Roland JV-1010

The JV-1010 is like Las Vegas. Lots of sparkle and polish, affordable to get there, but my short vacation with this unit is ending. (I got this 1999 half-rack at a used music store for $175 a few months ago [2008]).

And it really isn't a synthesizer, in the traditional sense, despite what it says on the panel. Yes, you can get into the JV-1010 and start raw with the waveforms and create new sounds by modifying what happens to them, "like" a real synthesizer. But editing the sounds on this is limited for me by the fact that there is no reasonably priced Mac editor software for it these days. Not surprising, because this is so old it has a serial computer connection on the back!

It's basically a "ROMpler." It plays back bits of samples of natural instruments or actual synthesizers from ROM to mimic natural instruments, synths, sound effects etc. And it does it really well for $175 (what I paid in 2008). By God there are over 1000 patches in this, probably every sound you've ever heard on a record or in performance! Drums, pianos, organs, clavs, guitars or all kinds, and plenty of synthesizer sounds. The specs are truly awesome.

That's pretty much how my ebay auction reads. Sure, it's great for producing recordings. You have all the sounds right in here. But I'm in this for the fun, and I want to do something, not just play back canned sounds. And yes, composing and arranging is doing something, but somehow the overstuffed library of sounds in the JV-1010 makes it just too easy to randomly pick and choose and get a comfortable sounding track going. Like Las Vegas glitter, it's hard for the individual personality to shine through the prepackaged glitz.

I feel like I have a brick of gold on the table, but I needed groceries. See, the folks down at the Shoprite won't accept it at the register. It's just not the currency I need right now. I'm in the market for a tweakable, knob-ladden synth or sampler serving immediate sound mangling satisfaction.

Voyetra Sequencer Plus on IBM PC XT

Not my music! But this really shows Voyetra Sequencer Plus

These days you can do more with an iphone, but in 1984 Voyetra Sequencer Plus rocked the music world as the first professional MIDI sequencer available for DOS. Back in those days, floppy disks were really floppy. On my IMB PC XT, with its two floppy disks (no hard disk) probably 128K of ram, if that, it actually did a great job. I had it hooked into my FBO1's and Roland 707. Suddenly, I commanded midi control central.

The joy of this software was its simplicity, and the clip above does a good job at showing the screens and interface. It was basic, but some ideas haven't been bettered, like the now standard MIDI "player piano scroll" note view, already there 25 ago. There were no windows, you had a few full screens to go to, but everything was right there in front of you, the way I still like it, as in Abelton Live, which I use today. Stacks and stacks of windows are bothersome and get in the way of your creative flow.

I bought the used XT from a co-worker who was upgrading for $375 with a monitor and everything. He accepted an installment plan of $125 a month. It was actually 1987 when I got this setup going. And I used it for some time, until I graduated to a Mac 2ci and Steinberg Cubase.

My XT/Voyetra setup grew. In the end it fed midi to an 8-way midi-splitter connected to my 2 Yamaha FB01s (4 audio outs), a Yamaha TX16W sampler (10 outs). My drum boxes were the Roland TR707 (8? outs) and an Alesis SR16 (4 outs) and I also got good drum sounds from the AKAI XE8 (even more outs). I ended up with quite a few audio tracks that I could individually control. They all lead to a 16 channel Boss mixer, n0t even enough channels to handle the load. The simplicity afforded by a visual interface was complicated down the line by the enormous amount of audio it could trigger. The awesome tangle of wires, I grew to hate, while the Voyetra Sequencer Plus I have fond memories of. It plain-old-fashioned-simple WORKED.

And it didn't give me CPU overload messages!

The computer is still sitting in my mother-in-law's attic. I wonder if I can get it running again?

The Astounding Yamaha FBO1

Lame little DX module, say you?
When this arrived in 1986 or so, with it's unbelievable EIGHT note polyphony with up to 8 discrete midi channels, all for about $400 bucks, it really was revolutionary. I got mine when it dropped to $299.
Let's remember the little FBO1 as the module that broke that $500 price barrier, bringing multitimbral midi, internal memory, ability to patch edit on a computer and the sound (almost) of the DX7 (only 4 operators for the FB01) to the common man.We're used to our multitimbral workstations and computer instruments, but back in the 80s you needed real cash to get a multichannel midi setup happening. Two of these could be linked for a full 16 note polyphony as well.

It's limitations were also it's strengths. For example the polyphony was not allocated dynamically among the voices. You needed to assign 1 voice to you bass patch, 4 to your string pad, 2 to a percussion thingy, and the last to something else. Accidentally lay a fifth note on the pad? You'll not steal from the churning bass riff. Lack of flex brought control.

At least that's how I thought about it. Anyway, who ever heard of dynamic voice allocation back then? That was Star Wars stuff.

Soon I got two of these and used them on a primitive sequencing setup: A Voyetra sequencer on a DOS PC XT without even a hard drive. The dual floppy discs really were floppy those days. A few other modules for drums, some effects. And I had something going there.

And two of these screwed into a rack nice and neat.

Here's a nice link.

BOSS ME-30

Let's face it, after a bit of practice, any 12 year old can hit an Em power chord on their Chinese built Stratocaster and sound reasonably cool. A soup of distortion will forgive a plethora of sloppy fingering sins. And these days lots of effects pedals are available to give you an incredible palette of ear candy on the cheap.

