My Gear – Synthesizers And Such

Gear. So much gear. So little time…. This is a mix of old and new pictures.

Studio from Above

This new picture was taken February 29th, 2020. Things keep changing though, so who knows how it will look tomorrow.

Shelves were a great idea! Not perfect but a lot cheaper than really expensive keyboard stands. I have instant access to a lot more keyboards now and still have more space in my small room. Unfortunately it filled up my mixer inputs so I had to get a new (well, used) 24 channel Yamaha mixer to take some of the overflow.

studio back corner

The Eurorack Modular System has grown up over the last few years. I still remember when it was just one box, not even full! Now with the recent additions of a sweet sounding Aion Modular 904a filter, the Roland 521 dual filter, and now the Boomstar SE88 it’s very versatile and the source of many awesome sounds!

Modular Synthesizer Jan 2017

And the Tom Oberheim SEM-Pro is still an amazing synth in it’s own right! Absolutely irreplaceable. Although the Korg MS-20mini is no slouch either. And the MS-10 is really warm and smooth sounding.

The latest is this 1975 Micromoog.

Moog Micromoog Synthesizer

Beautiful sounding synth!! Very smooth filter, great for bass, and loads of features even though it looks very simple. It’s amazing how great sounding the one-oscillator synths are. The Micromoog, Korg MS-10 and Arp Axxe are my favorites. The old Yamaha CS-10, not so much!

Coming soon: Ensonic VFX-SD.

Roland Sh-2

Also on that shelf is another one of my favorites, the Roland SH-2. This is definitely one of the fattest sounding synths I own and it get’s use more and more.

Additionally we have:
Roland VK-8m
Kurzweil K2000
Fender Chroma Polaris
Creamware Pro 12

Boss RE-20, EHX Deluxe Electric Mistress, EHX V.256 Vocoder, and a few other effects pedals

Yamaha SK-20

The Yamaha SK-20 is one of my favorites now. I love those 70s string machine sounds. I also have an old Elka Rhapsody 490 and an Arp Quartet. Those old synths have such a big fat sound!!

Yamaha Shelf

That back corner shelf is almost exclusively Yamaha now. From the bottom, above the Soundcraft Rackpack mixer is a DX-7II, SK-20, CS-40m and a CS-15 going through an Effectron II digital delay. Above that is the Ensonic ESQ-1 for now, but it may be replaced with the Sequential Circuits Sixtrak since it has a very cool, fat analog sound.

There’s also an Arturia Microbrute stored there for now. Cool little synth with a unique metallic sound.

Me Playing the Polymoog

To my right at the desk we still have the main Yamaha mixer and the awesome Oberheim OB-8. But now we also have a bunch of other cool toysincluding my favorite, a Moog Polymoog 203A. Other keyboards here and occasionally on this shelf are:

Proteus 2000
Roland 606
Sequential Circuits Prophet 600
Effectron II digital Delay
Roland Gaia SH-01
Roland JU-06
Roland JP-08
Roland JX-8P and PG-800
Arp Quartet
Boss GT-8
Line 6 Bass Pod

Studio right side

The rack has been the same for a while now:

Moog Slim Phatty
M-audio Midisport 8×8
Roland Super JV-1080
Marshall JMP-1
Oberheim Matrix-1000
Midiverb 4
Alesis DMPro
Alesis DM 4
Lexicon MPX-100
tc electronics M-One

This is the main keyboards to my left when I’m sitting at the desk. They are all on the same MIDI cable and channel except the Plugiator on the left. That one is on channel 2 for no particular reason. It’s just rare I need all of them at the same
time so I kept that one separate.

Plugiator
Creamware Pro12 (or Minimax, it changes from time to time)
DSI Mopho
DSI Tetra
Korg M3M
Moog Voyager RME
Korg Arp Odyssey
Arp Axxe
M-Audio Keystation Pro 88

Studio Left Side

And in front of me on the desk is the DSI Prophet 12, acting mostly as a master keyboard but occasionally I use one of the sounds I’ve programmed into it.

I also have  Fender American Standard Telecaster, Fender Jazz Bass, Geddy Lee Edition, a Peavey Wolfgang and a 1976 Gibson Marauder and other guitars that aren’t getting a lot of use these days.