There are a fair number of players on the forum that make statements such as "I have this in my studio, or that keyboard is only good for my studio use."

For me, I really don't have a studio. I have an office measuring 12' X 15' and another room that measures 6' X 8' for storing extra equipment and performance clothing. The last time I was in a studio, which was several years ago, it was fairly elaborate, completely soundproof, had a separate control room divided by a large, plate glass window that was angled down toward the floor to deflect sounds, and inside the control room was the largest mixer I've seen in my life. The guy that owned the studio spent more than a quarter million bucks setting it up, which in today's dollars would probably equal twice as much money. If I recall, he lasted about 5 years, had a heart attack, sold the equipment and I haven't heard of him since.

It would really be nice to see photos of some of the Synthzone forum members studios. I suspect, however, that what we will be seeing is nothing more than a bedroom/office with a computer, keyboard and a rats nest of wires running everywhere. I'll be glad to post photos of my office when I find the time to clean up all the papers scattered across the desk and make it look presentable.

Cheers,

Gary

[img]http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk42/ensnareyou/GC820Remote.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk42/ensnareyou/AKG20Tube-1.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk42/ensnareyou/Studio_Mics.jpg[/img]

There's far too much for me to list everything but here is a partial studio gear list:

Custom Modified Amek Matchless Recording Console
AKAI S1000KB Sampling Keyboard
AKAI S2800 Rack Sampler
AKAI DD1000 Mastering Recorder (not pictured)
AKAI DL1000 Remote (not pictured)
AKAI GX-912 Professional Cassette Deck (not pictured)
AKG TL-II Microphone
AKG C12 Tube Microphones (not pictured)
AKG C12a Tube Microphone (not pictured)
AKG "The Tube" Microphones
AKG ADR68K Reverb and FX Processor
Apple Macbook Pro 17" Duo Core Laptop
API 550 EQ's (not pictured)
API 512 Mic Preamps (not pictured)
API 3124 Mic Preamp (not pictured)
Audio Technica AT4060 Tube Microphones
Audio Technica AT4050 Microphones
Audio Technica AT4047SV Microphones
Audio Technica AT4033 Microphones
Audio Technica AT4051 Microphones
Audio Technica AT4053 Microphones
Audio Technica AT4049 Microphones
Audio Technica ATM25 Microphone
Casio VL-1 Synthesizer/Calculator (not pictured)
Casio CZ101 Synthesizer
Coles 4038 Ribbon Microphone
Dynacord DRP20 FX Processors
Fairlight CMI III Rev 9 Sampling Workstation
Fairlight MFX3+ 24 Track DAW
Fairlight MFX II/CMI III Rev 11 Workstation DAW (not pictured)
Forat F9000 Sampling Drum Machine (not pictured)
Forat F-16 Stereo Sampler/Drum Trigger (not pictured)
Fostex D-10 Timecode DAT Recorder (not pictured)
Fostex CD Recorder (not pictured)
Korg Triton Rack (not pictured)
Korg EXB Expansion Cards (installed in Triton Rack)
Loewe Spheros 42" Plasma TV/Monitor
LOMO 19A19 tube microphone
Millennia Media NSEQ-2 Platinum Mastering EQ (not pictured)
Millennia Media TCL-2 Platinum Mastering Compressor (not pictured)
Manley Massive Passive Mastering EQ (not pictured)
Manley SLAM Mastering Compressor (not pictured)
Manley VOX BOX (not pictured)
Moog Memorymoog Plus (not pictured)
Native Instruments B-4 (installed in Wersi Abacus)
NEC LCD Monitors for Fairlight systems (not pictured)
Neumann U-47 Longbody Chrome Top tube microphones
Neumann U-87 Microphone (not pictured)
Neumann KM56 Tube Microphone (not pictured)
Neumann UM57 Tube Microphone (not pictured)
Neumann KM-100 Microphones (not pictured)
Neumann TLM-170 Microphone (not pictured)
Neve 1073 Mic Preamps (not pictured)
Neve 1084 Mic Preamps (not pictured)
Neve 1272 Mic Preamps (not pictured)
NHT PRO A-20 Mastering Monitors
NHT PRO A-10 Monitors (not pictured)
NHT B-20 Subwoofers (not pictured)
NHT Model 1.1 Monitors
NHT Model 1.1 C Monitor
NHT SW2P Subwoofers (not pictured)
PPG Wave 2.2 Synthesizer (not pictured)
PPG Waveterm (not pictured)
PPG Wave 2.V (installed in Wersi Abacus)
Rhodes ARP Chroma Synthesizer (not pictured)
Roland R880 Reverbs with GC8 Remote
Roland Jupiter 8 Synthesizer
Roland XV5080 Synthesizer
Roland JD990 Synthesizer
Roland SRX Expansion Cards (installed in XV5080)
Roland JV Expansion Cards (installed in JD990)
Sequential Circuits Studio 440 Drum Sampler Sequencer
Sequential Circuits Prophet VS Synthesizer
Sequential Circuits Prophet VS Rack Synthesizer (not pictured)
Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 Rev 2 Synthesizer (not pictured)
Shure SM57 Microphones
Sony C57 Tube Microphones
Sony PCM-1630 Mastering Recorder
Tascam GigaStudio
Teletronix LA2A Limiter (not pictured)
UREI LA3A Black Face Limiters (not pictured)
UREI 1176 Black Face Limiter (not pictured)
Wersi Abacus Duo Pro 25 Version 7
Wurlitzer Organ with Leslie 222RV speaker
Yamaha CS-60 Synthesizer (not pictured)
Yamaha PSS-460 Synthesizer (not pictured)




