Boy Meets Synth

I’m trying to improve my electronics skills. I thought modding might be the logical next step from changing internal batteries and swapping out tactile switches. I’d like to add MIDI to my Korg Poly-61 and maybe improve the MIDI on my Roland JX-3P. These mods require skills above and beyond what I have now, and I certainly don’t want to wreck them in the process, so when a cheap Poly-800 became available on Yahoo Auctions, I snapped it up in the hopes of trying the Moog Slayer Filter Mod. As anyone who’s looked at a Poly-800 knows, there are no knobs on the front panel, just a few buttons and a lot of teal. I couldn’t do much about the teal but I could add two knobs to bring direct control of the filter and cutoff parameters to the fore. Seeing as it’s a Poly-800, and they sell for around $100 in Japan, I wouldn’t be too disappointed if I killed it. I could always sell it for parts and get my money back anyway. Cosmetically, my new Poly-800 wasn’t in terrible shape. There was so...

After much deliberation , I decided to send the voice chips to Synth Spa in America to be refurbished. I like that Allen stands behind his work with an 8-year guarantee. His prices are also reasonable. But mostly, with all there is to do on this restoration, I’m going to need a good sounding synth to keep me motivated in the days ahead. According to their site , Synth Spa only takes in new work via eBay these days. I did a search on eBay for Synth Spa and two entries came up, and both are for the 106 voice chip restoration. One is slightly more expensive. It’s a little hard to tell the difference but the more expensive one seems to be aimed at the gigging musician. Perhaps the ICs are slotted in a more secure way. But really, I’m not sure. I chose the cheaper version and a few hours later, I received instructions via email to remove the board and send it through the mail. The instructions looked easy enough—just disconnect cables and unscrew the board from the base of the synth...

I’m not an FM guy. Some people love FM. It tickles their fancy. Not me. To me, it sounds sterile and sharp, like a scalpel. A highly polished scalpel dipped in antiseptic. Me, I prefer analog. It’s fuzzy and woolly and warm, like a forest animal. Or like a blanket. Or a hug. Of course, I’m exaggerating but you get the idea. We all have our preferences and mine tend towards analog. I like the smeary softness of analog. It reminds me of my childhood in the ‘70s and growing up in the ‘80s. That would be the early ‘80s, before our lives were blackened by the coming of the dreaded DX7. Of course, I’m exaggerating again. I may prefer analog but I’m also a fan of synthesizers in general, and there’s something to be said for having a variety of sounds at your disposal. The song needs what it needs. Also, digital sounds can be surprisingly easy to slot into a full mix. Surgical. Precise. FM. My first brush with frequency modulation came a few years ago when a friend offered me an old DX...

I had no intention of buying another synth, let alone a money-suck like a Juno-106, but there it was on Yahoo Auctions for only $500. I couldn’t resist, especially when the seller had it listed as “no voice chip issues.” Ha! More on that later. I’ve been wanting a Juno-106 for ages to replace the one I sold in 2001 when I was "downsized" and needed money to pay the rent. It was probably my favorite synth of my old studio, which also included a Sequential Circuits Prophet 600, Korg Mini-Korg 700, and a Realistic Concertmate MG-1. Of course the Juno sounded great, but I also found it to be a reliable workhouse that could handle pretty much whatever I threw at it: bass duties, filter sweep pads, effects. The fact that I associate the 106 with reliability will tell you how long ago that was. This was before the great 80017A VCF/VCA IC die-off. My new 106 arrived in a light gig bag with just a thin layer of bubble wrap between it and the elements.  I’m talking no box at all....

A while back I decided I needed a new mono synth. I love my Korg MS-20 Mini but it can be a tad, shall we say, aggressive. I forgot to feed it on time once and I woke up with a patch cable up my nose. The Yamaha CS01 is fun but it’s not my go-to synth. Actually it’s more of a forget-to-go-to synth, but I’ve talked about that before . And then of course there’s my darling Technics SY-1010 , but unless I need something vaguely sad, I probably won’t reach for him either. No, what I needed was an all-around mono synth, something that could handle bass, leads and effects, would sound good doing it, and wouldn’t eat up too much of my poor English teacher’s salary. I thought I’d take advantage of the city I live in and visit Korg’s showroom on the outskirts of Tokyo to do my browsing. Alongside their own gear, Korg also had instruments set up from the companies they distribute in Japan, namely Arturia and Moog, so I set about annoying the polite guy manning the phones in the corner for th...

I like analog synths. That should be obvious from this blog. I particularly like ‘70s mono synths and ‘80s polys. That being said, I’m not an analog purist. I’m not anti-digital, by any means. I have a CZ-101 and a Yamaha TX81Z, and I’d really like a TG33 and Kawai K1m. I prefer analog but as a composer and producer, I recognize that sometimes a song needs a different kind of sound. It’s with this philosophy in mind that I jumped at the chance to buy a Korg DW-8000 for around $100. It wasn’t in perfect condition but it worked, and that was good enough for me. Why the DW-8000? If you have to ask, you probably haven’t heard one. Released in 1985, the DW-8000 is an 8-voice polyphonic hybrid synthesizer, occupying an evolutionary branch that ended when Roland’s D-50 won the survival of the fittest. But for an interesting period in the mid-80s, synth manufacturers were trying to find a way to link the sumptuousness of analog with the realism and clarity of digital. Korg eventually cau...

Shibuya, the center of shopping for young people in Japan, is also a major hub for musical instrument shops in Tokyo. My favorite shop for new gear, Music Land Key, is there, so if there’s something new I need, I know they’ll have it for a good price. I’d been wanting an Arturia Beatstep Pro for awhile. Although I have a Korg SQ-1, I liked the idea of having two lanes of sequencing, plus its MIDI to CV functionality was intriguing. And with all the hardware I seem to be amassing, I figured it was time to wean myself off the DAW a little as well. I put on a pair of pants and rode the trains across town. It’s not far in Tokyo terms. I live on the northwestern edge of the metropolitan center, outside of the Yamanote line that defines central Tokyo, but not so far removed either. But considering how big Tokyo is, my fairly short trip still took an hour each way. I rode the elevator to the fifth floor, made a beeline for the Beatstep Pro, saw that it was still white, and turned right a...