Your first synthesizer show them to me

Mine was this classic.
http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/wasp.jpg

When it got hot under the stage lights the first eight "keys" would just drone, which was quite cool.

^^^ well unless someone got a Fairlight for their sixth birthday, you've got everyone beat.
This was mine, age six/seven:
http://www.audiobell.com/bilder/waddington_big.jpg
...OK, so it's a toy, but it does have an arpegiator (of sorts), and a sequencer. And it sounded great through a valve hi-fi amp.

Well yes, but I was 16!
If I had got something like that when I was 6 I would have been pleased (but confused).

Well as it was based around a late '70s microcontroller, it took two 9 volt batteries, and ate through them very quickly.

I started with this one in 1985:
http://www.vintagesynth.com/korg/poly61.jpg

JUno 106! I was a very lucky 13 year old! It was very affordable at the time.. Once upon a time before the internet didn't cost arm + leg for vintage synthesizers if you knew where to look.

http://karlosthejackal.com/images/chuck-l.jpg
Pretty sure I had that poster up on my wall, too. (For the record, I did not use the guitar strap, however.

http://leicester.gumtree.com/posting_images/81/23734981__1210538385__1__1-cab2ab7e5e28fdcf89e3b8fa6cc769c9.__big__.jpg

One of these:

http://www.sequencer.de/pix/roland/sh-09.jpg

and one of these:

http://www.sonicftp.com/synth/lcasesynth/1247.jpg

My sister and I saved up our pocket money/sat. job money to buy the pair of them off the art teacher at school. I still have them, the Casio still works, the Roland is a bit sick, I'm sending it off to the repair guy later this year.

SH09 is a great little synth! Chunky roland square wave = ROCK.

Roland SH-1

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/175/383510345_1086d9e221.jpg?v=0

Does this count as a synth?

http://www.synthmuseum.com/casio/casvltone01.jpg

It does have a funky ADSR programming capability, I wonder if there is a list on the net of usable sounds/8 digit codes for it.

I expect this was a lot of people's first little keyboard. I still have it.

My dad had a decent Casio keyboard. It was black, and I remember it having a sound called "Funky Clav" -- this was probably 1984 or 1985. That's all I got.

I can't afford a synthesizer and have never had one, so I'm building one. Will post a picture when it is built, as it will be my first synth.

anybody have any feelings about the ensoniq ESQ-1? found one in a pawn shop and pondering buying it.

i know this isn't exactly related to the question, but since all of you are already here, why not.

The only synth I've ever owned is an Aries Modular, pretty much like this pic I found on the web. I still have it, although I don't have it set up. I got it from the guy who built it, in about 1977-78. I tossed the keyboard when I moved and a few years ago I got a midi-to-cv controller which works great, though I haven't used it much.

http://leinermedia.net/aries/AriesPics/SystemIV.jpg

actually more like this http://bp1.blogger.com/_vegmybBr_Jc/RgoG74_2C1I/AAAAAAAAAAc/Cdee-8cjSRQ/s1600/aries.jpg

http://ca.wrs.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0WTf2mLX4JIfAIBAYj2FAx./SIG=12qofedal/EXP=1216590091/**http%3A//www.synthtopia.com/news/04_10/images/Korg_Legacy_Collection.jpg
(Sorry, purists.)

Roland RS09 :

http://www.vintagesynth.com/roland/images/rs09.jpg

this belonged to the synth player in my high school rock band, but he stored it in my basement (our practice space) so i had a lot of fun with it:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Roland-Juno-106.jpg

(and it wasn't "vintage" then, either...)

http://i37.tinypic.com/opso1.jpg

^^^ pre-discovery of punk rock, for me. I got rid of it in angrier punk days, which I regret a bit now.

roland sh3-a

the whole thing:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1197/1352757881_45790a8999.jpg?v=0

the synth bit:
http://bp0.blogger.com/_FMBJEkaC8Lw/R7SDooEgPwI/AAAAAAAAPE4/fAzqis6urj8/s1600-h/Photo14_large.jpg

a great little thing although it weighed a ton - it's covered in a hard wooden shell. i lugged this to many smokey practise sessions with a guy who was tangentially involved with gong and so the music we made was very gong-like. great bass sounds on stero echo.

i then got an arp odyssey for < 200 bucks:

http://www.vintagesynth.com/arp/arp_odyssey.jpg
which changed my way of thinking quite a bit

libcrypt i'm in a band with a guy who still predominantly plays an opus 3 - they're a great little machine.