[This message has been edited by Ensnareyou (edited 10-29-2008).]

Here's mine. http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/H2/
DonM

Awesome Studio Don & your recordings are always Great

Good luck with your studios everyone make beautiful music.

[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 10-30-2008).]

The right wall has a desk and PC, The back wall has the Bose LT1 system set up and a Martin DC Aura and the Wife's Taylor 414 hanging.


Rode NT2 Mike
AT4033
Joe Meek VCQ-1 Preamp
Yamaha REV500
Alesis MV4
Mackie 1604 VLZ
Small PA system behind the Monitors to check live mixes on
Vizio 42 LCD on Wall behind desk on Wall (not there when pic was taken)
Alesis Monitor Ones
LCD monitors 2 for Calewalk/ 1 for Tyros
JBL Powered Sub
Prosonus Firebox
M-Audio Fast Track Pro
M-Audio Fasr Track Ultra
Pentium Core 2 running Sonar 6 Producer
Platnium Waves
Time Works
Sound Forge 8
Wavelab
Dell notebook for Walk in closet ala sound booth remote vocal recording

Not seen The right wall has a desk and PC, The back wall has the Bose LT1 system set up and a Martin DC Aura and the Wife's Taylor 414 hanging...and a pullout couch for guests,


Some other low end stuff.

View...Priceless.



[This message has been edited by Kingfrog (edited 10-28-2008).]

That is a nice view!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by IL Parrothead:
That is a nice view![/QUOTE
INdeed we bought the property 8 years ago.
When the Housing bubble hit in Las VEgas I sold my home for 8X the $40 I put down on it fiur years earlier. We built a home on this property and I designed the 17SF home so all the living areas were facing the rear. We had it built, paid for it and Thank You housing bubble. There was no way I was staying in LAs VEgas with that kind of money to make in 4 years. (Am listed ,3PM two bidders, 6PM sale.......

I dee God every morning out my back windows. All comes from Him as far as we are concerned. HE owns it and when we are gone God will belss another with it.

Those are some very nice toys, Ensnareyou...!

We'd all love to hear what you are doing with it, these days...

Some classic gear, right there... That Fairlight alone was probably more than my entire home studio put together. Along with the house! Still use it much?

For those of you moaning the depreciation in a T2 now the T3 is out, imagine if you bought one of these new in the mid eighties (about $100,000) ....

Actually, though, it's the Jupiter 8 I've got the hots for from that list. One of the best things Roland ever made!

Diki,

The Fairlight's are a mainstay for me and have been since the 1980's. No other sampler I have ever used sounds as good even to this day. It's frightening to think what they cost back then but they have paid for themselves over the years. FYI... My first Fairlight CMI III cost me more than my first home did!

The Jupiter 8 is an amazing synth and by far my favorite Roland synthesizer. I also had several Jupiter 6's but they sounded nothing like the Jupiter 8 which is much more organic with lots of bottom end. The MKS80 which I also had was supposed to be a JP8 in a rack but it wasn't even close in sound. Still not a bad synthesizer though.

