Dr. Who theme MkII

[Thirteen]

I was sitting in my studio the other night and found this amazing documentary showing Peter Howell making the second version of the Dr. Who theme music in the early 80's at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It was all done on a Yamaha CS-80, an ARP Odyssey and a Roland SVC330 vocoder. The funny thing was that I looked around me today and I have these 3 units sitting here in the studio with me, so it was a bit surreal...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDxFqw36KQ0

[Jason Dirckze]

Good lord! You have a CS-80???? I adore old synths as much as I do audio gear...

[Thirteen]

I bought a CS-80 back in the 80's, and I had a second one up until 2005 when I sold one to a friend. Oddly enough there are three of them coming into my workshop for repairs in the next couple of weeks, so I am going to be pretty busy. They are not as diabolically unreliable as most people think, but it is getting hard to find parts, Yamaha went on a frenzy of custom chip making (because they could) back in those days, and the CS-80 is full of custom chips, for example the VCA's it uses for various functions are custom, and there are well over 200 in the machine.

[Jason Dirckze]

Do you only repair synths or do you work on other audio gear too? I have a couple old analogues mono's and a poly from the 80's, and an old (70's) 10 x 2 desk that needs some TLC.

[Thirteen]

I have been repairing synths since the early 80's, but I also repair most vintage audio gear except tube equipment. Primarily I have always been a synth tech though, I think I have worked on just about any old synthesiser I can think of. I do a lot of touring and programming as well as engineering, so I don't really advertise, it is something that I have always done, and I have so many regular customers that keep me busy when I am not on the road or in the studio. Because I have been doing this for so long I have plenty of parts and schematics, I do it as much for the enjoyment as for income and even keeping my own analog gear working and calibrated takes quite a lot of time.