Hardly a guitarist, I truly appreciate playing by someone who does it well, but lean heavily on sonic enhancement when I play and record guitar myself. My stomp box chain eventually grew to compressor-distortion-chorus-delay-noise gate and required scores of deep knee bends to tweak those knobs and hundreds of 9-volt batteries a month. Arthritis kicked, my tongue became numb from checking batteries and I grew frustrated searching for that combination of knob positions that sounded so good 2 minutes ago.

The BOSS-ME30 seemed plasticy but promised a dozen or more Boss pedal effects under the hood, and was totally programable. Once home, it was actually more solid than it looked in the pictures. It's not idea for performance since tremolo, chorus, flanger pitch shifter — all the timebased effect, as I recall, were under one switch, all the distortions under another, and so on. It wasn't exactly like having all 22 effects (or whatever the number was) strung together; you weren't free to turn one off or on as you wanted as if you actually had all the pedals hooked up in a chain.. But you could make the combinations you needed and just switch up to another patch.

For me it was great. My crappy Fernandes suddenly had 100 personalities (well, 30 anyway) and recordings sounded better. Mostly it was really fun to play.

Eventually I bought a Roland VS-880 digital multitrack and the effects board in there had great patches for guitar along with the added value of them being saved into your song files and being programable in the mix. (Actually I'd recommend an old VS880 with the effects board, or VS880ex, fx built in, as a great effects unit, that happens to have 8 track digital recording included).

I decided I didn't need the ME30 anymore and thought I try that ebay aution site I'd been hearing about to get back some of the $200+ I'd paid for the Boss. To my utter astonishment the ME30 went for almost $400 at auction, far more than I'd paid for it (and I became an instant ebay fanatic).

Gearchild why?

Photo by Dad

From the moment we run to the candy store with our first nickel of allowance, through our working years, and hopefully into a "comfortable" retirement, we are doing it. Buying stuff. More than we need to get by, and frankly, a lot stuff we don't need at all.

It's no secret constant consumption is bad for the earth — with the pollution and waste endless manufacture creates, who could argue it isn't? All goes into the land fill. Where is that going to lead?

Is it some kind of addiction? Is constantly buying anew an attempt to drown out the horrible inevitability of death and decay? Are we just avoiding the larger questions, like: Why are we here? God? What happens (if anything) when you die? And, Gearchild, why?

Well, consumption has always bothered me. I've had many a fantasy of the ultimate monastic uncluttering. Some clothes, a book to draw and write in and that's it. I would be free of the burden of my things, open to life unfolding around me, with the mental space to go deep within and engage in meaningful self-discovery. And outside-of-self exploration would be all the more simple without all that baggage! Oh, to simplify!

Um, wait a second.

My wallet, my keys, I need them. A watch. Um, a cell phone is really a necessity these days. I guess I need a car, to get around, where I live. And, oh without this laptop, I'm screwed. But that's it. I'm done.

I do read on occasion. So some books.

Oh yea, a camera, to keep a record of it all, you know, and well, let's not forget all that other gear. I mean, I'm a musician of sorts. I need my instrument. Instruments, plural, that is. And to keep a record of what I do with those instruments. . . well, I guess I need a recording setup, a mixer, some cables, I/O, etc, etc... And suddenly I'm in the thick of it. I'm guilty of gathering stuff.

And it's a burden. It is. To afford it, to keep it working, keep it clean and to give the stuff your time. Here, the monk fantasy comes creeping back. Oh, to just be free of it all!

Stuff owns you, it sometimes seems.

But over time, I've become reasonably self aware. I've not broken free from the clutches of the urge to possess, but I'm clearer on why I appreciate this or that, why I want it.

Ultimately it comes down to a person. Someone, some actual human, designed that guitar, or beer bottle or software program. There is humanity inside my stuff. And it's a wonderful thing when the person who dreamed that beautiful thing up can connect with me with their creation.

At least with my gear, I own it serially. Get one, sell one. Like that. There is less waste because doesn't go into the dump right away, but rather finds a second life with someone else. Or I save it from the dump. And I buy used. In these ways I try and stay green. And really, how many guitars can ten fingers focus on anyway?

My beloved gear serves to help answer, not avoid the big questions. Because in music, art, and all things creative, you evoke the divine from within, you meld into the participatory, creative moment where "what's it all about?" doesn't exist, because you're in the middle of "it." Beauty exists, or another kind of expression. One that connects you to life, and keeps you in discovery mode, expanding, growing. As a child.

A gearchild.

Tascam 144 Brain Thaw

Student loan money, about a grand, bought me this in 1980.

In response to a question on how to use the Tascam 144, I will attempt to activate a portion of my brain perhaps petrified. It has been been 30 plus years, but I used this thing till my fingers bled, so I bet I still remember.

WHAT-A-STUDIO? Back in the day (and still) a regular cassette tape played back in stereo, 2 channels, going in one direction.Then you'd flip it over and it played two more in the other direction. It had 4 distinct "tracks" to record audio, 2 in each direction.
Teac-Tascam had the brilliant idea to use this existing technology more creatively. By recording all four channels in one direction and playing them back simultaneously, you had a multi-track, four track capability on standard, available cassette tape. Doubling the speed of the tape, thus increasing fidelity, helped, and then they added noise reduction to reduce hiss. they put a really good transport system on it, that allowed you to punch in, or drop into a recording and start recording anew without the thump you usually get on consumer decks. A mixer was added to the recorder, and there you had it. A totally portable studio. A PORTASTUDIO.

