PAiA Gnome Synth

As a teenager I poured over the PAiA catalog and fantasized about soldering together a music studio from their modular kits. They had polyphonic synths, all kinds of effects, computer controlled sequencers, space-age stuff — and this was 1977 or so, way before the Mac and P.C.

The first kit I got was the Gnome Synth. When I opened the box I found a dozen or so plastic baggies full of teensy little resistors and what not, green and gold circuit boards, lots of wire and LEDs. Somehow I soldered the Gnome together. As you can see in the photo, it had a few knobs but no keyboard. It had this ribbon controller across the front, with a metal probe you ran across it to make the sounds. It was supposed to bleep, and wine and boing and growl, but mine probably had a dozen fried components (I was new to the soldering iron) and didn't work. I sent it back and they fixed it for free. Later I got the OZ Mini-Organ.

PAiA was started by a guy named John Simonton in 1969. Later, in 1975 he launched Polyphony magazine, which was later renamed Electronic Musician. I learned my synthesis basics from reading his sales sheets, instruction booklets and magazine articles.

When I decided to hunt down some old PAiA kits on the internet a few years ago, I discovered, much to my surprise, that the company still existed! When my email was cheerfully answered by John himself, I froze in disbelief. To me, John was was a rock star.

John passed away in 2005.

TEAC Portastudio 144

It was 1980, and I'd never recorded a song before, but when I read about this machine, I knew that I could. I bought it with student loan money, and wrote my first songs on it — about 100 of them. It's hard for the home-recordists of the Garageband age to appreciate what this machine represented in terms of making recording technology available to the masses. A generation of musicians, producers and engineers cut their teeth on this and subsequent portastudio models. This was the piece of gear that spawned the home recording revolution that continues today.

The 144 had an integrated mixer with EQ, aux sends and a cue mixer, could punch-in silently, had Dobly B noise reduction and ran at 3.75 ips for better fidelity. And oh, what about that vari-speed motor for getting that weird piano in tune or creating those chipmunk and super low effects? Importantly, it sounded pretty good. My index finger went numb from constant punch-ins and I wore out many belts and capstans. It finally broke down and was replaced by another portastudio, and another. None of them were as good as the original.

Springstein famously recorded "Nebraska" on one. My own productions were not nearly as spare — bounced tracks often numbered in the dozens.

Follow up post here.