I finally have the sound of the legendary Yamaha CS-80 in my eurorack modular system. I put it off for a while but decided it was time to get the Boomstar SE88 filter. It reminds me of my original plans for a modular synthesizer. I thought it would be nice to be able to change …

I finally got a Roland 521 filter module and man does it sound nice!! Very thick and rich sounding! The lows are fantastic! Very similar to my SH-2 and I’m sure it’s close to a system 100 or 700. I cannot recommend this filter enough! I love it! Next will be the dual oscillator.

Well I finally decided on new monitors. I needed something smaller for this small room and one day I found out that Genelec made a small monitor called the M030 and I instantly knew that was the one I wanted. They sound fantastic and the lows are amazing! HUGE sound for small monitors, and yet …

Well, one more has arrived and it’s a beauty! I randomly checked the Spaceman music website on the weekend and noticed they had an Arp Quartet. Now granted, I had just finished recapping the voice cards on the Elka Rhapsody 490 that I bought from them a few years ago that very same day but…. …

Well, I said I wouldn’t but I did anyway. But I wont any more. I have enough!! Anyway, I got the Roland Boutique JU-06 and loved it. It sounds fantastic! So even though I’ve never had any desire to get a Jupiter 8 I thought this would be a cheap way to get one just …

Two new items have arrived recently. First the Roland Jx-8p. I’d played this synth a few times and didn’t like it much so when a friend offered one for sale I wasn’t interested. But then I played a jx-10 and realized how great the sounds were and decided I better grab it after all! It …

A few new additions lately. Finally after 5 months of waiting my Korg Arp Odyssey has arrived. SO… first impressions. Sounds good! Nice fat analog sound. Best ring modulator sounds I have from any synth including the modular. I like the first filter type the best. It’s really big and fat where as the others …

Now that I have a bunch of synths I’ve been wondering what my first synth, the Yamaha CS-10 sounds like compared to all of them. I thought it was a horrible little synth back then and desperately wanted something better so now that I have many much better keyboards it would be cool to revisit …

Many years ago I played a Kurzweil K2000 in a studio I was visiting and for some reason I was not impressed with it. A few weeks ago one became available at Paul’s Boutique in Toronto and I hummed and hawed over it for a while and finally decided it might be cool to check …

A couple of months ago my new A127 filter arrived and I took a few pictures to demonstrate how to install it with the A127 BOM because it seemed a bit confusing at first. Hopefully this can clear up any questions you might have! Step 1: Remove the ribbon cable from each stage of the …

I don’t do a lot of sequencing these days but I do have my eye on the Intellijel Metropolis as an addition to my modular system. But since Korg has released a nifty little (and cheap!) sequencer called the SQ-1 I thought I’d get one and have some fun with it. I’ve only had one …

I got a new module last week. I was going to get another Doepfer oscillator but decided to be a bit adventurous and got a Mutable Instruments Braids instead. It’s a lot more expensive but it does a lot more. Holy cow, does it ever do a LOT more!! The cs-80 saw waveform alone is …

Brian Emrich sent me this and it pretty much describes me.

Well, it was the one I wanted the second they announced it, but it was delayed and in the meantime I dived into a Modular synth. I finally found one fairly cheap, although since it came from Japan I got a 100v power supply (I have adapters anyway) and manuals in Japanese. Still, cool to …

This is an off topic entry just because I felt it was worth writing about. I haven’t been getting much work done on music lately because I’ve felt very tired. It seems to happen every year when the sun starts going down earlier and earlier, and especially once we switch back to Standard Time and …

Arrived last week, a beautiful old Yamaha SK-20. Organ, Strings and one oscillator poly-synth in one neat little heavy-as-a-tank package! Unfortunately this one arrived with a little problem: D4 and D5 were not working. If it was some feature (other than the strings) I might have been able to live without it but I kinda …

One day last week I suddenly remembered I was sorta looking for a Roland VK-8m so I finally had a real organ module with drawbars and a good Leslie emulation. So I went to ebay and did a search and found one right away. Sent a message asking if he would include Canada as a …

Just to be clear, I am working on new music but I’m taking my time, trying to make it sound the best I can. I think these sounds are fairly unique and much more interesting than anything I’ve done before. My engineering and mastering skills are also improving and along with newer, and older synthesizers …

Well, After enjoying the Arp Axxe so much I couldn’t resist getting another old synth. I’d had my eye on an SH-2 for a while and finally decided to grab one. I got one from eBay and although ti came from Japan it was here in less than a week. And I have to say, …

Well, I wasn’t going to get anything else, but Paul’s Boutique had an Arp Axxe sitting there for quite a while and I just couldn’t resist! And it has arrived! The keys look pretty yellow but it is surprisingly clean otherwise. The keyboard feels fine, no dust inside, sounds really nice and rich like a …