All thats old....(is new again)

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All thats old....(is new again)

Postby NYMo » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:47 pm

Hi there,

Never had much money when i was a kid, but always used to go to my local music store in Hobart and be a music shop hang arounder .
One day there, they had 5 Acetone mono synths that they were blowing out from $999 to $99 !!
I promptly harassed the old man to lend(read give !) me the money and tootled off back home to my Rhodes and started creating some sonic mayhem. I'm still not sure whether that synths Envelope Generators ever worked properly, but it sure made some weird sounds and it also had an external filter input which I started to experiment with.
I then picked up a used Arp Pro Soloist, a completely different type of preset synth and the first synth to have a pressure sensitive keyboard.

In another music shop, i first came into contact with a MiniMoog model D (actually the model D was the only production models A,B and C were prototypes) Now this had a sound that i really liked ...fat and warm.
Again the old man came to the rescue and *lent* me the money for that. !

So I ended up with your typical keyboard players rig at that time Rhodes, Roland Rs 09 strings and the minimoog.
Going to a gig one day we had no roadcases so i just put the ARP in the back of a ute. By the time we got to the gig on the East coast of Tasmania it had rained so much that the back of the ute was flooded...so ended the life of the Pro Soloist !
You have to understand, hardly any musos in Tasmania had any synths, so when I went into serious hock ($4600 via AGC !) for my first major Poly (the first Jupiter 8 in Australia) all these guys came to see me play just to have a look at a Jupiter .

I moved to Melbourne after flying there for an audition.. (trust me..No one from Tassy ever did that!).
And then i landed the gig in Melb and also ended getting a job in Allans Music(Brashs) for which I was to stay for 15 years.
I realised I had the gear bug bad..but I couldn't keep affording the synths that i wanted like a Prophet 5 and the PPG (think Heaven by Eurogliders). I did end up through a wholesale deal, of getting what was then the most expensive Polysynth which was the Prophet T8 Worth $11,000 at the time but I think i paid $6800 for it.

Then one day in early '83 everything changed...Yamaha released the DX7...i was not going to lug that Rhodes anymore!
As most of you were aware, it was one of the first products to really change the synth industry.
Digital became king !
Over the next few years people started dumping their analogs for pretty ridiculous prices.....and buying into the * Digital is better sounding* thing.
All the other synths that i wanted to get were now in better reach and when I moved to Sydney in '86 the Trading Post was full of analogs people were dumping...OBXA $500, Pro 5 $800 Minimoog $800 etc
Every thursday morning I was up bright and early trying to buy anything through the Trading Post.

Funnily enough, there was a little chinese guy who would always be about 5 minutes behind me...I'd be walking out of somebodies unit with an OBXA under my arm and he'd be knocking at their door ! We bumped into each other about 5 times under the same situation. I think in the end we were about even, but he then started buying 1176's and LA2A's which i just saw as useless things, as i was into midi mindset at the time. (Wish I knew then what I know now !)

So i ended up with about 40 keyboards, which were a pain to move from house to house and also the space required and set up time to get it all going.

For eveyone else, it seemed like the *Analog is Back* thing didn't really happen until the early 90's and people were realizing that tactile conrols of the old synths were much more fun to use than a series of menus with subset pages.

I had my healthy collection when I moved to the Sunshine Coast 14 years ago to *retire* at 36. But one by one they ended up getting sold off as i needed the money to maintain the lifestyle !

I do miss them all dearly, and took a photo of each of them as i waved them out the door.
I shudder to think what they would be worth now as a package collection !

These days I have a dotcom modular (like Thirteens) and an Obie OBMX (a very weird Buchla designed thing) but not much else....just a bunch of great analog memories !

Here are some photos of my stuff taken by Craig Sue in '92(which i only got last week !). Thanx to Thirteen for hosting them for a couple of weeks so you can have a look !


http://moonpony.net/trf/nymo/nyma.jpg
http://moonpony.net/trf/nymo/nymb.jpg
http://moonpony.net/trf/nymo/nymc.jpg
http://moonpony.net/trf/nymo/nymd.jpg
http://moonpony.net/trf/nymo/nyme.jpg
http://moonpony.net/trf/nymo/nymf.jpg
http://moonpony.net/trf/nymo/nymg.jpg
http://moonpony.net/trf/nymo/nymh.jpg

Cheers
N
Y
M
O
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Postby Jason Dirckze » Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:04 pm

WOW! That was quite a rig.

Note to self: NEVER EVER SELL ANYTHING. Just in case...
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Postby mfdu » Mon Dec 24, 2007 8:01 am

yeah. and there's of course the follow-up comment - NEVER SELL ANYTHING!

chris
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old keys

Postby Damien » Tue Dec 25, 2007 12:04 am

wheres the fairlight gone... i miss the ones i used to play with.... i had fun with a IIX , with midi.... and a III.....
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Re: old keys

Postby Thirteen » Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:13 am

Damien wrote:wheres the fairlight gone... i miss the ones i used to play with.... i had fun with a IIX , with midi.... and a III.....


I sold my IIx years ago and have missed it ever since.
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Postby NYMo » Tue Dec 25, 2007 12:16 pm

Hi there.. Merry Christmas !

I forgot...i still have a series 3/mfx2 in storage but its missing a controller (if anybody knows of one etc etc)

But 11X's are going for 5000 euros these days !

Cheers
N
Y
M
O

who's o/d on Turkish delight and Coca Cola already !
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Postby Chinagraf » Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:12 pm

I've got a II with the CMI software too. (I think, it's the one that has both the CMI stuff and the 8 track recorder)I don't have the controller, just use it via midi when I get nostalgic , most of the time it's out the back. I'm good friends with the owners and designers of Fairlight in Oz, one of the owners and I are partners in a production setup. I must ask if they have any old controllers anywhere. I'm about to go to one of the CC1 systems for recording. Just waiting for a few partnerships with some DAW companies to go fully operational. Still some of the best double bass samples ever. I love the sound of FL converters, even the early ones.
Last edited by Chinagraf on Thu Dec 27, 2007 8:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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fairlight

Postby Damien » Wed Dec 26, 2007 11:11 pm

id love to have a working IIx or III one day.... all mine...


anyone know where the smoorgies synclavier ended up after the "fire" ( i think that was the name of the place)
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Postby Martin » Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:34 am

damien by IIx or III do you mean Fairlight stuff? MFX? excuse the ignorance...
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fairlight

Postby Damien » Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:42 am

yes.
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Postby Martin » Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:45 am

no problems will keep an eye out for you then :D
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