# Junkie XL - Studio Talk w/Armin Van Buuren



## tokatila (Mar 10, 2017)




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## Udo (Mar 10, 2017)

Such an overkill for what he produces!

I'd say a large part of the equipment shown is just for decoration, probably sponsored by the manufacturer(s) of the equipment he uses !


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## TIM_STEVE_97 (Mar 10, 2017)

Udo said:


> Such an overkill for what he produces!
> 
> I'd say a large part of the equipment shown is just for decoration, probably sponsored by the manufacturer(s) of the equipment he uses!


When it comes to gear, it's never an overkill


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## Udo (Mar 11, 2017)

Udo said:


> Such an overkill for what he produces!
> 
> I'd say a large part of the equipment shown is just for decoration, probably sponsored by the manufacturer(s) of the equipment he uses!



Forgot to put a  after that (now added) and the remark is certainly not a reflection on the quality of what he produces!


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## Minko (Mar 11, 2017)

04:00 - 7.30 / 8.15 - 18.00 / and then a bit more and still time with family. #trots


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## charlieclouser (Mar 11, 2017)

Udo said:


> Such an overkill for what he produces!
> 
> I'd say a large part of the equipment shown is just for decoration, probably sponsored by the manufacturer(s) of the equipment he uses!



Decoration? Sure. But sponsored? Dubious. Ninety percent of the gear in that room is long-discontinued boat-anchors from the 80's and 90's, most from companies that don't exist anymore - so that's all stuff you can find on eBay or Reverb.com. The modulars are all from companies that are way too small to be able to afford giving anything away - and in any case, none of it is really all *that* expensive. The big "dot-com" modular rigs with the inverted top cabinets are about $16k each, so that whole wall behind him and the CotK modular on the cart is maybe $75k, even with all the boutique one-off modules. So, yeah, it's some money - but not "SSL / Studer / Lexicon / Pultec in the 1990's" money, and not "three days in the studio with a full orchestra" money either.

That's just a guy who likes big iron and now has the space, money, and time to stack up all the synths he ever wanted. It's fun. Plus, most of those synths only make three decent sounds each, so you need a room full if you're going to get anywhere!

Been there.


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## mouse (Mar 11, 2017)

charlieclouser said:


> Decoration? Sure. But sponsored? Dubious. Ninety percent of the gear in that room is long-discontinued boat-anchors from the 80's and 90's, most from companies that don't exist anymore - so that's all stuff you can find on eBay or Reverb.com. The modulars are all from companies that are way too small to be able to afford giving anything away - and in any case, none of it is really all *that* expensive. The big "dot-com" modular rigs with the inverted top cabinets are about $16k each, so that whole wall behind him and the CotK modular on the cart is maybe $75k, even with all the boutique one-off modules. So, yeah, it's some money - but not "SSL / Studer / Lexicon / Pultec in the 1990's" money, and not "three days in the studio with a full orchestra" money either.
> 
> That's just a guy who likes big iron and now has the space, money, and time to stack up all the synths he ever wanted. It's fun. Plus, most of those synths only make three decent sounds each, so you need a room full if you're going to get anywhere!
> 
> Been there.



Ha finally a realist! I never really got the whole "I need to have every old synth out there" attitude of some composers. I feel the same in that I also don't think they make that many nice, usable sounds like more modern synths!

So many people buy into that sort of mentality, but I just can't spend that sort of money on something that will do very little soundwise


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## ChristopherDoucet (Mar 11, 2017)

Very cool stuff. Really enjoyed this. 

Side but related question. When posting the announcement about the Facebook live event on Junkie's Brimstone Score, he said that he would have an update on Season 2 of Studio Time. I didn't happen to catch the Facebook live, did anyone hear what the update is?


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## charlieclouser (Mar 11, 2017)

mouse said:


> Ha finally a realist! I never really got the whole "I need to have every old synth out there" attitude of some composers. I feel the same in that I also don't think they make that many nice, usable sounds like more modern synths!
> 
> So many people buy into that sort of mentality, but I just can't spend that sort of money on something that will do very little soundwise



I can count maybe ten synths in there that I haven't owned at one point or another - and most of them are still leaning up against the wall in my spare bedroom, while I wait for their capacitors to leak and their value to decrease all the way to zero.  Kidding. I still use the old guys when the situation calls for it. Maybe not on a SAW movie, but on less high-octane scores that need an interesting soundscape that you want to crawl inside, they might be just the thing. I did a score last year that wanted to be more muffled, distant, and dark than my usual murky slop, and ten minutes with the MS-20 and some guitar pedals got me closer than a week of tweaking soft synths. I wound up doing the whole score as audio, with no samples at all - just guitar, MS-20, and some EuroRack driven from the Pro-2 sequencer. It came out pretty cool, and no way would I have gotten that end result from "in the box" stuff. No way.

Not to say that everyone should run out and scoop up every eighties door stop that they can find - but if you have a history with these synths, or any fond memories of that one ESQ-1 bell sound or whatever, then it's a cheap date. Plus, you can use a certain gig as an excuse - Junkie did Deadpool, and just one mention from the director that it might be cool to have some tongue-in-cheek eighties references in the score is all the excuse Junkie needed to scoop up a DX-1, Synergy, PPG, etc. I use the same "justification" all the time to rationalize purchases, whether they're Kontakt libraries, EuroRack modules, or circuit-bent synths.

Thing is, sometimes you get on a score that needs just a certain thing, but you won't know what that certain thing is until you hear it. You might spend all day looking for it in the softies, trying to tweak them into submission, putting plugins on it to push the sound further away, but then get it in the first ten seconds of fiddling with the hardware. That's why I keep that old stuff around. While I do like the modern convenience of soft synths, there's no denying that Zebra / Diva / Arturia stuff sounds different to the hardware. In the case of the u-he stuff, it sounds "better" in that it's *WAY* more clear, crisp, defined, and up front - but while that might be good for modern, super-hyped "hybrid trailer style" music, it might not do the job if you're trying for that murky Michael Clayton vibe. But break out the Oberheim Xpander, Prophet VS, and Super Jupiter and all of a sudden the indistinct, less focused sound starts lighting up your detectors. Modern synths all have super-saw waves, scannable wave tables, four oscillators, etc., so it's too easy to make them sound "mega". The old boys are trying their best just to sound half as big as Serum or Zebra - but often that's what works better than the "all oscillators at maximum waveshape" vibe of the soft synths.

