Here is my very first guitar, bought for £30 I think.

It was white when I bought it but I wanted a natural finish so I sanded it down and varnished it. I also added a 3rd pickup - the black one.

Not my Bass - can't remember where it came from so I must have borrowed it for the Seaford recordings with Hooker

I also used the Korg as a bass synth - at this time it belonged to the bands soundman and future keyboard player Steve.

2 more synths that belonged to Chris featured along with the casiotone on the Holograme Expose songs

I am not sure of the timing, possibly early 80's but my best mate Chris, was looking at a keyboard called a Powertran Transcendent DPX which was in kit form. I must have suggested that I could build it because Chris bought it and I set about building it for him. I remember there were 2 enourmouse PCB's inside and every key had a spring contactlinked to an aray of resistors - it took ages to build  - and it worked.

Electronics Today catalogue from 1979

Guild B-301 fretless bass. 

This guitar has a strange balance due to the rather large headstock

I can't remember what happened to it but I remember a guy called John Dover appeared on my doorstep wanting to swap it for his strat - perhaps I should have done that - I may have swapped it for a Bang and Olufson record deck instead - or was that how I got the Yamaha - it may well have been???

Soundmaster Stix drum machine (owned by Chris). It had seperate outputs so you could feed the snare drum out and add reverb or echoe.

https://www.youtube.com/v/3fU82pQnwPw

Sapphire Flute bought in 1982 - it was great until Steve Francis sat on it (twice) it stiill played but not as it should - I used to play it with Forbidden Fruit

A "1 octave" clarinet bought from a junk shop  -  I wonder why it was in the junk shop ?

Purchased 10th October 1983 for £299 (shop soiled)

An Aria Pro II SBR60 (1981)

Bought off of the olf Forbidden Fruit bass player - sold on ebay in 2005

This had a great sound for recording and a lovely action - my Overwater does not have a good recording sound without a preamp. I bought this because we were rehearsing in a Studio at Netherfield that got very hot. The Overwater did not like it - this bass could cope a lot better

The Roland SH101 was a greeat synth - Frank used to use it with Shyboy for his more adventurous solos. I used it as a Bass with Positive Routes (there is a photo below) 

My SH101 may now be in France somewhere possibly.

This belonged to Chris. I created a few tracks with this mostly linked to the Spectrum and the Cheetah Specdrum

https://www.youtube.com/v/ottLLH0Drdw

I also bought this Sitar from a shop in Eastbourne - I never did record anything with it.

I sold it  in 2005

This is a Kawai PH50 bought in 1989 as my first Midi controller

My first sound module

XG Sounds on an ISA board

This is just a synth and had to be used in conjunction with a proper sound card - it was the baby brother to the SW1000 which I could not afford at the time however I did get one later

Review

http://www.sonicstate.com/synth/yamaha_sw60xg/

Spec

http://www.megatrade.ru/English/sw60xg.html

Photo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SW60xg_soundcard.jpg

My first rack synth.

Mostly used for bass lines

Photo from MATRIXSYNTH

This is a Keystation Pro 88 - I thought I wanted fully weighted keys - I didnt - I sold it to a Chinese guy who took it home on the train on a trolley

Can't remember the make of the Sax - I did not get on with it very well so I sold it.

I liked this unit. I bought it twice in fact. Having sold my first one a wanted to remix some old files so I got a replacement.

Although I may have had it 3 times as the sound engine was also in the SW1000 I believe.

The best bit was the ability to copy the sysex from the settings and past them into cubase. This was an easy way to setup effect sends and levels.

This is just a synth and had to be used in conjunction with a proper sound card - however it was also a powerful mixer and could process external sources throught is DSP

I bought to replace the TG300  -   it turned out to be less flexible.

Review

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec98/articles/yamsw1000.632.htm

User Guide

Advanced  Guidebook

Utilities  (19MB Rar file)

This is the Yamaha DD55 portable drum kit.

It came with 2 pedals for kick and hi-hat. The drum sounds were brilliant - much better than my drumming ability. The other (big) problem was that when you hit it with sticks, it could be heard throughout the house and it really annoyed everyone so it had to go.

songfiler and midi files

I tinkered around with this for a while - a Yamaha SU10  bit but could never establish a decent way of backing it up - also it had annoying 3.5mm jacks which I did not like

A great acoustic with built in pickup - just what I needed.

Godin Performance Exit 22

http://www.godinguitars.com/godinexit22p.htm                               

Manual

Sold in 2021

I wanted to try some of the Shanakee numbers with the sound of an upright - this sounded great but I had trouble with the fingering in the upper octave - should have bought one of these years ago. Sold it on ebay for more that I payed for it - result

This never really worked  -  a good idea at the time though

This is my Rack - or was my Rack. I have now spread the gear out a bit but fundamentally use the same gear

Novation KS Rack

EMU MP-7

2 Behringer Patchbays

MOTU Midi Express128

Zoom 1204

Alesis Midiverb IV and Midiverb 2

Behringer 1602 submixer

Behringer Ultragain Pro ADA8000 (For ADAT)

I have updated my rack - everything is in one place. 

Since this photo was taken I have got rid of all of my synths

I now use Hallion 2 for my sounds and Cubase Elements for my DAW

I still use the Hard Disk recorder below for live recording

This was a present to myself for my 50th birthday - I though it was about time I had one - do I like it?

Its not as nice to play as the Overwater !! - but it has a great sound

http://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/kingkorg/

The keys on this were really slim  -  no action what so ever. I did not have this for long

I did not get on with this as I did not like the modulation  -  or I did not know how to control it at the time. It got re-cycled

A very versatile little controller.

It has MIDI and CV. I do not like the Pitchbend and Mod "slidy things" though. I would prefer wheels any day. It has Sequencer and ARP built in which is very useful. 

First get a rack case ??

No  -  I got hold of a couple of 196HP frame and I am going to build a case - well an open frame to start with. This means I can remove the Behringer synths from their boxes and use just one power source. The CRAVE does not fit in properly though as its not in a Eurorack format so I needed to create a sort of shelf space to put it in

A beast of a synth.