CHANNEL STRIP

• You have 4 channel strips with: micline/tape select button, trim knob, eq knobs, send knob, pan knob and a fader.
• The trim adjusts how sensitive the mic/line input (plug in the back) will be. Left least, right most sensitive.
• The micline/tape button selects which input will feed the channel strip – either mic/line source plugged into the back, or the audio already recorded on the corresponding tape track.
• Of course you have those beautiful old fashioned UV meters with the needles jumping around.

MASTER SECTION

• A master fader that controls the level of all those first 4 combined in a stereo mix.
• Above it you have bus selector buttons to select which buss, left or right will record.
• Then the track selector buttons, to choose which track on each buss will record.
• Off turns recording, well, OFF.
• Andaux return knob adjust how much comes back to the master mix from the aux return input out back
• Monitor knob and buttons giving you choice of cue or mix to listen to via your phones.

CUE

• Then over on the right you have 4 more "cue" knobs. They will allow you to mix what's already on tape and listen to it as you overdub new tracks over already recorded ones, so you can play guitar along with the drum track you first recorded, and then add the bass... etc.

STEREO BUSS WHAT?
What the #$%$# is that, you ask. Basically you can record one or two tracks at once, over a stereo buss, aiming your audio left or right with the pan knobs on each channel strip. The little buttons over the master fader choose which buss you want to record onto, left or right. Don't be confused into thinking what you record left, stays left. It doesn't. It just sends it to a certain part of the tape. You can pan every channel to where you want in your final mix.
Below that, the track selector buttons for which track will record. Or if you want to turn recording off on that buss. You can record one left and one right track, 2 at a time... it is a stereo buss, after all. So it's 1 or 3 and 2 or 4.

So say you pushed in the 1 button and on the other buss, the 4. You would then be recording tracks 1 and 4 at the same time. Whatever sound source you have plugged into your track inputs 1-4, will go to either left, to track 1 or right, to track 4, depending how you have the pan knobs set on those input channels. Panned hard left you are recording to track 1, hard right to 4 and in the middle to both. So you can put in 4 mics for four singers in to inputs 1, 2, 3, 4 and pan the mics all over the stereo field and get a stereo spread, or pan some hard right and others hard left to record them specifically on only 1 or 4. Get it?

DO IT
Plug a sound source, say a mic, into the back, input 1. Pan hard left on the channel's pan knob. Plug another into input 2 or 3 or 4, it doesn't matter, and pan hard right. The first will record on track 1, the second on track 4. Make sure the push button at the top of the row is set to "mic/line." That sets the input directed down that channel strip. If set to "tape" you'd be using the recorded track as your source material, and re-recording it to another track. That's how you "bounce" tracks down, combining perhaps 3 tracks to one, to open those first three up for more audio.

Hit pause and record. (or was it pause and play and record at the same time?) Tape is not rolling yet. Remember, the trim knob at the top of the channel strip controls how sensitive the input will be. Start dialed all the way left and work clockwise until you have a UV meter level just peaking before the red zone.

RECORD
Start recording and go for a while. Now rewind, flick those channel selector buttons over to 2 and 3, dial up cue knobs 1 and 4, and do it all over again. You are hearing your first take on 1 and 4 and recording 2 new takes on 2 and 3. Bingo. Your tracks are full.

YOUNG AND BOUNCY
This where the beauty of "bouncing comes in." You can combine, or bounce tracks together along with more live audio, if you like, to another track(s). The same way those Beatles did Sgt. Pepper... It's only 4 tracks, but by bouncing them together and opening up the original tracks for more music, you can create layers and layers and layers.

BACK UP A BIT
So wait. Don't fill up your tracks like I just said. Try something like this: record a drum track on 1, then a bass on 2, then a guitar on 3. Rewind. Then push in the micline/tape selector to "tape" on channels 1, 2 and 3 and pan those hard right. Push the record selector button 4 into record. Plug a mic and a tamborine into input 4, with the micline button on mic/line. pan hard right too. Hit play to adjust the mix as you combine drums guitar bass and live tamborine to 4. Levels look good? Not too much in the red? Rewind and hit record.

Now you should have everything (ok it's mono) on track 4. Go back and record backup vocals on 1 and harmony on 2. Then bounce them over to 3 as you add another vocal. Now you can record a lead guitar on one, bounce that over to 2 as you add a synth. Then go back and record your lead vocal on 1. You have drums, bass, guitar, guitar on 4, 3 vocals on 3, guitar and synth on2 and vocal on 1. Ten tracks, and you only bounced things once at most, so they sound pretty good still. It does deteriorate with every generation.

It really makes you think and train your ears when you have to commit to a bounce and plan all this stuff.

HAVE SOME PUNCH
Mind you the Tascam can punch in too. You sang a flat note? Just hit record on the fly and it cuts right in seamlessly. Very cool. You can use the aux send to send tracks or live inputs to effects devices and return them to the effects return. Or return them back into another channel strip. Explore the inputs on the back.