I did some pretty elaborate testing between the real hardware and the Arturia soft versions of the Prophet VS, Xpander, MiniMoog, etc. and the difference was *not* subtle. The Arturia Prophet VS can actually load SysEx dumps from the hardware synth, so that's the first thing I tried - and the difference was shocking. The real thing sounded like it had a chorus unit enabled even when it didn't - with just one oscillator going and no effects, the sound was "alive". The soft version just sat there. Flat. Motionless. Lifeless. Technically, the soft version was more "accurate" in that it was doing what the parameters on the front panel said they should do, without any "fudge factor" or drift, but is that worse, or better?

Sometimes, worse *is* better.


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## SymphonicSamples (Mar 11, 2017)

I really enjoy Tom's hardware videos and admire what he's done over the years and what an amazing career path. I still remember the first time I heard his Bombers over Ibiza. For me all the analog gear I see in in his studio have very unique tonal qualities and character hence the reason he has them, sure you could get close in software but the amount of Cpu number crunching that has to occur to try and accurately emulate what a simple analog filter with minimal components can do is crazy. His synths for me are all like rather unique paint brushes which may not be used a great deal of the time but when inspiration calls it's all there to be draw upon and I think it shows in the sound Tom's formed over the years. And given the nature of analog circuitry even 2 synths of the same model will sound ever so slightly different due to all the variables in components age and so on. Horses for courses  I love old gear, and have a number of synths, partly due to the fact I enjoy getting old dead gear and repairing it. I still have an old hardware sampler and as an example if I load a Akai sound into kontakt and then a hardware unit it's colored in a different way due to all the obvious things like a/d convertors and so on. For certain things that's great. There's no question hardware can consume time but when you capture a sound that's unique it's very satisfying and I guess that's what Tom's after in his scores, a unique sound. When it comes to samples most VI composer have numbers of String libraries for similar reasons, all those unique shades each can offers. Love hardware synths, love my u-he synths, love VI , love food, so I'm off to get a feed


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## jononotbono (Mar 11, 2017)

What would be a great starting hardware synth for someone to buy? This might be a ridiculous question to answer but I thought I would ask it. I only use soft synths at the minute but we all start somewhere. I've always fancied owning a Moog but I wouldn't know where to begin with wisely spending any money. I love buying Guitar pedals and all that but I've never ventured into Hardware Synths. It looks like a dangerous world to get sucked into.


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## Greg (Mar 11, 2017)

jononotbono said:


> What would be a great starting hardware synth for someone to buy? This might be a ridiculous question to answer but I thought I would ask it. I only use soft synths at the minute but we all start somewhere. I've always fancied owning a Moog but I wouldn't know where to begin with wisely spending any money. I love buying Guitar pedals and all that but I've never ventured into Hardware Synths. It looks like a dangerous world to get sucked into.



Virus ti 2, moog voyager, dsi pro 2. Try to play with them before you buy one. If you get a good deal used, they will hold their value for a long time.


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## charlieclouser (Mar 12, 2017)

jononotbono said:


> What would be a great starting hardware synth for someone to buy? This might be a ridiculous question to answer but I thought I would ask it. I only use soft synths at the minute but we all start somewhere. I've always fancied owning a Moog but I wouldn't know where to begin with wisely spending any money. I love buying Guitar pedals and all that but I've never ventured into Hardware Synths. It looks like a dangerous world to get sucked into.



The world of Moog synths is great lately - the Model-D reissue is everything we hoped it would be, but for $3,500 it had better be! 

Virus and Nord synths are great as well - I have both and love them, but sonically they are not all that different to a soft synth, except for the knobs of course.

But an interesting synth that's a great bargain is the Behringer Deepmind-12. I was duty-bound to hate it on principle, but I spent some time with it at the NAMM show and it really does sound good and has a great set of features. Versatile, good fx units, and the price is stupidly low. I would have no qualms recommending the DM-12 as a first, or only, hardware synth. For $999 it's a steal.

Another nice one is the Korg re-issue of the Arp Odyssey. It's only a monophonic synth, and has no preset memory, so it's a lot more basic than the Deepmind-12 and fills a different role - but it nails the seventies Arp sound and it's around $800 for the mini-key version, $1500 for the full-size. Tons of fun.


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## mc_deli (Mar 12, 2017)

jononotbono said:


> What would be a great starting hardware synth for someone to buy? This might be a ridiculous question to answer but I thought I would ask it. I only use soft synths at the minute but we all start somewhere. I've always fancied owning a Moog but I wouldn't know where to begin with wisely spending any money. I love buying Guitar pedals and all that but I've never ventured into Hardware Synths. It looks like a dangerous world to get sucked into.


I am a pedal nut (I "accidentally" bought a Super Ego and Time Factor this week). I just bought some budget hardware synths: JU-06, MS20 mini and Minitaur. They are all small and affordable. The Minitaur ticks all the right boxes IMHO. It's a Moog, sounds great, one knob per function, the software/DAW integration is really good and it'll fit on a crowded desk.


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## Udo (Mar 12, 2017)

I actually had 2 Moog Modular Model 15 units, a complete Roland System 700 with all expansion unts and a lot of custom stuff. Some of that custom stuff was my most precious gear.

Just noticed a Moog Modular Model 15 now costs $10,000.


