There is no doubt that the trend does exist.

My theory is that it's nothing but musical snobbery. People will talk about rich analogue sounds and such like, but in truth I'm very sceptical about the whole thing.

In the guitar world we have a similar thing with everyone wanting Les Pauls or Fender Strats- oh, and (sure enough) the older the better.

I actually fell prey to the trend and a few years ago I spent my entire student loan on the most expensive Les Paul in the entire city!

Sure, it looked nice and it sounded great, but then one day I visited an old friend of mine who owned another guitar that was *less than* one twelth of the price. And guess what? His cheapo guitar sounded better! (by a mile). It was fuller. It was warmer sounding. The sound was more rich and it had more sustain.

Sure enough, I eventually sold my Les Paul for a synth and I haven't looked back since.

My theory about the whole thing is that basically everyone wants to be like their favourite musical legends. They see guys like Jimi Hendrix on TV playing a Strat, or Jimmy Page playing a Les Paul and they think, "If I get a hold of that instrument then I can be like him".

Same with synths.

In the case of the Minimoog for example we have people like Kraftwerk, Jan Hammer, Vince Clarke, Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, Blondie, Rush, Keith Emerson and Herbie Hancock ALL as previous users.

I know it sounds totally childish, but I believe it boils down to people saying to themselves "I want to be like that" and THAT is why they buy them.

I suppose there is one other equally shallow factor that I've not mentioned yet and that is looks. If you see someone on stage with an old synth with wooden blocks on the side, it gives viewers a false impression of authenticity.


When someone buys an old synth, they probably expect a typical listener or audience member to have the following kind of thought process:

"Wow! What an amazingly unconforming guy! He uses an old synth! He is above commercialisation! He's too smart to fall for all the adverts for *new* gear. What a rebel! And WOW!!! If that's what he's playing now, he must've been playing the synth since he was knee height to a grasshopper! Woooooooooow! He must really know his stuff! Ooooooooh! He must really be a music expert! Oooooooooooh! ...etc"

And, of course, people who pay a fortune for old musical gear will often try to justify it by saying "Aaaaaah, but it SOUNDS better".

This is ridiculous- ESPECIALLY when we're dealing with the world of synths!

Within the last two years, technology has marched on at such a breakneck pace that we can now use sample packs or virtual instruments (and indeed modern hard synths!) to replicate pretty much any vintage synth sound that we want. We're talking perfect digital recreation here!

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth, and as usual I've blabbered on for too long.

Equalizer