The Rhodes Chroma (not the Polaris) is also an amazing synthesizer and not many people have seen or heard one. Mine is one of the very early versions actually made by ARP.

The Memorymoog is another personal favorite of mine and by far one if not the fattest sounding synthesizers ever made. Nearly every synth sounds anemic next to the Memorymoog. In a mix the Moog can easily overpower things if you don't control it.

Sadly I don't play as much as I used to and much of my gear is being used by a close friend as I don't have the time or inclination I once had to record.

It's kind of like taking a trip back in time. A musical Tardis trip!

I used to have a CS60 myself in the eighties. Wish I could have has a CS80, though.
Mind you, people bitch enough about the G70. Imagine them trying to lift THAT monster! Hernia's for everyone

Nice rig, though. Wish you still had the desire to use it. What happened?
I know you said you had some health issues, couldn't play much, but heck!
Stephen Hawking can hold down his own with an eye movement or two.
Surely you can at least mouse around something worth listening to?

What can we do to help you get motivated again? Seems a shame to let those toys rust in the toy closet...

my micro-studio...









[This message has been edited by adimatis (edited 10-30-2008).]

Nice gear ensnareyou! That Jupitar 8 sure is purrrty You use it much?

Damn, now I'm going to have to clean it up! Until then I'll tell you what I have. I have a Roland VS 2480 which is an awesome unit that can record 16 tracks at the same time. It's portable so I do a lot of remotes at church, college, ect. I actually complete a lot of projects on it as I try and record right the first time so I don't have to do a whole lot of editing. I have Pro Tools on the computer for the fancy editing stuff. As for boards I have the G 1000, Roland RD 700 piano, Yamaha 6' grand, Tyros, and Ketron MidJay. It's a project studio but it meets all my needs. If I need to really professionally track somethng, Sheffield is a mile up the road and as an alumnus, I can rent it out for $25 per hour.

Joe

------------------
Songman55
Joe Ayala

My studio consist of 2 desktop PC's
2 flat screen display monitors..

4 Roland keyboard Cube 100's..

Yamaha DX7..

My 45 year old accordion..

Media Station..

assorted mixers..

Roland G70..

and a bunch of other stuff I didn't know I still had..

I have a desinated room in my home..that I just about live in...oh yeah 2 TV's so I can watch more than one game...

WAY TO GO PHILLIES!!!!!!!!!!

Ensnareyou
When I was a kid growing up, My Dad bought me a Casio MT-65, which was they keyboard that got me hooked. I guess from about 1984 I subscribed to the US Version (I lived in the UK) of Keyboard magazine. In the mid to late eighties, keyboard demos came on flexi-records on the inside of the magazine. I collected them for several years. I had a flexi-demo of a CHROMA….

I read your post today; it was a nostalgic ride through the late 70’s and early eighties. I had a chance once to play a CHROMA, when I was kid and having only seen kid’s boards, the 10 minutes I spent with that machine (on a trip to London, which in itself was a massive thing when I was about 13) stayed with me for years, until I worked the whole summer in 1985, 70’s hours a week to buy my first real synth, which was a KORG POLY-800.
You should consider opening a Synth Museum, I for one would fly to the US for another 10 minutes on a CHROMA, or 20 minutes on a PPG Wave….. But then I was convinced they made my crappy playing actually sound better. Which alas, I know not to be true.
But I have decided to get a TYROS 3, even though I know I will hate the Styles. It ticks the rest of my boxes.
Thanks for sharing

Well, let's see...a Yamaha S900, a old Yamaha CS-01 analog synth, and a Toshiba laptop.

[I also have a Tyros3 and a P85 digital piano, but they are on loan from Yamaha.]

With just the S900 and laptop, I can make CDs or record MP3s for e-mailing to friends.

Ian

Not to be confused with the Chroma Polaris which sounds nowhere near as good, the Chroma is by far one of the most underrated synthesizers ever made. It's a shame ARP went out of business right before they released the Chroma. CBS bought ARP and subsequently marketed the Rhodes Chroma but it didn't sell well due to its high price and cumbersome user interface. At that time knobs were King and the Chroma had only touch membrane switches and a data slider. What seemed alien then is the norm today and finding synthesizers manufactured now with lots of knobs isn't easy.

