Turtlerock Forum

Having just finished a 2.5 year world tour I am very happily enjoying being back home in Oz, especially getting to play again in the studio. I am back into fixing and restoring old synths, and I have been spending a lot of time playing my own machines and doing some recording, and finally finishing off a large Arrick modular system. Lots of re-capping going on at the moment, my new years resolution is to get all of the maintenance done on my own gear. Now that there are so many "virtual" software synths around I am curious to find out how many people are still into using the real thing, ie: ARP's, Moogs, Prophet's, Oberheims and all of the other old machines, and also who is building their own gear? In the old days synths were fun because you could get in and mess with the insides, doing your own mods and customizations. I would love to hear what old synths and samplers other forum members have and how they are using them, especially in Australia, and also anybody's observations and experiences with how this old technology fits in with current paradigms.

i've had the pleasure of using a brand new Doepfer modular system.

Used it as a line source processing unit going out of Protools, into the Doepfer's Low Pass Filter, Ring Mod and Filter Matrix. I tweaked a guitar solo that was sitting ontop of an ambient synth track, to make it more..."cool"....

i reaaaally enjoyed doing that, and only hope to try some more stuff like that, when i have money to be able to afford my own modular system....i was using the Doepfer at Uni :(

Modulars are great fun, good for processing external signals, if you have enough oscillators you can really get some mayhem going on with modulation too. The 60 space modular I just put together came from Synthesizers .com. they are basically Moog look-alikes and sound fantastic. Here's a link to a pic...

http://www.moonpony.net/modular/modularmed.jpg

I still use a few for most synth parts and synth basses. Juno 106 and Jupiter 4. Also got an SH-1000 which is awesome for noise sweep and stuff. Been umming and ahhing about a Moog Voyager or a little phatty. I would swap my missus for a Prohet V in mint condition. (Any takers?) Also got an re-501 that I see in the top of that pic. Awesome chorus.
If you want to see a synth nut I have a buddy named David Morely in Brussels. He has some beautiful old synths and still uses every one of them. http://www.davidmorley.com/
Man, you appear to have some pretty sweet gear also. I wish I had the cash for some of it.
Cheers,

ANdy

Hi there Thirteen,

I also have an dotcom modular...just waiting for the 960/962 to arrive !

See it at www.myspace.com/redberryrecords.

I also used to have over 40 vintage synths, of which a friend photographed them over 15 years ago, and only sent them to me last week !

I don't have any of them anymore..they supported my lifestyle up here for 10 years!

They are on pdf if anyone wants to see them !

cheers
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Hey Nymo, the link doesn't work, and yes, of course we want to see them. All of them. Do you have a prophet V? Are you looking for a wife?

Hi Chinagraf,

I used to own two pro 5's. One was the notorious vers one.

The other one belonged to Andrew from INXS and had all the Shabooh/Shabaah(sp?) sounds in it.

I also had a P10 and a Pro One.

Tell me how to add the pdf's and i will !

Cheers
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Chinagraf wrote:I still use a few for most synth parts and synth basses. Juno 106 and Jupiter 4. Also got an SH-1000 which is awesome for noise sweep and stuff. Been umming and ahhing about a Moog Voyager or a little phatty. I would swap my missus for a Prohet V in mint condition. (Any takers?) Also got an re-501 that I see in the top of that pic. Awesome chorus.
If you want to see a synth nut I have a buddy named David Morely in Brussels. He has some beautiful old synths and still uses every one of them. http://www.davidmorley.com/
Man, you appear to have some pretty sweet gear also. I wish I had the cash for some of it.
Cheers,

ANdy

I have a showroom condition Prophet 5, but I won't sell it, however I have a friend with 3 Prophets, 1 excellent, one pretty good and one rack. He keeps the good one because it has MIDI while his nicer one doesn't. He also has the rack mounted P5, I will ask him about selling his second one when next I see him, I would have to MIDI up the immaculate one first though.

You have some nice machines, I have a Jupiter 4 chorus board that I am about to turn into a module, I really like the Roland chorus sound. I have used the Voyager a lot and really like it, I played a Little Phatty, to me it sounds more like an Oscar than a Moog, but maybe that was more to do with the presets I was hearing as I didn't get a lot of programming time with it. I would certainly like one though...

Sorry ..my bad

www.myspace.com/redberryrecords

Cheers
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Sweet. And you have sunshine too. Bastard. :) I used to live on the Sunshine coast (Cotton Tree). Definately looking to retire back up there.

NYMo wrote:Hi Chinagraf,

I used to own two pro 5's. One was the notorious vers one.

The other one belonged to Andrew from INXS and had all the Shabooh/Shabaah(sp?) sounds in it.

I also had a P10 and a Pro One.

Tell me how to add the pdf's and i will !

Cheers
N
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M
O

That's funny, I have just toured as Andrew's tech as well as working with INXS on their record and TV show. I repaired one of Andrew's Prophets a while back so that we could take it out on the road, mostly to play "The One Thing", although I must say that when I sampled the Prophet into the Korg Triton it sounded so good that we stopped taking the Prophet out. I fixed a Prophet 10 a couple of weeks ago, and I have a Prophet 5 on the bench at the moment with a bad VCA and a keyboard re-shim to do.

I hope to get a Q960 and a couple of Q962's next year, as you can see from my photo I will need to build a second cabinet though... I am really liking the Q119 in the mean time.

What is unusual about my .Com apart from the 3 x 20 configuration is that I have put a lot of normalizations in so that it is like an ARP 2600 or a Roland System 700, this is so I can play it live without having to re-patch.

