I have a soft spot for drum machines. I have a soft spot for Clavia. My entire studio could be red. Nice enough, but had that thin plastic Clavia sound, so it became the victim of Judgment Day, as did many other items. Haven’t missed it. Or any of them, actually. Except Frank.
I was lusting for a PolyEvolver Keys for years, but it always felt like a bit of overkill. I think that I had come to realize just how much of a monosynth guy I really am. So when Dave Smith announced that he would be discontinuing the MEK, people started buying them from wherever they could find them. I found mine from Thomann, and just in the nick of time, as the next day they were sold out.
Sonically, it’s really impressive. It’s got both analog and digital oscillators (2 of both), a nifty sequencer and crunchy effects. I’m always on the hunt for the bass sound of Ultravox’ We Came to Dance, and this one (think PPG, or rather Prophet VS) comes quite close (Blofeld actually did that too).
I lost it to Judgment Day, but this is actually one I could buy again.
A really solid analog sequencer! 3 x 16 steps you can trigger in various ways. If you’re looking for an analog sequencer, you can’t really go wrong with this one. i sold it as part of Frank after Judgment Day, and I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have.
Another one of those ”small boxes” Korg put out during this time. I got a MIDI kit for this as well, and had it well-integrated into my setup, but didn’t really used it for anything else than mucking around. Again, nothing wrong with it, just not my cup of tea.
Sold it after Judgment Day.
Got this because I wanted to make a cover of Ultravox’ Mr X, so a violin was needed. Not an easy instrument; I ended up playing the violin parts one to three notes at a time, and then doing some cutting and pasting and creative editing. End result is quite nice though. Did Vienna later as well using the same proven technique.
Would be nice to be a real musician and know how to play this bloody thing.
This one is easy to waste hours at a time with. A really hands-on synth, and patchpoints always makes things more fun. Plays nicely with the modular.
I always thought combined D/R-stages in the envelopes are a bit weird. True for this one as well. On the other hand, that partly contributes to what it sounds like, I suppose.
Wow. I can’t say Wow enough. The original NM’s younger as well as bigger brother, having everything the original one lacked (MIDI modules, decent keyboard). This simply is an incredible piece of machinery. Functionally it builds on the original, only makes it better. I can’t understand why they abandoned this concept, nothing out there comes even close to the flexibility it provides. OK, I actually kind of do understand: Modular synths are not for everybody, but this is such a wonderful concept that even if it is inherently modular, as a user you don’t actually even need to know that. The brilliance of this piece is so out there in its own category I just can’t find the words, so I’ll just shut up now.
I kind of stalked this machine. I found it in a music store in Helsinki, high up on a shelf as close to the ceiling as possible, and I came to check it out every week or so when I was in town. Bit by bit it had been moved downwards, and once it had been on subshoulder level for a couple of weeks I just had to buy it, because of course I had to. Turned out it was pretty much the last one in Europe, if not the entire world. The shop guys had found it in a box in the basement, in a pile of empty boxes, and brought it up from the dead, so to speak. I was quite lucky there…
A decent steel string electro-acoustic guitar. Just don’t ever ask me what guitar I have, as there’s no way I can remember.
An expander module for the Voyager, making it more modular that without it. I put this up for sale after Judgment Day and ended up selling it. The Voyager was also up for grabs, but nobody bought it. Had I known that, I would have kept this one as well. Oh well…
A machine drum, I guess you could call it. A responsive drum skin, and the plastic body also acts as user interface. The drum brain inside it generates the sounds depending on how you interact with its surface, and it’s actually quite impressive. I thought I would sit in the sofa drumming away and getting better beats because of it, but no. Out the door it went.
Come to think of it, maybe I should have been the one getting out the door, as it definitely isn’t this one’s fault I suck at making beats.