SSlowww mO
Don't ignore the varispeed knob. You can slow down the tape and sing. Speed up and be a chipmunk. Or go the other way and Turn a guitar into a bass. Song sluggish? Crank the speed up a tiny tad for that extra surge or energy.

?
Ok, so that was pretty confusing, but once you get the hang of this thing it's very intuitive. Loads of fun too.

Your "new" portastudio is actually very old though. So expect drive belts to break, and what not. There are lots of forums online where people can help you fix these machines. I used a dime store rubber band for once about 3 months. It held pretty well.

NOSTALGIC PURCHASE TIME
Now excuse me, I feel drawn to prowl ebay for a deal on one of these...

Zoom RhythmTrak RT-123

. . . yet another drum machine, but it's see-through!

Don't get me wrong, even though this was a bottom-of-the-line box it did have 3 tracks to sequence. You could fire off patterns, even multiple patterns, at the same time, on the fly, d.j. style – and it had bass sounds!

And yes, it was a produced in very beautiful see-through blue plastic. I loved it as an object.

Specs:
• Drum kits: 80.
• Bass programs: 25.
• Rhythm patterns: 297 preset, 99 user.
• Songs: 99.
• Maximum notes: 10,000.
• Maximum polyphony: 30 voices.
• Resolution: 96 PPQN.
• Tempo range: 40-250bpm.
• Quantise values: quarter, eighth, eighth triplet, sixteenth, sixteenth triplet, thirty-second, thirty-second triplet notes, and off.
• Outputs: quarter-inch jack (L/Mono, R); headphones.
• Inputs: MIDI In; quarter-inch mono line in; footswitch.
• Power: 9V AC.

After playing with it for a while I ended up triggering sounds on this from my sequencer. When it comes down to it, unless you are not computer savvy, who needs a drum machine? Sequencers are more powerful and easier to edit.

Goods: It was pretty translucent blue plastic toy. The pads lit up. Ooh! It was fun and really small.

Bads: No tuning on the sounds. It had a high end bite that I found low-rez sounding. Only stereo audio outs, and no midi out, so forget about exporting your pattern data.

I think it cost about $125. I got like $90 or so for it after a few months. You can pick one up on ebay now for about $50, I'd guess.

Garbage Drum Set

Garbage Drum Set, 2008.

If you read my previous post on the AMPEG REVERBEROCKET 2, you know I like to rescue musical instruments from the landfill. It's amazing what people will throw away.

But drums, I'm not surprised people chuck them. Here's a typical scenario:

Teenage boy, let's call him Boomer, begs for a drum set. It's appears under the Christmas tree and everyone is so happy. But that fades, at least for the parents and siblings, when it becomes clear how LOUD drums are in real life. Sound like I'm talking from personal experience? Well, maybe a little. click for more info on my teenage drums.

Boomer spends a few years making obnoxious sounds in the cellar with his buddies. Then maybe he loses interest, goes to college, moves out, leaving the drums at home with the folks. (Not personal experience).

Eventually the folks decide to clean up their empty nest. You can bet those drums are among the first things on the curb: Associated with headaches and those wonder years when Boomer's parents wondered if their boy would ever amount to anything. On top of that, drums take up a lot of space better served by a new home theater!

Here's the history of my Garbage Drum Set:

FIRST The beat up gold glitter Ludwig 14" floor tom seen poking out below the mounted tom in the photo, found sitting on the curb. The Ludwig badge was missing, but I recognized its ghost around the air hole.

THEN A tiny silver Rogers tom, 12", again out on the curb. I put it on ebay expecting $20. I shipped it to the lucky winner in Puerto Rico who paid me $240! The profits are shown in the picture: A used cheapo snare, no-name, red glitter, $35 on ebay. The cymbals: Paiste 16" crash and Zildjian New Beat High Hats, small crack, $75 for the bunch, also on ebay. The hardware and Sabian ride I bought new with the rest of the $240.

NEXT A 22" bass drum (not shown) and the black toms, 13" and 14" and 16" (floor) in the photo. Later I found a better bass drum on the curb, and that's the one you see here, but it was missing a hoop out front.

ESP Call it a hunch, call it crazy — all I know is that I got in my car with a sense of certainty, and within 10 minutes found a hoop, the right size, in somebody's else's trash. It's the white one in the picture.

These drums are not precious. But they are certainly loved, maybe more than Boomer was.

Ampeg Reverberocket 2 GS-12R

Ampeg Reverberocket 2, circa 1965. Mine since 2005.

I am pretty green. I don't like waste. It's one thing to recycle water bottles, but how about not using them at all? Refill a good sports bottle and use it for the rest of your life.

What really gets to me is when people waste the stuff I really love: GEAR. I always scan the curbs on Bulky-waste-day here in my suburban hamlet. That is when people are allowed to put out their larger trash for pickup. Perhaps I'd spy an old drum set, or guitar amp that I could fix up and use for the rest of my life.

Well you've guessed it, and now you will become green — with envy that is — because this vintage 1965 Ampeg tube amp was found at curbside, headed for the landfill.

You cannot imagine how fast I scooped this up, took it home and plugged it in. That little red glowing light told me the thing worked. I knew that had found a treasure. I did some research and found that these sold in the $500-$800 range.

It was in really good cosmetic shape, and played well. I discovered the reverb was out, and that it tended to produce noise and hum.

