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WALDORF PULSE [2002 – ]

My first real analog (DCO as opposed to VCO) I ever did anything with (the Korg really doesn’t count). Monophonic. Very simple Waldorfian interface, which all things considered is rather ok. As most people, I would prefer a knob for each parameter, but given the sound and price, the 6-knob UI can be forgiven. Making sounds with this is really easy: twist a knob and hear the sound change. Repeat until satisfied. Very different editing than on, say, the Kurz. Excellent machine. At some point I considered getting another one, but that would have been a bit silly. The bass on this one is, and the output is quite hot. This one moves walls, unless you’re careful.

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YAMAHA DTXPRESS [2002 – 2004]

Of course, selling the Octapad gave rise to a need for something else to kick the hit out of. In early 2002, I scraped together a bunch of old stuff I I didn’t need (CD’s, DVD’s, a PC, and the Akai S2000), sold them, and got the money to buy the DTXpress drum set. I had barely touched a drum set before, so the incentive was more learning than anything else. For that purpose, the set is quite adequate. The rubber pads are a bit noisy (I’ve moved to a house since, so it’s not a real problem this time), and so is the sound module itself. I didn’t really use the sounds, but just the pads to trigger my other synths, mainly the K2600 and the Machinedrum. 

Although I think hardware interfaces in general are keepers, I got rid of the set mostly due to the space it occupied in relation to the time spent playing with it. I will most likely get a smaller pad thing to replace it at a later point.

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OBERHEIM OB-12 [2002 – 2003]

I have mixed feelings about this one. The user interface is the best so far; the beforementioned one knob for each parameter pretty much sums it up. Truly inspiring. But there was something about the sound which just didn’t do it for me. Having fiddled with it for almost a year, I came to the conclusion that it didn’t do much that I couldn’t accomplish with my other gear. That, and the fact that I never recorded anything with it, lead me to trade it for a Roland JD-800. Time will tell if I will regret getting rid of it (Time has now told me I don’t).

As a side note, Obie and the Pulse contain similar sets of, well, synth circuitry (Obie’s being virtual, naturally), and as Obie has one slider or knob per relevant function, it was dead easy to set it up to control the Pulse. Never before, or after, has my Pulse been that easy to use. I’d almost go on record saying that this one was worth it’s price even if you never used it as anything else than a dedicated MIDI controller. Doing this, obviously, felt like a waste of potential, so I still got rid of it. Would be interesting to gut the thing, and install the Pulse into it somehow. That would be a killer synth!

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ZIP DRIVE [2000 – 2002]

When the EZ-drive broke down I didn’t really feel like buying more of the same. when something breaks down on you, you tend to get a bit careful. But I needed a SCSI-Drive for my samples, and Zip-drives seemed to be all the rage. So I got one. And when that broke down, I got another one. And when that one broke down, still another one. Apart from it breaking down constantly, it was a real joy.

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ROLAND OCTAPAD II [1999 – 2000]

My hands and feet are constantly drumming. My ex-next-desk neighbour at the office constantly used to tell my leg to shut up, as his monitor kept jumping up and down. The logical thing for me to do was to get something that, when drummed, actually would result in something useful. The Octapad is a nice concept, but I didn’t keep this for the simple fact that it was very noisy; drumming it sounded like drumming a plastic bucket, and considering I lived in a block of flats at the time I got this, I just didn’t feel comfortable using it.

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LEXICON MPX-100 [1999 – 2022]

The first external effect I ever bought. Also turned out to be the last external effect I ever bought, as effects turned out to work pretty well inside the box. Really great sound, this one has. At one time I used its S/PDIF connection as a digital recording interface to my SoundBlaster card: I would route the audio to be recorded into the MPX and it would be transferred digitally to the computer. Or, later, the Akai S-2000.

Later, it became part of my modular rig, but as I never really used it, I sold it.

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YAMAHA MX 12/4 [1999 – 2015]

My first trusty mixer. Worked like a charm and served me well for many years. For all practical purposes it became obsolete when I got my first FireFace, but I only sold it after Judgment Day.

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SPIRIT ABSOLUTE 2 [1998 – 2004]

My first real monitors. A huge difference compared to my earlier plastic boxes. Managed several years with them, but ended up upgrading them to active monitors. As one does.

Sounds like a Swedish product. The name, not the sound.

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CLAVIA NORD MODULAR [1998 – ]

This is one of my all time favorites. The modular concept is extremely pedagogic, you simply can’t avoid learning how synthesis works while you patch, or even while you study what others have patched. The user community makes sure that you really don’t have to make your own patches if you really don’t want to (you do want to, though. It’s inevitable). There are tens of thousands of patches downloadable for it, each patch potentially an entire synthesizer model (as opposed to a single sound), and new patches show up daily on the NM mailing list. I still have have thousands of patches on my HD which I haven’t checked out. The NM shifted my interest from sampling technology to analog synthesis. The only gripe is the “mere” 4-part multitimbrality,

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KORG WAVESTATION SR [1998 – 2000]

I eventually sold this one, but I remember it had a few very nice sounds, and I particularly liked the reverb, which sounded very warm and “distantly present”. My main problem with this was simply that it was a pain to program, due to the 2-line display and what felt like a deep menu hierarchy, so I never really got past the presets, which is a crying shame, as I am sure there were some interesting possibilities. I also never figured out why the effects settings kept changing even though I didn’t want them to. I regret selling it, and it is likely I will get another one at some point. I have now also invested in Sound Diver, which should make the programming much easier (or, in this case, possible). Another possibility is that, as Korg has released it as a soft synth, I might go for that one instead.

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