintage synths.

[Gribs]

I grew up in Rochester, NY. I have a only a few of disjoint but vivid memories. You have to remember that I grew up interested mostly in and playing guitars so I didn't pay as much attention to keys and synths when I was in shops.

 

The first was when shopping for my first electric guitar and amp with my mom and dad. We went to a store (I can't remember the name) that sold Randall amplifiers and they were all solid state. They also had these odd-looking black electronic gizmos with jack inputs and knobs on them in a big rack on the wall. There was a keyboard at the bottom of the rack. My dad said they components for making electronic synthesizers and you had to wire them together to make sounds. I knew nothing about it other than they looked cool and technical, but I imagine that they must have been Moog Modular modules.

 

My second memory is from Duke Spinner music where I was also shopping for my first guitar and amp (and we bought a Fender Tele and a 30 Watt Yamaha solid state amp there). They sold all sorts of instruments there and the store was really close to the Eastman School of Music. They had this weird-looking Yamaha piano that had electronic dials on it. What the heck was that? A fat black dude with sunglasses came in and the store guys greeted him like he was a well-know regular and they spent lots of time with him showing him the piano-thing. I have no idea who he was, but he was a really good jazz pianist. He played the piano a bunch and it sounded weird but very cool, sorta like Eddie Jobson on Rendevous 602 on UK Danger Money. I don't know what Yamaha model it was - an early electro-acoustic thing?

 

The third memory was at House of Guitars (hog) which is still in business. At the time it was this insane place that was run by a couple of guys that looked and talked like total burnouts but I think were really business geniuses. The second floor was all keyboards and drums. I remember walking through and looking at keyboards and dinking the keys. I remember that there was a PolyMoog, a MiniMoog, and an Arp Odyssey. Someone said the PolyMoog was a model used by Rick Wakeman from Yes and the Odyssey was supposed to be the type of keyboard used by Styx for the solo on "Sail Away". I knew that the keyboard player from REO Speedwagon played a MiniMoog in concert because I had seen him (his other instruments were an acoustic piano and an organ - nothing else). In particular he used it on "Time for me to Fly". Again I was pretty young (about 14) and the things looked amazingly complicated with all their dials and sliders.

 

A few years later I remember visiting hog and they had this new amp from California that was supposed to be uber-sounding, loud, with amazing distortion and all coming from a little combo with one speaker. The Mesa Boogie Mark I was incredibly expensive, though I thought it was cool because my Music Man amp was pretty clean-sounding and had two Electrovoice EVMs in it which made it about 2x the weight of the little boogie combo amp. Al DiMeola used something like it in concert with Return to Forever, and the guitar player at our senior ball had one propped up on a chair with a single microphone into the PA.

[Keyrick]

I bought my OMNI at Hanich Music in the mid seventies. The hot board at the time was the Prophet 10, I think.

 

The GC in Hollywood and West LA Music had the most inventory that I remember in the seventies. I was in my twenties, and some of the guys were cool and some were pretty aloof. But most of them knew what they we doing. I heard my first ARP String Ensemble at West LA music, and I had to have one. Once I had saved up enough money to buy one, the OMNI had been released, and it had a rudimentry polyphonic synth along with the strings. And Hanich was closer to me than West LA.

[Karma1]

I can't even remember where I bought my first synth in the 80's - a little Yamaha CS-101. It looked like a toy, but was actually pretty cool and a good place to start learning about analog synthesis, filters, oscillators, envelopes, etc. But I definitely do remember buying my next synth - the brand new Roland Juno 60 at Sam Ash on 48th St in New York City. It was primarily a guitar store, but they carried some keyboard gear. That was quite a thrill bringing that baby home.

[Gribs]

 

I bought my OMNI at Hanich Music in the mid seventies.

 

 

Ooo, ooo! So do you still have it?

[Keyrick]

 

Ooo, ooo! So do you still have it?

 

 

Yes, but it is broken. I have not really tried, but I would like to have it repaired one day, that is if the replacement parts exist!

[Miket156]

 

by jchas: When a storm blew in the windows of the local Arp store (Vavros Music) all the keyboard gear got soaked. Since the insurance company had just made out a check for the losses - I made a deal for my second Odyssey - $500 and a 1/4oz.

 

 

Ha Ha, that puts the DEAL back in a good DEAL! Best laugh I've had in quite a while.

 

A lot of stores were just piano and organ stores, and that's it. If you wanted to buy a Hammond, you had to go to the closest Hammond dealer.

 

General type music stores that sold guitars, amps, band instruments, strings, accessories usually concentrated on their core business and didn't bother with synths. Most mom and pop stores had one or two product lines and stuck with them.