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## jononotbono (Mar 12, 2017)

charlieclouser said:


> But an interesting synth that's a great bargain is the Behringer Deepmind-12. I was duty-bound to hate it on principle, but I spent some time with it at the NAMM show and it really does sound good and has a great set of features. Versatile, good fx units, and the price is stupidly low. I would have no qualms recommending the DM-12 as a first, or only, hardware synth. For $999 it's a steal.



This is really interesting because I swore I would never own any Behringher gear again. I have a Behringher Truth monitor on the floor and I use it as a Coffee table, hoping I spill Coffee on it every time I pick the mug up. Sounds like they have changed (I read that they had bought Midas and TC so maybe they aren't what they used to be) and this is the kind of price tag that appeals to me as a starter. I'll check it out. Something versatile is equally appealing because I have limited space in my current music lab. Just having some gear that the masses of Composers don't all use appeals to me more and more. 

Here's a very weird contraption a friend of mine built (he loves his Circuit Bending). You need a Key to turn this sucker on and the make contact with your fingers across the screw heads and knob twiddle until the Cows come home. There's no hope in playing something repetitive but if you get into it for long enough with the Record track armed, sometimes you hit gold. Yeah, I could see myself getting into this dark world.


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## AlexRuger (Mar 12, 2017)

My first hardware synth was a Doepfer Dark Energy mk 1. It's a perfect starter--sounds unbelievable, requires a tiny amount of desk space, semi-modular, controllable via either MIDI or CV, and also beautiful to look at (if you're into that sort of thing). It also has a few obvious limitations that make you think, "Oh, now I need one that can do this, and another that can do that, and..." 

Also Charlie, I agree with everything in that excellent post of yours. For me I'd add that a huge part of working hardware synths is the workflow. I can get lost in sound more when I'm not looking at a screen. I grew up with softsynths so I expected this, but didn't expect how drastic a difference there would actually be. For this reason I'm also planning on setting up a no-screen mixing rig--just me and the sound, ears only.


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## Nathanael Iversen (Mar 12, 2017)

The Dave Smith OB-6 is wonderful. Basic architecture. Great filter. It is easy to get good sounds out of it. It is polyphonic and can be had with or without keyboard attached.

The new Moog Model D does that special Moog thing. It doesn't do other things, like polyphony or patch storage. You won't get mine away from me, but I wouldn't own just that synth. (And don't )


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## Living Fossil (Mar 12, 2017)

jononotbono said:


> What would be a great starting hardware synth for someone to buy? This might be a ridiculous question to answer but I thought I would ask it.



The main questions are if you want a mono or a poly synth and if it's more about the knobs (i.e. the haptical approach) or the sound.

For Poly&knobs&sound Deepmind 12 is maybe the best choice.
For mono&knobs&sound there are lots of opportunities (different models of Moog, Waldorf Pulse 2, and some of Korg's newer releases)
For poly&sound (but no knobs) i would have a look at some vintage synths from the time before the digital synths.
E.g. you can get the Roland JX-8P at ridiculosly low prizes. It still delivers wonderful pads (Badalamenti-vibe),

The big polyphonic analog synths are still a league on their own. Jupiter 8, Matrix 12, Memorymoog etc. are wonderful classics. They are (depending on where you live) a good alternative to owning a car.

Or you can go the Eurorack route which can easily turn into an addiction. It can be an alternative to a social life or a marriage.


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## charlieclouser (Mar 12, 2017)

Oh, yes, in terms of recommendations I forgot about the new Korg MiniLogue and MonoLogue - both sound great, are cheap as chips, and have all the knobs, preset memory, USB, etc. MiniLogue is polyphonic and great for pads, atmospheres, etc. - but with only four voices you won't be playing big two-handed chords with long release times like you can on the DeepMind-12, which is 12-voice polyphonic and can layer multiple patches. MonoLogue is monophonic but has a great step sequencer, so it will be great for pulses, bass lines, aggro sounds, etc. - although the DeepMind-12 also has a step sequencer so it will also do the pulses well.

MonoLogue = $300

MiniLogue = $500

You really can't go wrong with either, and you could even get both for the price of the DeepMind-12 - but the DM-12 is more full featured and will have more depth to explore, and has a much better effects section with algorithms derived from TC Electronics products.

It's a great time to be shopping for hardware synths.


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## Udo (Mar 13, 2017)

Udo said:


> I actually had 2 Moog Modular Model 15 units, a complete Roland System 700 with all expansion unts and a lot of custom stuff. Some of that custom stuff was my most precious gear.
> 
> Just noticed a Moog Modular Model 15 now costs $10,000.


Only mentioned the modular analogue synths I owned. Had many other synths (and still have too many  - they rarely get used now).


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## gsilbers (Mar 13, 2017)

charlieclouser said:


> Oh, yes, in terms of recommendations I forgot about the new Korg MiniLogue and MonoLogue - both sound great, are cheap as chips, and have all the knobs, preset memory, USB, etc. MiniLogue is polyphonic and great for pads, atmospheres, etc. - but with only four voices you won't be playing big two-handed chords with long release times like you can on the DeepMind-12, which is 12-voice polyphonic and can layer multiple patches. MonoLogue is monophonic but has a great step sequencer, so it will be great for pulses, bass lines, aggro sounds, etc. - although the DeepMind-12 also has a step sequencer so it will also do the pulses well.
> 
> MonoLogue = $300
> 
> ...



i know we went off topic a little but im still deciding between the mono or the mini korgs. 

i didnt realize the minilogue didnt have the step seq.. 

also, how come the monologue is more aggressive? 

and do you think the DM-12 gets aggresive enough? 

Any "aggressive" synth recommendations? 

I guess add distortion pedals but for example , to me the sub37 gets very "raw" and aggressive type sound. lack of poly is a bummer. maybe soon.


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## synthpunk (Mar 13, 2017)

The Korg Monologue for $300 is allot of fun. Good starter presets by Aphex Twin.

The DM-12 is great bang for the buck.

