"Why do you have so many synths?"

[The Real MC]

Years ago my cousin was visiting, and when I showed her my studio she asked why I had so many synths.

 

I replied that a saxophone player needs soprano, alto, tenor, baritone variations of their instrument. Even the differences in metal alloys between two tenor saxophones will sound different. They don't all sound the same and no single instrument does everything. I found that to be true with synths. Some are best for brass, some are best for strings, some are best for lead synth, some are best for sound effects and non-emulative sounds.

[drawback]

Sure. You can make it all about the synths if you like. :wink:

[232006]

Lol!

 

That was quick thinking and quite difficult to disagree with a thoughtful answer like that, I guess!

 

I'd have probably said something daft like, "Uh well, dunno really, why shouldn't I?" (not that I have that many, but if I had the money...)

[Joe Muscara]

I would reply, "have you ever been to a guitar player's house?"

[Markyboard]

Because shipping/delivery take longer these days.

[CEB]

In my case .... most these synth cost $2000+. That was a lot of money then. Later used I could only get cents on the dollar on trades or resale ... so I just kept them. Now they became vintage.

[aellison62]

What if your cousin then replied "why don't you just buy the one that is best at everything and sell the rest?"

[AnotherScott]

I have so many keyboards because I'm only allowed to have one girlfriend.

[Docbop]

I don't have a synth because others own them all and they won't sell one.

 

Luckily I'm new to keyboard so only have one, okay technically two my first cheapie that I am going to give a kid wanting to get into piano. As a guitar player I do have way too many guitars, but in hindsight regret it. I think having less forces you to be more creative in not only what you play but in how to play or use your gear. Personally I think people today buy gear more than take time to spend time finding everything your current gear can do. I'm at that Jurassic age when there wasn't that much gear so you had to spend time finding/creating sounds in whatever you had.

[cp-the-nerd]

Ask your cousin to look in her refrigerator and justify why she has more than one beverage. The analogies are infinite, it's a silly question. Anyone with a hobby owns more stuff related to that thing than an average person would think is necessary. Variety is the spice of life.

[Kurt W]

Ask your cousin to look in her refrigerator and justify why she has more than one beverage. The analogies are infinite, it's a silly question. Anyone with a hobby owns more stuff related to that thing than an average person would think is necessary. Variety is the spice of life.

I find the question relevant. I would only have silly answers. One would be that I think it make me more talented.

[Marzzz]

Shoes.

[The Real MC]

Shoes.

 

You win the internet!

[Devnor]

The question I'm often asked is why do you have so many synths you don't use? All those, in storage! My standard reply is old romplers & floppy drive samplers will come back into vogue but I think I'll start using AnotherScott reply instead.

[232006]

I would reply, "have you ever been to a guitar player's house?"

 

I used to work with a guy who was a rather good guitarist who left to start up a guitar shop with a friend of his.

 

He later sold the shop, but in the time he owned it he accumulated the most amazing collection of guitars, many quite rare.

 

He kept most of his collection, and when I met up with him after some years of not seeing him, (just before all this CV 19 nonsense kicked off) he admitted he hardly had any room to move in his house anymore because of his collection, even despite the fact that his wife had left him.....

[bfields]

As an aging cheapskate I increasingly find myself in the dangerous position where money isn't quite the constraint it used to be.

 

But there are still space and time budgets: where am I going to put this? And, how many minutes a day am I going to play it? I don't want to find myself tripping over gear that I never learned to use.

[Lou Gehrig Charles]

Years ago my cousin was visiting, and when I showed her my studio she asked why I had so many synths.

 

 

Send her my way. I only have one.

 

But I'm thinking of picking up another, nicer board. I don't have access any longer to the Grand I'd been playing, due to the virus...

 

Uh, oh! Have I reached the beginning of the slippery slope?

[Mike Kent]

I have so many so I can have something over that great player who only has 1.

 

(I currently own 21 hardware synths)

[zeronyne]

As an aging cheapskate I increasingly find myself in the dangerous position where money isn't quite the constraint it used to be.

 

But there are still space and time budgets: where am I going to put this?

 

I'm in the same boat. I'm finally at a place in my career, with one kid finally off to college, where budget isn't as much of a limiter. So I've gone a little crazy this year with gear (probably because I'm also homebound).

[KuruPrionz]

I would reply, "have you ever been to a guitar player's house?"

 

Hey now, guitars are fairly small and light. Plus mine are all really different. Fretless bass tuned to BEAD? 12 string acoustic guitar? Requinto? Not the same at all, they all have strings.

Strat with scalloped fretboard? Short scale electric guitar tuned to Nashville tuning? 8 string lap steel? All different too.

 

Plus, if Real MC wants umpty bajillion synths I think it's great.

[NewImprov]

I have a lot of synths, and other keys (Rhodes, Pianet, Hammond clone, etc) along with a fair amount of modular stuff, 5U and Euro. When I'm asked why I have so many keyboards/synths/whatever, my explanation is usually along the lines of this: I don't have a general purpose, all-in-one type of board, because I generally find that these instruments don't interest me that much. The instruments I do have all have their own character, and they all contribute to arrangements in different ways, like the instruments in a symphony orchestra. And besides, I like synthesizers!

[David Emm]

I have "so many synths" so that I run out less often to whack more people with an axe handle. Every hour spent reverse-engineering a nice patch I stumbled over in Bank C = 5 fewer real-world hours out whacking. In mask, vinyl gloves and face shield, of course.