After a few years of sitting around, plugging in now and then, I decided to take it to a repair place. They cleaned the pots, replaced a tube or two, got the reverb to work, and replaced the missing handle. About $150. Not bad for a vintage all-tube amp.

When it comes down to it though, I'm a songwriter, singer, keyboardist, drummer and guitarist, in that order. So something this sweet is sort of a waste on me. And I don't like waste, as I've mentioned.

Profit is O.K., though, so this is up on ebay. Buy it now for $650.

Roland XP50 Workstation

Every keyboard has it's moment as the "flagship" of the product line. There was a version of the XP-50 with more keys, the XP-80, but essentially this represented the state of the art in Roland "romplers" (ROM sample playback synths) in 1995.

MAYBE I'M CHEAP because I rarely buy gear when it's brand new. But something else was coming out so the XP-50 was on sale for about $500 by 1998 or 1999 or so. My midi studio was getting out of hand, with lots of modules and drum machines, a big mixer and tons of cables. I was spending half my time getting all the bank change and program change messages right in my computer sequencer, and laboring over saving all the various drum patterns and program setups or my modules. Trading all that for this "workstation" seemed like a great way to consolidate, and I knew it sounded really nice, having spent many a lunch break in Sam Ash.

The store's advertising claimed that an expansion card was included, but after I'd plunked down my credit card and the expansion card wasn't appearing on the counter, I complained. Loudly. The salesman was on his first day and couldn't find a record of the special deal anywhere. I was insistent, because I knew I was right, and didn't want to get ripped off. Finally, he looked both ways and threw the card in the bag saying, "O.K. just take it, go!"

MY MISSION was being served: to move away from a spaghetti of cables and the complexity of being nursemaid to a dozen tiny LCD screens in the direction of writing good songs and capturing great performances.

I was simplifying, getting back the music.

OR SO I THOUGHT. While the XP-50 had a great soundset, a nice feel and all that expandability, it was not exactly simple to use well. It required lots of button pushing to program new sounds and get around the sequencer and to program patches on-board.

Also, the 64 voice polyphony was very easily eaten up by a few tracks, because a lot of sounds used up to 4 voices. Play your biggest chord and do the math. Pretty pointless to have a 16 track sequencer with so few voices.

CONCLUSION: I loved this keyboard anyway because of the variety of patches. I wish I'd never sold it a few years later in favor of the VST synths my computer was too sluggish to take full advantage of inside Cubase VST. In addition, I wish I'd not gotten rid of some of the other modules because they could have provided some expanded polyphony.

I think the sounds are still good today. Mangle them with your recording software. In 2008 I'd tell folks on somewhat of a budget (read: can't buy a $4000 tricked out mac with a quad processor) to record straight audio on a more basic machine and not worry about the ever increasing horsepower you need to run more than a couple of virtual instruments. Instead, buy one of these or it's rack-mount siblings (jv1080 jv1010 or later models) used and you'll have thousands of sounds ready to go.

OH YEA, When I got home from the store with my XP-50, I looked it up and actually the price with the included card was from another store, and a hundred bucks more.

Roland SPD-6

Back in 1985 or so, Gary Bettum and I (you out there somewhere Gary?) worked together at a midtown recording studio called ERAS. We were helping to build a little room, and when it was done, the first piece of gear we put in was a set of Simmons synth drums. Very 80s.

The Simmons bass drum was a huge hexagonal pad, about as tall as an actual bass drum. We got to thinking about how there was no reason for the size. It could just as well be a tiny area big enough for only the beater ball to strike. Soon we fantasized about a suitcase sized drum trigger unit with some rubber pads that could fire off drum sounds like the Simmons, but be really portable.

Well, of course we were right, that would be cool, and soon enough, may companies started to make our dream come true. The Linn drum was out, and then you had the Akai MPC triggering samples and redefining music production. These days I own the very capable Triggerfinger, and any number of tiny controllers are on the market. But for a while, it was just the Octapad, and eventually this, it's baby brother, the SPD-6. I got one, mainly because it was so cheap, a few hundred bucks.

6 pads and internal samples. Tough enough to play with sticks, and sensitive enough to play with your fingers (it had a sensitivity switch). It was cool. Especially if you really knew how to play the drums. I finally had my suitcase-sized drum kit, ready to throw into a bag and take anywhere.

It had some limitations, however. First of all there was no midi in. So you couldn't trigger its sounds from midi data. You could trigger your sampler from it, and program midi tracks. But you couldn't use use it as a midi playback unit. The sound set was small, only 113 samples.

If only they had bundled more of a variety of sounds and a drum machine in there. As it was it was just a bit too limited to really compete. It was soon discontinued.

Maybe a full kit of V-drums can be played with some body-feel, but listening back, I couldn't tell the difference between drum parts I programed on this unit and the ones created on a piano-style midi keyboard.

On to ebay it went, and in turn I purchased a drum machine with tons more sounds and over the top programing possibilities and full midi capability: the Boss DR-770.

Cherry Red Premier "Resonator" Drum Kit

Premier Resonator kit, in the backyard, 1978.

These drums represent a true turning point for a young Smokotalky. For the first time, I set a goal, and met it. And what was that? To get myself a off of the crappy beginner drum set I'd started on (no-name, $75 used) and into a heavy duty rock monster, able to cut through during those ear-ringing basement jams.