If your looking at a Moog, I highly recommend the Sub-37. The Minotaur is good for bass It fills my Taurus pedal obsession, and the Mother-32 a great modular starter system.



charlieclouser said:


> Oh, yes, in terms of recommendations I forgot about the new Korg MiniLogue and MonoLogue - both sound great, are cheap as chips, and have all the knobs, preset memory, USB, etc. MiniLogue is polyphonic and great for pads, atmospheres, etc. - but with only four voices you won't be playing big two-handed chords with long release times like you can on the DeepMind-12, which is 12-voice polyphonic and can layer multiple patches. MonoLogue is monophonic but has a great step sequencer, so it will be great for pulses, bass lines, aggro sounds, etc. - although the DeepMind-12 also has a step sequencer so it will also do the pulses well.
> 
> MonoLogue = $300
> 
> ...


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## dannymc (Mar 21, 2017)

was a nice surprise seeing these two come together. Armin has made some amazing trance classics in his day, would of been one of my big influences back when i done the whole amateur dj thing. those superstar dj's have net worth that would boggle the mind. think Armin is worth about $50million dollars at this stage, so who is in the better game himself and Tom. 

Danny


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## JaikumarS (Jul 1, 2017)

charlieclouser said:


> I can count maybe ten synths in there that I haven't owned at one point or another - and most of them are still leaning up against the wall in my spare bedroom, while I wait for their capacitors to leak and their value to decrease all the way to zero.  Kidding. I still use the old guys when the situation calls for it. Maybe not on a SAW movie, but on less high-octane scores that need an interesting soundscape that you want to crawl inside, they might be just the thing. I did a score last year that wanted to be more muffled, distant, and dark than my usual murky slop, and ten minutes with the MS-20 and some guitar pedals got me closer than a week of tweaking soft synths. I wound up doing the whole score as audio, with no samples at all - just guitar, MS-20, and some EuroRack driven from the Pro-2 sequencer. It came out pretty cool, and no way would I have gotten that end result from "in the box" stuff. No way.
> 
> Not to say that everyone should run out and scoop up every eighties door stop that they can find - but if you have a history with these synths, or any fond memories of that one ESQ-1 bell sound or whatever, then it's a cheap date. Plus, you can use a certain gig as an excuse - Junkie did Deadpool, and just one mention from the director that it might be cool to have some tongue-in-cheek eighties references in the score is all the excuse Junkie needed to scoop up a DX-1, Synergy, PPG, etc. I use the same "justification" all the time to rationalize purchases, whether they're Kontakt libraries, EuroRack modules, or circuit-bent synths.
> 
> ...



Mr.Clouser, Could you please share, what will be your go to tools especially (software synths) when you are working for TV Series with tight deadlines. Thanks.


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## charlieclouser (Jul 1, 2017)

JaikumarS said:


> Mr.Clouser, Could you please share, what will be your go to tools especially (software synths) when you are working for TV Series with tight deadlines. Thanks.



To be honest I use almost no synthesizers, soft or hard, at all. I'm so much more interested in manipulating acoustic sounds, guitars, etc. these days. I do have a lot of samples I've made from my hardware synths like the Xpander, Prophet VS, etc. and in many cases I just use these samples inside EXS-24. Most of the time my cues are 99% EXS-24 - drums, metals, synths, strings, brass, orch chaos samples - everything.

But. When I do use synths and I'm in a hurry:

- ES2. Yes, the free, ancient ES2 synth that's been a part of Logic's base set of instruments for many years. It is not "spectacular" and surprising in the way that synths like Serum are, but I know it well and it does what I need, and it does it quickly. The sound is solid. This is what I go to most of the time. Boring, I know. But it works.

- Arturia CS-80, Arturia Arp-2600, and Arturia Moog Modular-V. I have a few patches in CS-80 that I use from time to time, but I don't tweak excessively. I think the CS-80 (hard or soft) only makes about four sounds that I like and would use anyway, so it doesn't take a long time for me to decide whether they will work, deploy them, and move on. The Arp-2600 is a synth I'm very familiar with and the Arturia plugin works well. I've owned the original hardware, and now I have the TTSH hardware clone, but I still use the Arturia plugin when I just want something that pulses and want to move quickly. Same story with the Arturia Mood Modular-V. I own an original System-10 from the late 1960's but it is more of a museum piece than a useful tool, so I often use the Arturia plugin as a way to get fat pulses quickly.

- Korg Legacy MS-20. Again, I own both the original hardware from the 1970's as well as the re-issue Korg MS-20 full-size kit, and I quite like the Legacy plugin. It sounds cleaner and more precise than the hardware, and I have a few interesting patches that I can use quickly.

- U-He ZebraHZ and Diva. These are recent additions to my collection, and I love ZebraHZ. Much more full-featured than ES2 or the Arturia simulations of old hardware, and I can move pretty quickly on it. Diva is less thrilling to me, since it is closer to an emulation of vintage hardware, but the sound is quite nice. But I tend to use ZebraHZ since it has a wider set of features but still has the Diva filters etc.

To be honest, I would be fine with just these, even though I have pretty much every other soft synth there is. It's a similar story with the hardware - I've owned dozens of hardware synths over the years and the only ones that I keep around are:

- MiniMoog Model-D (reissue) = sounds just like the originals (I've owned four over the years) and everything works as it should. Only useful for about four types of sounds, but it does them like no other. That slightly overdriven, warm bass, where notes in the second octave have the same type of "thump" as notes in the first octave - this is part of the MiniMoog "magic" that other synths don't seem to capture.

- Korg MS-20 (original and reissue) = I have the original MS-20 and MS-50 but I tend to use the reissue since everything works as it should. Harsh, aggressive, and good at band-pass style thin sounds. A nice contrast to other synths that only have lowpass filters.

- Prophet VS and VS-Rack = these sound very different (more "alive") than the Arturia simulations and although they are fragile and troublesome they are unique. Good for slippery pad sounds and ultra-aggressive digital unison parts.