This one:
http://www.synhouse.com/pro-onedisplay.jpg
Since i don't consider myself first and foremost a syntheziserist, it's pretty allright

http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/yamcs103.jpg

its monophonic, plastic, and has knobs at each end so you can attach a guitar strap to it. cost £30.

wasnt mine but i used it a lot way back in the day:

http://www.synthdiy.com/files/2002/jx3p.bmp
with
http://www.fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/sound/synth/002/jx3p_6.jpg

i also own this gem:

http://images.trademe.co.nz/photoserver/35/69841435_full.jpg

not really a synth, but a sampler. it died and so did the sequential circuits max a friend and i shared. i still have a micromoog.

Oh yeah I still have this too

http://www.sonicftp.com/synth/lcasesynth/ens_eps.jpg

8 bit mono! I have the 8x expansion unit and the breakout box. Now it's good for getting those gritty 8 bit samples or driving the midi-cv controller for the Aries.

(Sorry, purists.)

It's OK. In this modern age, softsynth adaptions of vintage synths sound better than the new synths that are being produced today.

man, you are all cooler than i. my second was slightly better:
http://www.vintagesynth.com/oberheim/matrix6.jpg
and libcrypt, i did the same damn thing -- sell off both my synths when i went through my punk puritan phase. what an idiot i was.

my 2nd

http://www.synthman.com/pix/y-cs1x.gif

It does have a funky ADSR programming capability, I wonder if there is a list on the net of usable sounds/8 digit codes for it.

This website is nothing to do with me. Down the bottom of the page is some through information about what each number in the ADSR patch does:
http://www.unhacker.com/maximumcheesecore.html

...however I can't vouch for any of the above information as my VL-1 isn't working at the moment.

http://www.student.foi.hr/~rlogozar/Images/Synths/KorgTridentMKII_01.jpg

I still love you, big fella.

http://www.gearwire.com/media/moog-rogue-big.jpg

actually i had some casio thing in the early 90s but don't remember what it was. it didn't work either.

http://student.dei.uc.pt/~nivo/ReBirth.jpeg

Emily wins. Have you still got that thing? AWESOME instrument, that one.

My second one is still the one I use as a keyboard, even though the synth sounds are now to an increasing degree from the computer's various softsynths:
http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff260/kidkey/TS-10.jpg

http://www.synthmania.com/Casio%20Rapman/Images/Casio%20Rapman.JPG

had an awesome "vocoder"

Pashmina, we still have it in storage ('twas band synth, so only partially mine, but the first one I played properly). It doesn't work any more, though, and we've sent it to a few repair shops without any success - I think the problem was something like the battery leaked and corroded some circuits or something, but nobody has been willing/able to fix it.

had an awesome "vocoder"

My second "synth" (only made a piano sound) Yamaha TYU-40
There's a microphone input socket at the back that could be easily overdriven, also hold the mic next to the speaker for the classic feedback effect.

My first:
http://www.vintagesynth.com/korg/prophecy.jpg

My second (a VL7 actually, but I could only find a decent pic of a VL1):
http://www.zikinf.com/_gfx/matos/dyn/large/yamaha-vl1.jpg

If this counts, then:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v694/adnaus23/roland15mc303l.jpg

If not, then:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v694/adnaus23/roland_juno_106_main.jpg

First synth I actually played, though, was this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v694/adnaus23/buchla200.jpg

korg prophecy! still can't believe it wasn't polyphonic - you can hear presets from it on both babylon zoo's 'spaceman' and prodigy's 'firestarter' (xpost)

anyone have a Roland JP-8000?

anyone have a Roland JP-8000?

-- blueski, Sunday, 20 July 2008 22:31 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Supersaw! Mentasm! Enter epic-cheese-trance heaven!

No, I don't have one, btw, er...

Pashmina, we still have it in storage ('twas band synth, so only partially mine, but the first one I played properly). It doesn't work any more, though, and we've sent it to a few repair shops without any success - I think the problem was something like the battery leaked and corroded some circuits or something, but nobody has been willing/able to fix it.

-- emil.y, Sunday, 20 July 2008 17:10 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Ah, that's a shame. If you ever want to get rid, gimme a shout, I know a guy who probably can fix it (he fixed my Chroma, which was "challenging", cost me best part of 800 quid!) and I'm probably daft enought to pay his rates*. Trident 2 is one of the few instruments that still gets my synth collector bells ringing (see also Oberheim 4-voice, RMI Keyboard Computer 2)

*(which are actually very reasonable, he's good!)