So, into Jack Spurt Messenger Service (the owner's real name) I walked, a clueless 10th grader with his earth shoes and surfer hair. I took a seat beside a dozen or so young inner city teens (a few of whom where pregnant) and awaited orders to pick up or drop off packages around midtown Manhattan. The pay? Minimum wage circa 1978 = $2.65 per hour.

At first I was an office curiosity: ("Yo, what the f*ck you doin' here?"). But my coworkers and I eventually became friends. I got the long runs and the pregnant girls were treated more gingerly, given easier deliveries.

I didn't mind. I liked walking around the city, watching the people and I enjoyed the clang of a pocket full of quarters against my thigh (provided to us for phone calls back to the office). I got to know Manhattan, street by street, and got to move within some of the great architecture of the city. I loved it. If I was careful not to buy hot dogs and soda from the street vendors, thus instantly killing an hour's wages, I was o.k. I might add that as a young virgin I experienced a guilty excitement in the proximity of my female co-workers, many of whom had obviously "done it."

By the end of August I'd gained an appreciation of the pleasant, middle class suburban Queens neighborhood I returned to every night. My coworkers were at Spurt Messenger Service because they had few other opportunities. I, on the other hand, was simply clueless. Ccushier options must have been available. College application rich summer internships or working at some wholesome summer camp, for example. Even the local Carvel would have saved me subway and bus fare.

At the end of my last day I walked into Sam Ash Music on 48th Street, and there, up on a riser, was my shiny red Premier Kit. I'd saved up about $500. It was on clearance, I had just enough. I put a down payment on it, and the next day my dad and I drove the drums home to Queens. I photographed them in the backyard late that very summer.

24" bass drum, 13", 14", and 16" toms and a chrome snare.

I loved them so. They played in many a garage, attic and cellar, and on even on a few stages in New York and Boston while I was in college. Eventually I stripped the red wrapping off for a funky home brew natural finish. When I moved to apartments and got married, they followed, but always in the closet or attic. They eventually got sold, amazingly, for the same $500 I'd paid, to a newly divorced thirty-something who was "trying to get back into playing weddings."

Interesting, I thought, for a newly divorced guy.

Yamaha TX16W Sampler, 1988

This sampler wins the prize as the most ornery piece of gear I've ever owned.

More frustrating was the fact that when it worked, the TX16W was powerful and sounded very good, even though it was a 12bit machine. The operating system was convoluted and just drove you totally nuts. I understand there is an alternate operating system, Typhoon, that is much better.

But I worked hard, and my patience payed off, sometimes. Once I got the hang of it, the "automated" multi-sampling worked pretty well. I recorded my piano, sampling every half octave and got a pretty good piano patch going after a few tries. I also sampled my drum set lots of ways, to much satisfaction. The picked bass patch that came on the factory floppy was great. If you planned out what sounds you needed in your composition, you could map different samples across the keyboard, and do the same on different midi channels, finally getting a lot of sound out of the tiny memory the TX16W had (it came with 1.5 megs and maxed out at 6 megs). And oh, it had, count 'em, TEN individual outs.

Thank goodness I spent thousands of hours learning how to use the TX16W, because when I found a buyer for it, I sold him by breezing through the menus and making it look easy.

It wasn't.

MXR phase 90

Purchased: Used, 1990 or so, for $15. Very cool classic phaser. Nice.

Just look a the brilliant user interface, a.k.a. knob. This was good for one reason only, its sound.


What happened to it? I sold it on ebay a few years later for about $75.

Roland Drumatix TR-606

A crystal ball would have been nice back in the mid 1980s. That's when I hocked my TR-606. This analog drum machine sells for $500 today. I should have just put it in the closet for a while. Who knew?

Most people using these today are too young to remember the time when sample playback drum machines became available. Suddenly the 606 sounded totally cheesy. Even embarrassing. However, listening to my old recordings that include it, I do appreciate the thwacky, solid punch of the analog bass and snare. The hats rock too.

But alas, I've got all the sounds on my mac now, and you can get software versions of this that do more than the original.

Yes, this was the cool at the time, and it's cool again, but honestly, I don't miss it.

I do love telling people that I sold mine for $75!

Akai XE8 Percussion Module

The Akai XE8 fit the bill for the early 90s Smokotalky concept of a neat, efficient rack mounted studio. Here was a unit with a bunch of Akai sounds built in to a 1 space rack. Mind you this was before the mega hardware and software romplers, and before the Alesis D4-5 rack mount units and others like them.

The good: The sounds were all really editable. Tunable. Good quality 16 bit sounds. Long tails.

The bad: It only had about 12 sounds or something like that! Tiny dials that had dual functions equals confusion and errors. All numerical display (a number rather than "bass dr" or even "HH". Expansion card slot on the back (hard to reach). Expensive, hard to locate cards. No memory locations.

I got rid of this in favor of the Alesis SR-16, a drum machine that didn't fit in a rack, but had lots more sounds to trigger, plus the hands-on immediacy of a drum machine if you just wanted to just fool around, practice licks or dream up stuff without having to boot up the whole studio.

Here's a good post giving a lot of specifics on this unit.