- Oberheim Xpander = similar to the VS, the hardware sounds very different to the Arturia simulation and there are a few sounds that its weird filter types can create that I can't get from other synths. I do have a pair of the Doepfer EuroRack filter that is a clone of the Xpander filter and it is very very good - and you can run external audio through it.

- Waldorf MicroWave II xtk = this is a strange and very aggressive digital synth and I keep it around for just a few sounds that were a big part of some records I made. I am looking forward to the new Waldorf Quantum which may (will) replace the XTK I hope.

- Dave Smith Pro-2 = very full-featured and aggressive sounding mono synth, with a great step sequencer and CV+Gate outputs to drive modular synths. A great "front end" for a EuroRack system.

- TTSH Arp 2600 clone = sounds very very close to the original hardware, with the identical feature set, and is brand new and fully functional. I've owned two of the originals and I prefer this one. Hopefully the reason that they stopped making these third-party "illegal" kits is because Korg will do their own version as they did with the Arp Odyssey. That would be nice.

- Roland MKS-80 + MPG-80 = I bought these brand new back in the 1980's and I'll keep them around just for the unison saws and that cross-mod sound. 

- Nord Rack v1 = almost like a soft synth in a box, it's not a "thrilling" sound but it does what you expect and it does it quickly.

- Roland V-Synth + V-Synth XT = strange and unique and amazing. Rarely used but capable of doing things that no other synth can do. Weird, glassy-sounding time stretching, manually scrolling through samples from the X-Y pad - just a wild and cool synth.

- Roland JP-8080 rack = has an amazing filter bank setting that can process external audio and has a clean and clear sound unlike other filter banks. Within a very small window of tone it can create low end like no other synth I've heard.


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## JaikumarS (Jul 1, 2017)

charlieclouser said:


> To be honest I use almost no synthesizers, soft or hard, at all. I'm so much more interested in manipulating acoustic sounds, guitars, etc. these days. I do have a lot of samples I've made from my hardware synths like the Xpander, Prophet VS, etc. and in many cases I just use these samples inside EXS-24. Most of the time my cues are 99% EXS-24 - drums, metals, synths, strings, brass, orch chaos samples - everything.
> 
> But. When I do use synths and I'm in a hurry:
> 
> ...


Thank you Mr.Clouser for the post.


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## givemenoughrope (Mar 14, 2018)

Charlie and others, 

Just curious how you are printing HW synths. In mono or stereo, with fx, dry and fx on another track. I'm setting up some fx boxes through a mixer for quick printing but I also want to monitor through plug ins.


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## charlieclouser (Mar 14, 2018)

I don't have one specific way or dealing with hardware synths. It really depends. My synths come up in a patch bay, with the first 8 channels normalled to analog inputs on the MOTU 1248 for quick-n-easy monitoring through MOTU's CueMix software, or recording "dry" - but I can easily re-route them to the following alternate input paths:

- A pair of Avalon U-5 tube DI's with its passive eq that has six preset curves. The outputs of these are normalled to the line inputs of a pair of AMS-Neve 1084 re-issue mic pre / eq. The U-5 has such a hot output that I can go into the line inputs on the 1084's, while my quick recording mics in the room are going into the mic inputs of the 1084's. If I don't have enough level or want to do it "correctly" I just go behind the rack and move the XLR cables from the line inputs over to the mic inputs.

- The line inputs on the CraneSong Spider. This is an 8-channel mic-pre / mixer with digital output and a version of CraneSong's Phoenix tape-sim / saturator on its A>D card. If I am layering synths I can do an 8x2 mix right then and there and commit on the way in, adding some tape sim at the same time. I have a UBK-modded Fatso normalled to the hardware inserts of the Spider's 2-bus so I can put large amounts of hurt on the signal before the A>D. AES output of this goes into the MOTU rig.

- Another stereo pair of line inputs on the CraneSong is normally fed by the SansAmp PSA-1 (which is mono) and Sansamp RBI > Distressor (also in mono), which is nominally a bass signal path but can get some synths sounding dirty as heck. I can get into these either by the rear-panel inputs, which are in the patch bay, or by the front-panel 1/4" jacks if I am in a hurry, lazy, or confused.

- I have a single UA 6176, which is a 610 tube mic pre and an 1176 in a single unit. I usually use this for mic signals or for clean guitar type stuff, but it's good on mono output synths like the Model D, MS-20, etc.

- I also have a pair of Distressors in the patch bay to deploy as needed on input. There's also a cheap TC M-300 multi-effect unit that has S/PDIF i/o in the rack so I can put some splash on the Haken Continuum which has digital output.

- Three different flavors of rack-mount Line6 Pods - the first two generations I really only use for heavy industrial guitars, because their lower resolution models sound harder and more "cyber" than later revisions which supposedly sound more realistic or authentic - which I don't care about! But my favorite of all the Pods is the X3-Pro rack unit, which has stereo mic inputs, stereo guitar inputs, stereo line inputs, stereo AES and S/PDIF inputs, USB, etc. The AES output of this feeds the MOTU rig, and I use this quite often as a synth input stage since it has so many mic preamp models, vintage eq models, a zillion effects. There's a million tones in there and it's easy to get a lame-sounding synth to be a thousand feet tall. People sneer at the Pods, but I use that thing all the time.

