Korg M1

I wonder how many songs and gigs have used the Korg M1 ? Millions ! 

Of course one of the most successful keyboards of all time, and still used in many studios and by many artists. I would also like to know how many are still surviving from more than quarter of a million sold.

Manual for the M1

I would advise anyone to get one while they are still a reasonable buy, I got mine for less than £100 and I can see the value of them going up as more go to the synth graveyard and they become rare.

You can get software to download patches ( via MIDI ) very cheap and of course thousands of patches are available, also makes a nice weighted key MIDI keyboard.

Here is a simple tune I made using the M1.

The rather dull looking 1990 E-MU Proteus/2 orchestral is full of EIII orchestral sounds, rather old now but for the price you can get them from eBay you can't complain. 32 voice and 190 sample based sounds including the famous Whistl'n Joe.

Only used the viola so far in this track dedicated to Miffy.

Dave Smith Mopho

So tiny and lovely sounding, it can make noises instantly with its "push it " button, it's a single voice from a Prophet 8 how cool is that.

• It's a monophonic analog synthesizer, 100% analog signal path, Two oscillators capable of producing sawtooth, triangle, saw/triangle, and variable pulse width square waves, with hard syncOne classic Curtis low-pass filter (switchable 2- or 4-pole) with audio rate modulation, self-oscillating in 4-pole mode, Analog VCAs, Three envelope generators (ADSR plus delay), Two sub-octave generators (one octave down and two octaves down), Feedback loop with programmable level and gain, White noise generator, 4 LFOs, Gated 16 x 4 step sequencer (one sequence per program), Arpeggiator, Glide (portamento): separate rates per oscillator, Fully programmable with three banks of 128 programs (384 total, MIDI In, Out/Thru.

You can also buy a software editor if you want, more info HERE

Here is a track of me using it for the first time, the piano sound is a Korg Kaosillator.

Gakken SX-150 MKII analog synthesizer

I bought two Gakken SX-150 MII synths because from Hong Kong, you can get them for £15 delivered. The plan was to modify one of them but can't be arsed. You can't really play anything on them except simulating a theremin, They are essentially a stylophone with sillier sounds but it uses one long ribbon, they have internal speaker and headphone out and run on batteries so you can have portable sound making fun and they tend to annoy people which is always a good thing. In the box comes lots of lovely stickers.

One good thing is they have put the schematic on-line which makes it easy to figure mods.

Korg Monotron Duo

The first synth I bought started very very tiny, it's very cute, runs on a couple of batteries, has a headphone socket for on the move noise making.

More info HERE

 Only used it once on a track but always fun to play with.
 

Yamaha QX21 midi recorder

These things are as cheap as chips and quite fun, basically it has 2 recording tracks, 16 MIDI channels, footswitch start/stop, 1/4 - 1/64 notes with 1/8, 1/16 and 1/32 triplet, , tempo 40 to 250 bpm, only has 8.100 notes without velocity but a record anything you play just as it is played. Does not store anything has some weird tape back up capability I doubt I will ever try. I accidentally ended up getting two, so plan to try them in parallel if I can figure how to get them to sync.

More information HERE

JL Cooper MSB - Rev2 MIDI routing system

Managed to get one of these for a bargain.

 The MSB Plus Rev 2 is an eight input, eight output programmable MIDI routing system. In addition to behaving like a smart "thru box" and MIDI splitter, the MSB Plus Rev 2 includes a MIDI merger; two data processors, and the JLCooper Panic Button. The MSB Plus Rev 2 also has the ability to send out up to eight MIDI Program Changes at a time set up all your sound modules and signal processors.

Click HERE for more information.

First track I created using it, I sent the same MIDI notes from a Korg SQ1 step sequencer to a Korg volca keys and a Yamaha MU10. The Korg SQ1 sync was connected to a Kork volca beats for some drum sounds.

Yamaha TG100 midi sound module

Just got myself a little half rack size little module sold early 90s, simple to use, buttons fiddly and no backlight on a tiny LCD that you can hardly see. AWM 192 voices and 10 drum kits, 28 note poly, general MIDI level 1, has digital reverb. 15 volts DC at 500 mA. Sounds are quite thin but handy to add to other sounds.

See here for more info and support.

Here is the insanely loud demo song