@ Naus

Where'd you play that? Apparently the Buchla 200 I worked on @ TESC has devolved http://www.evergreen.edu/media/musictech/images/studios/buchla200big04.jpg

Seeing all this old gear makes me drool.

http://www.casiosk1.com/images/sk5.jpg

http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/sy85.jpg

(xpost) maybe there should be a thread for "first synth you aspired to own" - mine would be the SK-1.

http://www.rolandtaiwan.com.tw/roland/images/Image/L_ill/j/juno-60.jpg

First, and only. I'm getting rid of it though, but had some good times with it.

factcheckr, It wasn't the 200 system pictured. It was slightly smaller, and some of the modules were in disrepair (mostly the quad stuff and touchplate). It was about five years ago during an into Electronic Music Composition class @ CSUSB.

(btw, is that you selling a copy of Cubase on ebay? I was going to bid, but found out that Steinberg require a letter and $50 fee transfer a license.)

Why am I surprised that half of ilx owns synthesizers.

I am going nuts trying to find the first one I had. It was a Yamaha, I got it for Christmas of 1989, and it had 100 tones and 12(?) rhythms with auto-accompaniment -- beyond that I don't remember anything. It was a pretty sweet keyboard, though.

This was my second: Casio CTK-601 (1997).

http://www.casio-latin.com/emi/high_grade/images/ctk601/ph_ctk601.jpg

why look, it's just like le bateau ivre's except without the memory function:

http://www.rolandtaiwan.com.tw/roland/images/Image/L_ill/j/juno-6.jpg

bought for an absolute steal in 1991. still going strong; currently in the possession of my mate scott, formerly of looper etc, who's putting it to far better use than i would these days.

as a band, we also had:

http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/crumar/crumar_stratus1.jpg

and

http://www.vintagesynth.com/elka/ek22.jpg

both bought by ian, the other dude in the band, more on a "look, a cheap synth in a shop near where i live" basis than anything else.

man, i want to fuck about with them all again now.

the one synth i wanted more than anything else, and i can't remember why, was an ARP odyssey.

http://img3.musiciansfriend.com/dbase/pics/products/regular/3/0/5/285305.jpg

http://www.vintagesynth.com/moog/source.jpg

anybody have any feelings about the ensoniq ESQ-1? found one in a pawn shop and pondering buying it.

i know this isn't exactly related to the question, but since all of you are already here, why not.

-- BLACK BEYONCE, Saturday, 19 July 2008 21:28 (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

A few friends had them when they were current, 8 voices, three digital oscillators, analog filter & VCA, good modulation stuff, reasonably easy to use is what I remember. they were decent VFM and complemented a DX7 pretty well. I also remember they had a somewhat harsh, presence-y sound that was a bit hard to get rid of. It's probably the sort of thing where I'd pick one up if it was cheap enough just to have a mess around with & see if I liked it, I think it would have to be peanuts, cost-wise though, the other thing I remember about early ensoniq gear is that it wasn't terribly reliable, though if this one actually works, it's probably a good one.

I am going nuts trying to find the first one I had. It was a Yamaha, I got it for Christmas of 1989, and it had 100 tones and 12(?) rhythms with auto-accompaniment -- beyond that I don't remember anything. It was a pretty sweet keyboard, though.

I think I can nail down the identity of just about any Yamaha keyboard. Did it have mid-sized or full sized keys? How many octaves?

I bought the Minitmoog for $20 at a pawn shop. The guy couldn't believe I bought it- "None of the presets sound like anything". It was tough to keep in tune. The keys were pressure sensitive which was nice but they tended to be unreliable. I sold it for 200 dollars after holding on to it for 10 years. Not really worth $200 from a strictly sound producing aspect.

http://www.sequencer.de/pix/moog/minitmoog.jpg

I am going nuts trying to find the first one I had. It was a Yamaha, I got it for Christmas of 1989, and it had 100 tones and 12(?) rhythms with auto-accompaniment -- beyond that I don't remember anything. It was a pretty sweet keyboard, though.

I think I can nail down the identity of just about any Yamaha keyboard. Did it have mid-sized or full sized keys? How many octaves?