 

There were some stores (very few) had a lot of synths and keyboards. We use to have one store in Scranton. PA......Dickstein Distributing. Paul Dickstein had the most synths of any store in PA other than maybe in Philly. He was a big Arp dealer, I bought my Odyssey and the Arp sequencer from him, and he also sold Sequential Circuits. I also bought my Prophet 5 from him. Paul was a good guy and unfortunately he died a lot younger than he should have. Too bad, he was a great guy, gave me the best deals he could afford, and it was a good place to hang out. He knew synthesizers too. He could do things with the Odyssey on the fly that were amazing!

 

I also dealt with some of the NYC stores, Manny's Music was top shelf. They always treated the bands that came in there with respect and my band bought a ton of gear from them.

 

There were no GC type stores back in those days that I can remember. Most of the stores were protective of their floor models and only people that actually knew how to play and were interested in trying synths to determine what they were going to buy could demo the floor models.

 

Kids that came in with large sodas and burgers were told to leave.

 

Mike T.

[aeon]

Although I had some synth experience already, I didn't actually visit a store with synths until 1985 - the Guitar Center in Schaumburg, IL.

 

I remember there being an Obie Matrix-12 there, and I was blown away by some of the sounds it could do. (I seem to recall a patch named "Fireball") I also remember lusting over an E-mu Emulator II. It was all *way* beyond what I could afford at 16.

 

The manager was named Frank. He always seemed really crabby and cranky to other people, but he was always nice to me - getting me manuals and headphones, and letting me sit and play/program stuff all afternoon.

 

When I got my first stuff, I got it from Frank at that little GC. By then, in 1989, the GC had moved a little and was much bigger.

 

Frank helped me do a straight trade of my Roland D-70 for a Roland JD-800 (another customer wanted a D-70). I had the very first JD-800 in the Midwest, or so said the Roland rep.

 

Yea, different times those were.

 

 

cheers,

Ian

[Outkaster]

 

I grew up in Rochester, NY. I have a only a few of disjoint but vivid memories. You have to remember that I grew up interested mostly in and playing guitars so I didn't pay as much attention to keys and synths when I was in shops. The first was when shopping for my first electric guitar and amp with my mom and dad. We went to a store (I can't remember the name) that sold Randall amplifiers and they were all solid state. They also had these odd-looking black electronic gizmos with jack inputs and knobs on them in a big rack on the wall. There was a keyboard at the bottom of the rack. My dad said they components for making electronic synthesizers and you had to wire them together to make sounds. I knew nothing about it other than they looked cool and technical, but I imagine that they must have been Moog Modular modules. My second memory is from Duke Spinner music where I was also shopping for my first guitar and amp (and we bought a Fender Tele and a 30 Watt Yamaha solid state amp there). They sold all sorts of instruments there and the store was really close to the Eastman School of Music. They had this weird-looking Yamaha piano that had electronic dials on it. What the heck was that? A fat black dude with sunglasses came in and the store guys greeted him like he was a well-know regular and they spent lots of time with him showing him the piano-thing. I have no idea who he was, but he was a really good jazz pianist. He played the piano a bunch and it sounded weird but very cool, sorta like Eddie Jobson on Rendevous 602 on UK Danger Money. I don't know what Yamaha model it was - an early electro-acoustic thing? The third memory was at House of Guitars (hog) which is still in business. At the time it was this insane place that was run by a couple of guys that looked and talked like total burnouts but I think were really business geniuses. The second floor was all keyboards and drums. I remember walking through and looking at keyboards and dinking the keys. I remember that there was a PolyMoog, a MiniMoog, and an Arp Odyssey. Someone said the PolyMoog was a model used by Rick Wakeman from Yes and the Odyssey was supposed to be the type of keyboard used by Styx for the solo on "Sail Away". I knew that the keyboard player from REO Speedwagon played a MiniMoog in concert because I had seen him (his other instruments were an acoustic piano and an organ - nothing else). In particular he used it on "Time for me to Fly". Again I was pretty young (about 14) and the things looked amazingly complicated with all their dials and sliders. A few years later I remember visiting hog and they had this new amp from California that was supposed to be uber-sounding, loud, with amazing distortion and all coming from a little combo with one speaker. The Mesa Boogie Mark I was incredibly expensive, though I thought it was cool because my Music Man amp was pretty clean-sounding and had two Electrovoice EVMs in it which made it about 2x the weight of the little boogie combo amp. Al DiMeola used something like it in concert with Return to Forever, and the guitar player at our senior ball had one propped up on a chair with a single microphone into the PA.

 

The HOG is still there. I was in the

re last week. They got rid of a lot of stuff but still have decent keyboards there. When I started Piano lessons Duke Spinner had all the sheet music. I would stop there after school before going to Hochstien.