- The Pod X3-Pro is in the top part of a gigantic case I had made 20 years ago which has two four-space racks, with the U-5's in the middle, above four 48-inch wide pull-out shelves that hold all my pedals, the Pro-2, the Roland VG-99, and other miscellany. Right below the Pod is a pair of Pro-Co 1/4" patch bays that all the pedals are hardwired to - this way I can quickly patch through any of 48 channels of guitar pedals, all of which are powered up and wired in at all times - no searching for a 9-volt battery, no cable clutter on the floor - it's great. Bottom drawer has 24 pedals of various flavors, most mono distortions, pitch shifters, etc., and the second drawer has a stereo pair each of MoogerFooger filters, phasers, ring mods, and analog delays, plus an Eventide H9, Strymon Timeline, Mobius, and Big Sky, a TC Ditto x4 looper, and the irreplaceable Line6 green delay pedal (I also have the rack version which has digital i/o, MIDI sync, and stereo XLR i/o). On top of this behemoth is my large EuroRack setup, and next to it is a three-tier stand with the MicroWave2 XTK, Oberheim Xpander, and Prophet VS. The outputs from these appear in the 1/4" patch bays so I can go into the Pod, and hit guitar pedals on the way in. There are tie lines from the 1/4" patch bays directly to the TT patch bays and to a pair of analog inputs on the MOTU so I can record a synth clean into the MOTU, go through the Pod, or go over to the TT bays to access the Neve or whatever. Since the U-5's are right there also, I can come out of the 1/4" bay right into the U-5 > Neve chain. It's all very flexible.

Most of this stuff is visible in the Spitfire Cribs video they made at my place a while back. Very little has changed. I set up the behemoth case back in the NIN days and although some of the pedals have come and gone the basic layout and concept is the same as it was in the 1990's. The NIN studio sessions were usually such a mess of pedals and cables all over the floor, boxes of 9-volt batteries, AC adaptors, etc. it always drove me crazy and it's no way to work when time is of the essence. So I wanted to have a "catch-all" for all that stuff and the behemoth has served me well for two decades. If I had to do it all over again I would do it exactly the same.

I rarely track through plugins. With hardware synths, I make the sound in hardware with hardware effects and just record that. I sometimes go further (much further) with plugins but I don't generally mix-n-match while getting sounds. If I'm experimenting and just making samples that will be used later as raw material for an EXS instrument or whatever, then I might record through plugins - but I generally don't do that when I'm just trying to track a 16th note bass pulse from the Pro-2 or whatever. I just use the various hardware chains to get it sounding fat and then ruin the sound later. There's already too many options to decide while tracking, so I often just record clean, edit the audio, and THEN process through plugins or route out to the hardware. I can easily send from Logic back into the TT or 1/4" patch bays to process sounds outside the box.

It's a pretty complex setup but it's a LOT simpler than what we dealt with in the 1990's - it's sort of the "greatest hits" version of what we used when making NIN records. I got rid of a room full of gear and just kept the stuff that I actually used all the time.

These days I have no interest in a Junkie-XL-sized collection that includes every synth ever made. 

Been there, done that, kept the best, sold the rest.

The only hardware synths that are still around are: 1344hp of EuroRack, Prophet VS, VS-Rack, Xpander, MicroWave2 XTK, V-Synth v1, V-Synth XT, JP-8080, Nord Rack 1, Virus TI, MKS-80, SVC-350, TTSH Arp 2600 clone, MS-20 (original), MS-20 (reissue kit), MS-50, MiniMoog Voyager, MiniMoog Model D (reissue), Dave Smith Pro-2, Arp Solus, FolkTek Euphonos Field, Haken Continuum and about a dozen circuit-bent devices like Casio SK-1 and SK-5 samplers, Alesis HR-16 (which is mental!), various bent Speak-N-Spells and stuff like that.

Oh, and an original 1969 Moog modular. But I never use that old thing.


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## givemenoughrope (Mar 15, 2018)

charlieclouser said:


> I don't have one specific way or dealing with hardware synths. It really depends. My synths come up in a patch bay, with the first 8 channels normalled to analog inputs on the MOTU 1248 for quick-n-easy monitoring through MOTU's CueMix software, or recording "dry" - but I can easily re-route them to the following alternate input paths:
> 
> - A pair of Avalon U-5 tube DI's with its passive eq that has six preset curves. The outputs of these are normalled to the line inputs of a pair of AMS-Neve 1084 re-issue mic pre / eq. The U-5 has such a hot output that I can go into the line inputs on the 1084's, while my quick recording mics in the room are going into the mic inputs of the 1084's. If I don't have enough level or want to do it "correctly" I just go behind the rack and move the XLR cables from the line inputs over to the mic inputs.
> 
> ...



Charlie, thanks. That is probably thee most thorough response I've ever received to any question ever. I'm currently in "mess of pedals and cables all over the floor" mode now. (Looking for my SansAmp pedal...)

I have the Strymon BS/TL and Eventide H9 and I'm trying to decide whether to print them into the synth tracks or print them separately as a delay or reverb like having an aux send in the box. I guess that is mostly dependent on the part and if that effect needs to be altered, boosted, lowered, replaced, etc. later on. i.e. if they are PART of the sound or just the sound's reverb/delay effect. I worked on something with another composer recently and when getting into the groove of transferring sessions his assistant stressed to me that they only wanted to delays/flangers/short verbs that were PART of the sound on each track and things like long reverbs printed separately, so I'm in that mindset now. I WOULD just make the executive decision to only use the Strymons/H9 for shorter "part-of-the-sound" fx but they each can do some really nice long and big reverbs. I've also read about Brian Reitzell just going for it and printing whatever hw reverb he was using along with a synth most times on Hannibal. It's the same old rub though: I want quick and streamlined and what sounds good but that may not be the most easily recallable workflow (maybe that doesn't matter so much with these kinds of sounds). All it takes is one measly video edit and half of these printed synths may need to be recalled and done over again (ugh). 

What is it you like so much about the Alesis HR-16?


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## synthpunk (Mar 15, 2018)

I would always print because when the magic happens you want to capture it and it's near impossible to get that back again.

Some good solid front end to put them through (mixer, preamps, or good interface) you'll be in business you don't need a room full of eye candy to look at that you're not going to use.


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## charlieclouser (Mar 15, 2018)

givemenoughrope said:


> What is it you like so much about the Alesis HR-16?



