This was my dad's keyboard but features heavily on Hologram Expose tunes
The picture is from Audiofanzine
Another of my dads keyboards - the humungous Maplin ETI4600 this was used to get the vocal sound on We Are Metal
The pictures in the slideshow were downloaded from the web. Its difficult to find photos of this synth.
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.
This was my first "New" guitar - it wasnt very good though. The neck twisted after a bit of time. But it looked nice
2 more synths that belonged to Chris featured along with the casiotone on the Holograme Expose songs
This is my heavily modified 1966/70 Yamaha SG5
I added a humbucker pickup to make it like an SG7 (I found that out recently) I lost the tremelo arm at a gig at the Brighton Pavilion and sold the guitar on ebay to a chap in Australia. Everyone loved to play this guitar
Drum Machine
The DRM32 belonged to Chris but was used on several of my recordings in the early 80's
It was a very simple machine with 4 styles and 4 variations. You had to prepare the drum track first before overdubbing everything else. Great fun
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
I bought this from Frank, Shyboy's keyboard player - it was heavy but had a great sound.
I used it in Forbidden Fruit for a bit - I think I may have sold it back to Frank
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.
Sinclair Spectrum and the SpecDrum.
The Specdrum was a mono sampler, (only a few seconds) a 2 chanel midi sequencer and a drum machine all in a little plasic box that plugged into the back of the spectrum. It took ages to load the software, but was a great bit of kit for the time.
I purchased the Spectrum Kit in 1985 at a cost of £139.99
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
Recorded with the Specdrum and DX21
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
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.
Keyboard setup with De Ja Blue 1991 - the keyboard on top is a Casio CT670
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.
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
This keyboard was suffereing from the dripping red gunge phenominum -
I fixed it by removing the keys and soaking them in a very strong solution of caustic soda. Once the metal weight had been removed and all traces of red glue was removed I stuck the weight back in with Hard as Nails
The keys on this were really slim - no action what so ever. I did not have this for long
Moog clone - a great sounding synth.
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.
One of my many setups - I just do not know which one is best !!
Wooden shelving might be a good idea ???
I found that this was very useful when I got my PLAITS module as I could plug the output into the Aux In and use the VCA and Filter in the CRAVE and also trigger the PLAITS from MIDI via the CRAVE.
This meant I did not need a VCA or an LFO or a MIDI interface. This got me up and running
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.
Having crawled through the internet with the question - "which modules should I buy??". I decided upon these:
PLAITS - Mutable Instruments VCO - lots of great sounds inluding Strings and percussion
Marbles - Mutable Instruments - Random generator - i though I wanted "Random". This would have worked better if I had some drum modules I think. My need for randomness waned and I recycled it for another module
MATHS - Well what can I say ? - everybody should have one of these, but what does it do? - well everything - but what does that mean? I got rid of it in the end as I could not appreciate the power of it.
My best setup - but did I want to carry on with Eurorack or did I want to go back in the box with VCV Rack 2.0 ??
A new rack build - 12U of 104HP with an addition BUS board.
I am planning for the Behringer Proton - whenever that will surface ???
This NW1 looked interesting because of the wave table element but never got used much. The trouble with Eurorack is, you have to get the module to realize that you don't actually need it !!