-- snoball, Monday, 21 July 2008 18:02 (15 minutes ago) Link

mine was probably in the same family as jaymc's. probably in the "PS-?" line of things. mine: full size keys, maybe 4 octaves, speakers on either side of keys.

xpost

is that an Elka EK22 grimly? I picked up the keyboardless version for peanuts a couple of years back, and it sounds lush. It's apparently basically an Oberheim Matrix 6 with the Elka Synthex chorus strapped to it. Shame the user interface is so shit.

it is, yup. the sounds were beautiful -- we used it for most of the bass and chordal stuff, and the juno for simpler melody lines (and occasional arpeggiation).

actually, caveats: it was ian who came up with that way of working, not me; left to my own devices everything would have been a great big wash of juno noise. but i needed to play guitar, too -- and the elka was sequenceable whereas the juno wasn't. so, almost out of necessity, the stuff that was easier to sequence (ie bass, structural chord progressions) fell to the elka; i played guitar; ian had the juno. there were exceptions, but by the end (2001) that was how we were doing most of the songs.

the user interface was horrible, yes. i couldn't remember what the thing was called and had to do a bit of creative googling: as soon as i saw it, it all came flooding back. again, though, i left ian to do all that. dude's got a fucking first in physics from oxford; it seemed more up his street ;)

(xxpost) Yamaha PSR-21?
http://www.keyboardmuseum.com/pic/y/yama/psr21.jpg

thx pash

my first synth was actually a roland string machine, to answer the thread question. it's still here somewhere.

damn close, snoball. finally found mine: the mighty psr-2!
http://www.waketti.net/skit/Yamaha_PSR-2/yamaha_psr-2.jpg

and my memory failed me as far as speaker count went. just the one, obv.

I bought the Minitmoog for $20 at a pawn shop. The guy couldn't believe I bought it- "None of the presets sound like anything". It was tough to keep in tune. The keys were pressure sensitive which was nice but they tended to be unreliable. I sold it for 200 dollars after holding on to it for 10 years. Not really worth $200 from a strictly sound producing aspect.

http://www.sequencer.de/pix/moog/minitmoog.jpg

-- brownie, Monday, 21 July 2008 18:14 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

MinitMoog is the 2-oscillator version of the Moog Sattelite. They are shit rare, a v v tiny quantity were made. I have a broken Sattelite (these are pretty common I think), er, somewhere. The Sattelite at least is pretty terrible!

http://server11.sitewizard.co.uk/sites/studiogear/images/yamahasy55.jpg

Just started using it again recently. The keys feel looser than I remember, but the electric pianos and synth basses are much better than I thought they were (course, these are all my own old patches, the presents were awful). I managed to get some nice analogue sounding strings out of it too, along with some lovely bubbly S/H pads and a few perfectly usable organs.

But man, to think I used to spend HOURS step-sequencing on that 2 line LCD screen!

http://www.miniorgan.com/pic/mego/muson_synthesizer/o1.jpg

followed by a Casio MT-32, then a Juno-106, which stopped working so we traded it back and upgraded to the "superior" Korg DW-8000. Whoops. Then I got an Arp 2600, a K2000, a Farfisa, RS-09, another 106, etc. Still, can't believe I started with this thing when I was like 2.

it was basically like a little arpeggiator/sequencer that ran through those notes in ascending pitches, and if you removed one of those colored plugs, it would skip that tone.

maybe not ascending pitches, listen to it here:

http://www.miniorgan.com/lib/view.php?miniorgan=8&srch=&srch_type=&sortby=&output=21

it was special

when does dancySelzer make a record?

anyway my first synth:
http://zelizi.neuf.fr/Pics/Machines/Korg%20Polysix.jpg

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_1Yq9A9Lv7ZI/Rt-vC9p4afI/AAAAAAAABOY/ok368J-zuDU/DSCF1060.jpg
http://ofmyowndesign.com/images/2006_illustration_2_lbox.jpg

http://www.hollowsun.com/downloads/ax80l.jpg

http://www.glenngoodman.com/images/old_pix/Roland%20XP-10.jpg

when does dancySelzer make a record?

when Dance Elzer finishes writing something halfway decent.

http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif

Roland Jupiter 6. It's the only one I ever had. I bought it because Paul from Orbital said that's what they were using during the time of their first album. My mom sold it one day without telling me, but in reality I probably never would have went back home to get it anyway (home is too far away and it was extremely heavy). Looking at it makes me kinda wanna cry, now, though.

Dan, your Muson picture looks devastatingly cute.

http://www.sequencer.de/pix/roland/jupiter6.jpg

I have an AX80 too! (and an AX60, which has seen better days)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3258/2683453120_e31164ea7e_o.jpg