Well, my HR-16 is a circuit bent unit, with about 20 switches installed on the top panel that short circuit and glitch out various bits of the internal circuits, resulting in destroyed digital mayhem. As a drum machine, an un-modified HR-16 is an absolutely lame piece of crap, with terribly dated plastic sounds. But, when bent, it unleashes torrents of semi-tonal digital garbage. I used it a lot on the SAW scores, and in the Hello Zepp theme it's creating the little tonal digital percussive sounds in the rhythm track. 

So... definitely do NOT buy an HR-16 - unless it's been bent. 

Many digital synths, drum machines, and samplers that were made in a certain time period (eighties and nineties) can be circuit bent, but more modern units that have more custom VLSI chips cannot. So there was a golden age of gear that can be bent, and often they were originally pretty lame sounding units like the HR-16. A partial list of bendable units include Kawai R-100 and R-50 drum machines, E-Mu Control Stations, Casio SK series samplers and RZ-1 drum machine, many Speak-N-Spell machines, etc. So, early and cheap digital stuff.

Apparently the circuit bending trend began with a guy named Reed Ghazala, who bent some Speak-N-Spell units back in the day and they created the most amazing torrents of digital glitch mayhem. His original units were sold for exorbitant prices and then the whole eBay thing happened and here we are - where folks pick up the gear for $100, spend an evening or three installing the bends, and re-sell them for a few hundred. 

Search eBay for "circuit bent" to get an idea of prices, and check out this site which is a thriving community of benders in the UK:

https://circuitbenders.co.uk

As well as this guy who has made some neat bent instruments that I have:

http://x1l3.bigcartel.com

They're not for everybody, and the results are usually unpredictable, but they are just right for some of the SAW movie stuff I've done.


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## givemenoughrope (Mar 15, 2018)

charlieclouser said:


> Well, my HR-16 is a circuit bent unit, with about 20 switches installed on the top panel that short circuit and glitch out various bits of the internal circuits, resulting in destroyed digital mayhem. As a drum machine, an un-modified HR-16 is an absolutely lame piece of crap, with terribly dated plastic sounds. But, when bent, it unleashes torrents of semi-tonal digital garbage. I used it a lot on the SAW scores, and in the Hello Zepp theme it's creating the little tonal digital percussive sounds in the rhythm track.
> 
> So... definitely do NOT buy an HR-16 - unless it's been bent.
> 
> ...



Ah! That’s a horse of a different color, har. I was wondering why there were so many bent ones on Reverb. I’ve always liked circuit bent stuff but never felt like the results were repeatable or varied enough to justify buying them and keeping them. But that was mostly with Casios and furbie toys that I used to annoy the employees of Vintage Gear and Future Music with years ago (there’s a YouTube of 100 bent furbies that is plenty disturbing). And there’s that Fantomas Suspended Animation album that makes good use of them (plus probably plenty of other albums where I didn’t even know I was hearing them). I’ve never thought about what it could do to a drum machine with something like short, one-shot sounds though. That’s a great idea. The closest I can get to something like that is just digital bit crushing on my P12 and Ambika...but I’ve been wanting a HW drum machine anyway. Hmmm... thanks again!


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## whinecellar (Mar 15, 2018)

+1 on the Korg Minilogue. Picked one up primarily to use as a mobile controller for programming while on tour. It hits a rare sweet spot for me in that it's small, yet actually feels like a real piece of hardware rather than all the crappy, cheap USB keyboards out there. 3 octaves rather than 2, halfway between "mini keys" and full size, real knobs that send CCs (easily remappable in Logic) - fits in my overhead bag. Sexy little piece of gear.

And then I actually listened to it one day. Sweet mother of honey... what a great little synth! Couldn't stop smiling while scrolling through presets, twisting knobs and goofing with the arpeggiator. Made me feel like a kid again, and reminded me that just as Charlie says, there's no substitute for a real analogue piece of gear. It just oozes character. 

The only problem with that little keyboard is it has awakened my love of analogue gear, so I too am now on a buying spree. And dang, their new Prologue looks insane... 16 note polyphony among other improvements... sign me up!


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## synthpunk (Mar 15, 2018)

@chillbot has one on order will be interesting to hear his comments when he gets his



whinecellar said:


> And dang, their new Prologue looks insane... 16 note polyphony among other improvements... sign me up!


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## charlieclouser (Mar 15, 2018)

I played the Korg ProLogue at NAMM for only about five minutes - but that was enough to impress me. It's definitely got a much wider sonic range than a glance at the front panel would suggest.


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## sluggo (Mar 16, 2018)

I mean this with the best of intentions and with hopes you (Tom) and your gear live a long and healthy life.
Ditch the cigarettes.


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 16, 2018)

Charlie,

How do you sync synths and modular with your DAW? Reaktor Blocks, E-MR MultiClock, Expert Sleepers?

Thanks!

.


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## charlieclouser (Mar 16, 2018)

Jack Weaver said:


> Charlie,
> 
> How do you sync synths and modular with your DAW? Reaktor Blocks, E-MR MultiClock, Expert Sleepers?
> 
> ...



These days I just send MIDI to a Doepfer MIDI>CV module in the EuroRack, sometimes the Dave Smith Pro-2 (which is a great front end for a Euro system), sometimes a Flame ClockWork module, sometimes to a Sequentix P3, sometimes to a Kenton Pro-2000, or sometimes to an old Roland MPU-101.

But I did mess with direct CV interfacing with my DAW - for a minute.

Before all the Expert Sleepers stuff, MOTU had a plugin called Volta, which was the first DAW-based thing to send actual CV from the audio outputs on your interface. Since MOTU audio interfaces are all dc-coupled, it worked with all their stuff. Since I have been using MOTU forever, I jumped on Volta, and even had some custom panels made for my EuroRack system that ran a rear-panel db25 jack to a front-panel 8x mini-jack panel. I used this setup for a while. 

Then Expert Sleepers came out with all of their cool interfaces for Silent Way, including direct USB and ADAT boxes - all very cool stuff. I don't have any of those. So my expensive custom panels were made obsolete by $300 off-the-shelf modules. Bummer.