Casio CZ-3000 Synthesizer

Casio's synthesizers began as novelty items, like the VL-Tone, so I get the sense that the company did not plan a trajectory toward professional musicians. But the CZ-101 was a huge hit, even with it's tiny keys. It sounded good, it was cheap so musicians ate it up. Casio fed the market with more professional models.

The CZ-3000 was one of those, a CZ-101 on steroids. It used the same "phase distortion" digital synthesis as the 101. It had 2 oscilators per voice (16 voices) and an 8 stage envelope, for goodness sake. I got the 3000 for its 16 voice polyphony 61 full sized keys.

The Casio was OK. I was able to use it as a master midi controller to sequence with. It had some nice pads, and good industrial and sound-effect-like tones. But it lacked in a few areas.

It had no velocity sensitivity.

Strike one.

Second of all, even though it had a ton of parameter buttons on the front, it was still not easy (for me) to program.

I started on the Sequential Circuits Pro One, and all its knobs. You could see every parameter and its value right in front of you. Some people can conceptualize a sound in their head, understand how to create it with a particular synthesizer's architecture and then plug away at those little up and down buttons. Maybe I'm just stupid that way. I prefer a more tactile and visual way of creating patches. But maybe I'm not so stupid, because knobs are back, big-time.

Strike two — the crappy programming scheme.

The 3000 was also heavy and chunky. Along with the Casio, my studio now had a PC computer with midi, a midi patchbay, a drum machine, a couple of Yamaha FBO1s, guitars, a mixer, mics, effects, headphone and speaker cables etc. I had myself a spaghetti of power, midi and audio cables that had to be constantly managed and maintained.

By now it was 1988 and I was living with my fiancée in an apartment in a Brooklyn. Studio space and time was tight and my muse didn't like spending all night hunting for buzzes. My urge to simplify drew me in the direction of a master keyboard (with velocity) to control everything and some sound modules placed neatly in a rack.

One day I found a Roland MKB300 midi controller on sale at Sam Ash. It was plugged into a grand piano sample in the store and when I touched those keys, I felt like I was playing a piano again.

Strike three.

I turned toward my controller/rackmounted gear vision, sold off the Casio and took the Roland home.

Yamaha CX5M Music Computer

In 1986 I must have been one of 25 people in the U.S.A. who had this thing, because nobody I've ever spoken to has ever heard of it. It was an MSX system computer, a 1980s Microsoft based computer platform developed in and popular in Japan with the idea of standardizing hardware manufacture. But it was a total flop in the U.S.A. The CX5m came out way before the MAC or PC had great options for sequencing and MIDI composition. The main competition was the ATARI.

And this computer had a built in multi-timbral FM synthesizer. That sounded good to me. It was only 8 voices, and they were not dynamically allocated. The composition software did the job with actual musical notation entered on a staff, which was pretty cool, if you knew how to read and write music (those 5 years of classical piano and theory classes finally were paying off). Other software, on plug in ROM cartridges, included a 4 track real time midi sequencer, which came out later, (but didn't work with the internal sounds!) a voicing program and a librarian. Other stuff too like art software and word processors and such.

It was interesting to have exact control of your music using standard notation as input for the sequencer. The results tended to be a little rigid, unless you went nuts inserting dynamic markings, tempo shifts, time signature changes and individual 64th note rest measures etc., to make it sound more organic. Not easy. I began to appreciate what a conductor did and the flexibility of organic musical human creatures.

The real-time 4 track midi sequencer was an improvement in terms of getting the feel of a human being into your tracks. But like I mentioned, it didn't work with the internal sounds! I actually sent this back to the factory for a MIDI upgrade, which gave it a midi out so that I could use it with other gear. It was buggy though, tending to add a small delay between patterns.

The sounds themselves were of the clean 4-0perator FM synthesis variety, like the DX-100, or the FB-01 and other Yamaha DX synths below the level of the flagship DX-7.

When it came down to it, the CX5M was an FM-Edsel. Yes it had the clear as bell dx piano signature sounds and pretty twacky metalic bass slaps. And it was very crisp sounding. After layering synths on a cassette four-track sequencing straight out of the box sounded amazingly clean, if somewhat sterile.

Soon I got a PC XT and Voyetra sequencing software, which was much more powerful. The Yamaha computer ended up in my niece and 2 nephews' basement after a few years, and I think it's still there. All three went off to Ivy League schools, two of them to study math and computers. I'd like to think their career choices were inspired by working with that CX5M.

Nah.

Roland TR-707 Rhythm Composer

I first saw the 707 when I worked at ERAS recording in New York. I was helping build new room in this commercial recording studio, and one of the first people trying the new room brought along one of these. It was so much smaller than the LINNDrum that I was used to seeing in there, but it sounded big. But what doesn't on a huge studio speaker?

People were going to samplers, and drum machines sort of fell out of fashion. You could just sample your drum sounds and there you had it. So I got this on the tail end of it's run, on sale. Say, 1985?

Using the 707 was easy and fun. It had an interface similar to the 909, 808 and 606. I had a 606, so it worked pretty much the same way. Everything was graphically displayed on the front, including a grid representation of the entire pattern you were playing or working on. Look at the tiny mixer, one fader for every drum, right on the front. In a brilliant bit of overkill there were individual outs for each sound!

The short fall was a lack of variety in the samples. They were 16 bit samples, yes, but you got 2 bass drums, and pretty much one of everything else. The sounds got boring. The samples were not tunable either.