[KuruPrionz]

Today, I could have bought a synth and I didn't.

It was at the thrift store. An early 90's Ensoniq electric "piano" with 72 weighted keys.

 

It was $25.

 

Why didn't I buy it?

 

It was absurdly heavy. It weighed as much as my car. The giant padded zipper bag they used to call a keyboard case was gross and smelly and I wouldn't trust the handles. There was a note on it "Tested, a couple of keys do not respond."

It had 2 banks with 6 or so different sounds per bank, no pitch or modulation wheels. Full MIDI In/Out/ and Through. Generic piano related sounds, probably 16 bit back then.

 

A while ago I snagged a craigslist deal with an Ensoniq weighted key synth of similar vintage but with many more sounds and a screen, pitch and modulation wheels, etc. By the time I sold the Peavey keyboard amp and the music stand I had $10 in the keyboard. The screen told me the internal battery was dead. Online how-to showed me that if you removed umpty bajillion screws you could get at the circuit board that had the battery hard soldered to it and if you were careful removing it maybe it wouldn't blow up in your face and you could solder in a battery clip - like they should have done in the first place.

 

I had it for a while on a cheap X stand and it frightened me, I knew it would just collapse at some point. Some of the sounds were pretty cool but I do truly suck at keyboards and will never spend the time to be good because guitar is too much fun and I am already good at it.

 

In the end I traded it straight across for an Akai MPK25 MIDI controller. I never play it either but it's small and light. If I want a pad or something super simple, it's more than good enough. It has after touch and controls that can be assigned to plugin parameters. A better tool for my purposes and the kid who got the Ensoniq really wanted it.

 

I weighed all the negative factors, including that I didn't know which keys did not play and wouldn't find out until after I'd gotten home with a broken back, nowhere to put it and no interest in playing it or working on it.

I also considered the dubious return on investment after getting it cleaned up and running properly vs packing and shipping a 2 ton 14 tone item that costs big bucks to ship across the country and having the shipper drop it on their foot - requiring an amputation and peg leg plus smashing the sidewalk.

 

So, I left it for somebody who wants it, I hope they play it and enjoy it.

 

We can't own ALL the toys!!! (hides in case Markyboard reads this...).

[stoken6]

I've been rationalising over the past few years, but I'm still on 7:

- NS2SW and NS Classic HP is my gigging (ha!) rig

- Alesis 6.2 and Oberheim MC1000 is in my son's room

- Yamaha NS31, Roland PC180 controller, Yamaha cbx k1xg in the basement.

And that excludes my acoustic! There's probably more downsizing to be done...

 

Cheers, Mike

[allan_evett]

The variation of this question that I received was, "Why do you need more than one keyboard?". I was 22, and a college girlfriend asked that question - as I was adding an early Roland VK organ to a rig that included a Rhodes, Yamaha CS-50 and Arp String Ensemble. No attempt made on her part to understand the specifics in my response, yet I was very polite about it and not the smartass I am perfectly capable of being

 

There have been eras of excess and scrambled horse trading, but I'm basically back to an upright piano, four ROMpler/modeled synth keyboards, three 'antique' modules and enough software - that if it was boxed - would likely sink the canoe I own. That's down from eight keyboards, fourteen modules and a grand piano - circa 2000. Bet that rig would've blown the mind of the college GF. Meanwhile GAS marches on and my case is terminal: When the Covid-19 Vaccine has enough coverage for some semblance of gigging to return, it'd be cool to put a small synth above my Stage 3. Got my eye on the Modal Cobalt 8X, or maybe a used Prophet-12, or...

[ProfD]

Quite a few KBs have passed through my ownership but I don't keep more than two (2) KBs at a time.

 

I enjoy exploring KB technology but at the end of the day, I'm mainly an EP player.

 

My SV-1 does the heavy lifting. One synth covers the "other" sounds or as I call them... sprinkles.

 

As a KB player, I have a "boring" setup but it works for me.

 

Nobody will ever ask why I have so many KBs. In fact, they'd probably ask where I'm hiding the rest.

[MikeT156]

Synthesizers by different companies sound different than other companies synths. I like the one of this, one of that approach. Back in the seventies I bought a number of KB's and kept them all as long as I could afford too. Then the IRS came calling and I had to move some of them down the road. I have to admit that I was in search of a one or two KB setup for live performance, while leaving the heavier relics in my music room. I kept the boards I could afford or could not sell because I wouldn't sell any of them below an average value,

 

When I was actively playing music, I enjoyed playing my Vintage equipment and using their sound for A/Bing other KB's that took their place in my live set up.

 

 

 

Mike T.

[Docbop]

Playing guitar and getting why do you have more than one was easy to show them solid body, hollow body, and archtop and they can visually see a difference and hear some difference, but usually they hear the stylistic difference in how they are used. So keyboards visually not a lot of difference for them to see. stylistically less for them to hear especially have to get into single purpose versus multi-purpose, but that opens them to say if one does it all why the single. Have to remember most the people asking are typical of you audience and they don't hear the difference or even care. This topic was talked about a lot the last time I was at music school and how little the audience is really listening especially when it comes to gear. They also point out and you could see in performance classes and shows how little even other musicians listen, it like they check out a tune or less and after that they are more interesting in what else is going on. With gear people "hear" more with their eyes than their ears.

[AWkeys]

It's one thing to own a lot of synths/guitars/instruments/amps/effects that do different things, but it's another thing to own things in duplicate and triplicate. I might be one of those people....