As cool as Volta / Silent Way is, I actually prefer not to clutter up my DAW project with too many tracks of weird trigger stuff. I kind of prefer to just throw MIDI clock across the room and record the audio into the project. I sequence notes and controllers on the Pro-2 or Sequentix, or just throw notes and clock at the Doepfer. 

But, as often happens, MOTU basically invented a revolutionary concept that languished in their product line until other companies took the concept and ran with it. All glory to the minds at MOTU!

...and Hypnotoad.


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 16, 2018)

charlieclouser said:


> These days I just send MIDI to a Doepfer MIDI>CV module in the EuroRack, sometimes the Dave Smith Pro-2 (which is a great front end for a Euro system), sometimes a Flame ClockWork module, sometimes to a Sequentix P3, sometimes to a Kenton Pro-2000, or sometimes to an old Roland MPU-101.
> 
> But I did mess with direct CV interfacing with my DAW - for a minute.
> 
> ...



Well.... that was all interesting.

- So I understand correctly, does the original MIDI clock come from a track on your DAW before it goes into the Doepfer CV>MIDI (or a generator that feeds both the DAW and the Doepfer)?

- If you were starting all over with a clean slate, would you do it a different way than you are now?

- I want to get my ducks in a row before I jump down this particular rabbit hole. So far my investigations are leading me to one or the other of the popular softwares (Silent Way, Reaktor6 Blocks or CV Toolkit), sending CV thru an Expert Sleeper ES-8 module (don't have MOTU interfaces here) into whatever sequencers/controllers I get, then the various control data from them (CV's, MIDI, etc.) into the synth modules and then sending their audio back into the DAW via an Expert Sleepers ES-6.


That's about as direct as I think it could happen from what I've gathered so far. I'd like to hear more about the basics of your MIDI clock distribution. I'd like to make it as straight forward as possible. I do see the beauty of using MIDI. 


Multiple thanks for the time you've taken to get back to me.

.


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## charlieclouser (Mar 16, 2018)

Jack Weaver said:


> Well.... that was all interesting.
> 
> - So I understand correctly, does the original MIDI clock come from a track on your DAW before it goes into the Doepfer CV>MIDI (or a generator that feeds both the DAW and the Doepfer)?
> 
> ...



Well, in my setup the DAW is always sending MIDI clock to the modular (no DAW track needed for that, it's in the Sync Setup dialog), and I can quickly make a MIDI track in the DAW to send notes if I want. DAW must always be master. The Doepfer MIDI>CV takes incoming MIDI Beat Clock and outputs 16th note pulses, as does the Kenton. I have a few clock dividers in the modular so I can quickly turn that 16th note pulse into 8th, quarters, etc. 

I generally like to move quickly on the synth stuff, that's why I don't mess with Silent Way or Volta anymore - it was too easy for me to get sucked into a rabbit hole where I spend an hour drawing controller curves in the DAW to send out via Volta, etc. Plus with the Sequentix P3 and the Pro-2 I can easily generate whatever step sequences of controller info I need, as well as notes, so I usually just send clock to them and create the notes right there. With the Pro-2 sending 4x cv channels out of its minijack outputs, and its excellent step sequencer it takes only a moment to record a sequence of notes and also create step sequences of cv data. The Sequentix has a "sculpt" mode where you just hold down a button while it's running and turn a knob, and the knob's current position gets inserted into each step as it passes. So that's basically a "record knob movements into step sequencer memory" type deal. The Pro-2 operates in a similar manner. For me this is much quicker than drawing stuff into the DAW and messing with routing from Volta or Silent Way or whatever. The Pro-2's step sequencer is one of the best I've ever seen. Simple, effective, so quick to use.

Plus I'm not really trying to get too deep into automating a zillion parameters on the modular. Just a couple at a time. I generally prefer "knob recorder" or "looping cv recorder" type functionality, so the Pro-2 and the Flame Clockwork are perfect for this. There are lots of newer modules that do this these days as well.

That's why I don't use the Volta or Silent Way stuff anymore, and why I'm not in a hurry to buy the ES-3 or whatever. I don't need to fully integrate the modular into my DAW - I just like to operate that stuff as I have for 30 years - send notes and clock via MIDI, record audio output. Done. No special interfaces or software needed. If Volta or Silent Way becomes obsolete or doesn't work with the latest version of Logic or whatever it won't matter. 

But, then again, I have quite a collection of devices to interface with the analog stuff - the Kenton is nearly 15 years old, the MPU-101 is nearly 25 years old, etc. So I can just shoot MIDI to that side of the room and there will be something there to receive it and turn it into CV.


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 16, 2018)

Great, sounds pretty straight forward. I'm a Logic user also so this makes sense.

I'll take some time and digest what this would mean in my world. I don't have the historical collection of synths that you have - but - I like the simplicity and lack of fuss and muss. Leaves more time for musical considerations. Nothing I hate worse than losing the thought and feeling of what I'm trying to do while dealing with a bunch of technical considerations.

Thanks again for the time and energy spent.

.


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## chillbot (Mar 22, 2018)

synthpunk said:


> @chillbot has one on order will be interesting to hear his comments when he gets his


Sweetwater finally has tracking, claims they'll get them tomorrow to ship on Monday and I'm still first on the list.


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## X-Bassist (Mar 22, 2018)

Was recently at a large studio with lot’s of rack gear. Looked great and all lite up but when I asked the owner how often it gets used... “never” Then why not recover the space for usable gear? “Clients book time and enjoy the space because of the appearance of gear, most of it doesn’t work anymore, I just keep the lights and panels working”. He even has backup gear if some die, just to fill the racks with lights.

I never thought expensive gear would become costume jewlery. 

I tried to get him to fire up the moog and some other synths but no dice. I think he’s concerned he’ll find more pieces not working and have to replace them.


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## AlexRuger (Mar 22, 2018)

Yeah, in my experience that's pretty standard. Synths often are to composers what grand piano's are to some families: furniture.


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