Believe it or not I've pared way down from the musical gear I've had over the years. With the exception of Modular synths I've owned nearly every synthesizer ever made. I've been blessed to be able to own and use these fine instruments and many have gone on to new homes where they see daily use.

Some of my personal favorites are the Prophet VS, Prophet 5, Memorymoog, Chroma, Yamaha CS-60 (wish I had a CS-80 though), Oberheim Matrix 12 and XPander, PPG Wave 2.2, Roland Jupiter 8, Jupiter 6, Voyetra 8, Korg MS-20, and of course the Fairlights.

Zawinul was a big Chroma user, wasn't he...?

Saw him use one (amongst a ton of other things) with the Experience in N.O.,LA.

Great show!

Played it a few times in stores, but couldn't pull the trigger at that price point. Couple of sessions using a studio's one in NY. Beautiful sounds, great action, unique approach...

OK, OK, not just the Jupiter 8, but the Chroma and the Memorymoog would all be on my 'gearlust list' from your collection.

Not sure about the Fairlight, though. Sonically, most modern things can compete, but I just never learned the OS, so I'm not sure what I'd gain using it. Was it simply the library? I know at the time it was FAR ahead of any competing stuff, but with 24/96 software samplers out now, audio quality must be a moot point.

Did you do primarily your own sampling, or was it the Fairlight library that made it the goto gear for you?

My first visit to the namm show..I believe 1985..{as an MI store owner)...I came away with 3 keyboards that impressed me the most..The Rhodes Chroma, a Wersi model I can't recall, and a Roland JX10...

Fran, a Wersi model, now I’m really starting to believe in you.

John C.

At least he forgot it!

Zawinul was an avid Chroma user and rightfully so, it's an amazing synthesizer.

Unfortunately sonically most modern samplers can't compete with the Fairlight. The Fairlight CMI III has fantastic AD/DA converters, a 100 kHz sampling rate, and the most bottom end and raw sound I've ever heard from any sampler to date. Sample an analog synth into the Fairlight and it actually sounds like the original. Drums are spectacular as well. By todays standard there are samplers with much more RAM and polyphony but for sheer raw, organic sound, nothing beats the CMI III.

I sampled many of my own sounds as well as used the Fairlight sound library which is great. FYI.... most modern Korg synthesizers/workstations utilize many of the Fairlight sounds as Korg licensed the CMI sample library a while back. Unfortunately the Korg samples bear little resemblance to the original but still sound good. Other companies also used many of the Fairlight sounds although they chose to "lift" the samples rather than license them. At least Korg saw fit to sample the RAW material rather than steal it.

I quite liked the CS-01 and actually bought the last new stock Yamaha had many years ago. Many saw it as a toy until they heard it piped through my recording console and FX. It didn't have many sound colors or flavors to choose from but it was very nice. Unfortunately a synth collector offered me an insane amount of cash for my new in box CS-01's and I couldn't resist selling them. Today they still seem to fetch a good price but are more of a novelty than a mainstay. Too bad the CS-01 didn't sound like a CS-80 in such a diminutive instrument. Now that would have been one hell of a synthesizer!

100kHz in mono, though. 50kHz for stereo, wasn't it? (Still better than any hardware, though)

Still, AD/DA's on software samplers are as good as the soundcard you are using. Use an Apogee, or Prism, etc., and you ought to have close to Fairlight quality, shouldn't you?

Plus, of course, you never really go D/A... you just render in the digital domain, and it NEVER has to hit the analog domain... that ought to keep things pristine!

It does have a bit of a shock value when heard through bigger speakers...the 32' stop was always good for those deep drones, and the pulse width mod really fattened it up even more.

I run mine through the S900's mic effects including the harmonizer...I can get some pretty cool sounds....mine's a Mk1 with the grey case.

I also had a Jupiter 8a...sold it a while ago...got an offer I couldn't refuse...it was pretty awesome, but I was traveling a lot at the time, and had no room for it.

The "a" had a 14-bit processor as opposed to 12-bit...more stable, and it would tune up far faster.

It's still working and in a friend's studio...for analog, nothing comes close to it, IMO.

You're fortunate to still have yours...does it have the OC8 and MD-8 retrofits? They added, amongst other things like primitive MIDI capability(only note-on note-off information), a floating split point.

I ended up with a Roland JX-10 which I just sold a year or so ago...another cool piece of kit.

Ian