The Farris family are an awesome bunch aren't they? I still sit here and play some of Andrew's line's when we are working on tracks just as a diversion. I worked on an album Tim played drums on years ago. Still one of the greatest feels I've come across. The kick drum on "Guns in the Sky" was what made me leave the sunshine coast and come back to Melbourne to get back into music. I also remember going to see a surf film at the town hall when I was a teen and the opening was set to "Don't Change" with that synth line and slo-mo of barrels. Awesome. God I'm getting old.....

Chinagraf wrote:The Farris family are an awesome bunch aren't they? I still sit here and play some of Andrew's line's when we are working on tracks just as a diversion. I worked on an album Tim played drums on years ago. Still one of the greatest feels I've come across. The kick drum on "Guns in the Sky" was what made me leave the sunshine coast and come back to Melbourne to get back into music.

Having worked with the band through thick and thin since the 90's, I still have to pinch myself sometimes during the show, Andrew comes out with moments of real brilliance on his guitar some nights, and Jon plays so tight, (it's hard for me to hear everyone else because I sit behind Andrew next to the drum kit), when it all comes together there is real magic going on.

hey thirteen , if you want to be the resident synth question/answer were to source / fixit guy guy
( or you too nymo for that matter... ) what if i get mark to add a vintage synths forum on our list..?
wadda think...?
Mark...?

Hi Rick,

My technical expertise is zero !
But having been around synths since '76, I have owned a few of them !

Happy to help if I can.

Cheers
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rick wrote:hey thirteen , if you want to be the resident synth question/answer were to source / fixit guy guy
( or you too nymo for that matter... ) what if i get mark to add a vintage synths forum on our list..?
wadda think...?
Mark...?

That would be great if there is enough interest... there are precious few places where synth lovers can discuss gear, let alone mods and tech stuff, particularly in a place as level headed and with such a community feel as this forum... I would be happy to do it...

NYMo wrote:Hi Rick,

My technical expertise is zero !
But having been around synths since '76, I have owned a few of them !

Happy to help if I can.

Cheers
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I'll bet your user knowledge and experience is up there with my tech skills...

I meant Jon but typed Tim. And i had only had one beer. See. I told you I was getting old....
So Nymo you played keys in Geisha yeah? Didn't you guys record your albums with Mack? At Platinum maybe?

I get in to the vintage synth stuff now and then... I currently have:

Yamaha CS-10 - A tasty and under rated analogue mono synth.
Roland Juno-60 - Analogue poly with that thick Roland chorus

Also a couple 80's digitals:

Yamaha DX7 mkII FD
Roland D-50

Also have a Roland TR-707 somewhere, an Access Virus rack and a Yamaha Motif rack for my VA/ROMpler duties. Would love to add more vintage analogues to the collection, but they sell for ridiculous prices here in Australia. I spend a lot of time in the US and scour eBay whenever I am there.

Hi Chinagraf,

Yeah...i was in the original *classic *(!) lineup.
The first album was recorded at 301 with Peter Dawkins and Richard Lush
(but i have worked with Mack @ Platinum in the 80's)

These days I only have the Dotcom, OBMX,Wavestation,my original dx7 and a mark 1 Rhodes.
But at least I'm sequencing via an MC4b..so I'm still a bit old school ;-)

cheers
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Yeha but those dot coms look nice. Ahhh..more ways to spend my money, just what I need. Mack taught me to engineer, after he left Platinum. He was like a recording father figure to me. A strange wierd father....(in a good way)
Atari ST, now that's old school. :P
Jason, Juno 60 is a nice bit o kit, what's that little old school lookin mixer in your pic?

Jason Dirckze wrote:I get in to the vintage synth stuff now and then... I currently have:

Yamaha CS-10 - A tasty and under rated analogue mono synth.
Roland Juno-60 - Analogue poly with that thick Roland chorus

Also a couple 80's digitals:

Yamaha DX7 mkII FD
Roland D-50

Also have a Roland TR-707 somewhere, an Access Virus rack and a Yamaha Motif rack for my VA/ROMpler duties. Would love to add more vintage analogues to the collection, but they sell for ridiculous prices here in Australia. I spend a lot of time in the US and scour eBay whenever I am there.

Nice machines, I love the Yamaha sound, I have a CS-80 and I am about to do a major overhaul on it, all the CS series are desirable indeed. I have been browsing a book that I have by Yasuhiko Fukuda called "Yamaha DX7 Digital Synthesizer" published in 1984, it is an in-depth guide to every function and all the ins and outs of the machine. Makes me want to get a DX. I really like the Virus synths as a modern alternative, particularly if you turn off all the FX and work with the more raw sounds.

Hi Thirteen,

CS -80 ...lucky Bastard !

I've still got that book lurking around somewhere. Team a dx7 mk1 with the Access programmer(hard to find) and
that is ultimate control of FM !
Cheers

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So after all this talk of synths yesterday, I had a dream last night. This guy had a 4 voice old analog synth I was going to buy from him. The thing is, it was made by Studer... it had the Studer red on the buttons and the brushed aluminium like some of their old compressors. wtf? I woke up before i bought it but I'm thinking of making him an offer after I go to bed tonight.

Chinagraf wrote:what's that little old school lookin mixer in your pic?

A Studer 169...

Well there's a spooky coincedence....

Chinagraf wrote:Well there's a spooky coincedence....

Indeed... you must've known subconsciously that it was a Studer and combined with all the talk of synths the 2 merged into a crazy dream.

Next door to my studio is Logitronics where they fix a lot synths (hopefully)

anyway, one day along with my own prophets and the ones they had in to fix, we had 11 prophet 5's .

I was going to line them all up to take a photo and label it "The Prophets of Doom", but as usual actual work got me distracted and never got around to it.

But there are still a few prophets around in various states of repair, so if any of you guys are needing knobs, keys, faceplates or whatever parts Im sure Martin at Logitronics can help you.