I sold it through a newspaper listing. A young kid, wannabe Vanilla Ice, came in and hit the bass drum key once. The look of excitement on his face practically brought tears to my eyes so I didn't mind that it sold for $99. It was going to a good home

Anyway, I didn't need it. I'd sampled all the drums into my Yamaha TX16W.

Korg Poly Six

When that big goon approached me on the subway platform I got a bit nervous. And then he started asking me about what was in my instrument case. I was carrying my prized synthesizer, the Korg Poly Six.

I had a theater gig at La Mama Etc. for the 1984 production of The Memory Theater of Giulio Camillo by the Creation Theater Company. Vito Ricci composed the music, and I played some synthesizer parts in the show. I was on my way home after words when the guy approached me, so it was near midnight.

While it made me a little nervous that the goon started questioning me, I really wasn't too worried. He couldn't exactly run away with the Korg, being that it weighed about 60lbs! But I couldn't run away from him either, so I found myself in a bit of a standoff. After a little back and forth, I discovered he wasn't looking to rip me off, but rather wanted to recruit me into his ministry which needed a keyboardist for its live service.

I told him I was "exploring Taoism." I think that he thought that it may have meant that I was gay, and he scooted away.

O.k., I just looked it up, the Poly-Six is 11.2kg which comes to like 25lbs. It seemed much heavier at the time. Maybe that's because my memories of it are so solidly positive. It had a good build — metal, with wood side panels. This synth was old school.

The Poly-Six was the first really affordable polyphonic synth, coming in at under $1000 back in 1980-81. But it didn't have MIDI, which was brand new. The price dropped to about $500 or $600 when the next model came out, the Korg Poly 61, which did have MIDI. What the Poly 61 did not have, however, was knobs. That was about the point in history when knobs went away in favor of the tiny liquid crystal display, as in the ubiquitous Yamaha DX7, and everything after it, for quite some time.

The Poly Six sounded great to me. It had a more simple voice architecture than the Pro-One I'd had before, but it was POLYPHONIC. You could also stack all six voices into a hugely thick monophonic voice. It had a chorus on it and memory, so yes, finally I could save my patches. You could invert the envelopes with the twist of a knob.

Très cool.

I recorded a bunch of tunes with this, but traded it in at Rogue Music in Manhattan. I still remember how happy to take it off my hands they were, so I knew I wasn't getting top dollar on it. But it was too heavy to take home. As time passed and I listened to my recordings of it, I realized how much I missed the analog sound of the thing. Everything went cold and digital after that. FM synthesis is o.k., but it was a lot harder to make your own voices. But I craved MIDI, and was looking toward computers and the future.

I sold the Poly-Six and got myself the Yamaha CX5m Music computer, which promised to combine computer sequencer based composition with an on-board FM synthesizer complete with computer voicing software and a librarian. Read all about it.

Sequential Circuits Pro-One

The Prophet-5 was IT in 1977, but at $5K, who could afford one? Suddenly Sequential put out its baby brother, the Pro-One. For $425 you got not a Prophet 5, but at least the "voice of the prophet." Positively religious!

And look at all those knobs! This was synth 101. Here I could map out my synthesizer voices clearly, every parameter right in front of me. It had a couple of oscillators so you could tune them to an interval and get a "chord" out of it. This was the real deal. No presets? No voice memory? Who knew that was a problem back then!

This synth could make a mechanical clang, a bouncy bass, a string sound, a tornado, a wasps nest wind, an organ sound, whatever, and had many options for routing modulation. Play a clean tone then turn up the mod wheel and the sound would fly out warped, twisted and spinning. A pair of 20 step sequencers I made good use of: one for verse, one for chorus. You could sync the clock to a tape click and after a few bounces on the old 4-track, things really started to cook. And let's not forget the arppegiator!

O.k., you can tell I still love this. I still want this one. So why did I get rid of it? Well, I needed the money for something else. And that was polyphony. This synth didn't have it and mulyi tracking layers and layers on a 4-track got tedious. I sold my Pro-One for pretty much what I paid for it. Someone got a great synth, and got a myself a Korg Poly Six.

Casio VL-1 (VL-tone)

Part calculator, part musical instrument, the Casio-VL-1 positively begged I bring it home from it's perch in a Canal Street storefront. For what was basically a techno novelty item it did a lot (and sold a lot, I think in the range of 1,000,000 units). Plugged through a decent system the synth tones had some substance. It even had a programmable tone you changed by punching in numbers. I never figured that out. The outstanding feature was a digital sequencer that could play back a string of 100 notes. It's ticka-blinka drum machine sounds are still sampled these days.

It was the early 80s, when I played with this for a while, but I soon stepped up to other keyboards. Who knows what happened to it. I probably sat on it.

PAiA Oz Mini-Organ

My late 70s PAiA adventure didn't end with the Gnome Synth. I had better luck with the OZ Mini-Organ. It was a portable battery powered unit with a built in speaker and a one octave keyboard that you could transpose with a knob. It had a cool touch sensitive modulation pad that was plenty expressive. The organic tone control the pad provided was inspirational and I recorded a lot of music with it, put it through fuzz boxes and strapped it on for performance art pieces in college. I must have been on something when the batteries died and I thought that I'd just plug it into the wall and see what would happen.

It blew up, of course. I mourn it still.