Gear you always wanted but had to wait to acquire

[Paul Woodward]

I grew up in the 70’s with my teenage (and early gigging years) in the mid 80’s. A fantastic time for keyboard and synth development but bloody expensive especially for a teenager. Like many of us, I lusted after gear I couldn’t afford, but when we get older and have more income, we can usually afford them…if they are still relevant, or even working.

My first synth was a Poly 800 II, but I always wanted a DW8000, never managed to get one.

Sold an SH101 and Mono/poly as they felt like junk in the digital age (wished I had kept them).

Passed on a synth in a pawn shop that was huge with buttons on but didn’t power up, on the day…I suspect now it was a Yamaha CS.

Always wanted a Korg M1, but settled on a Roland W30 instead for its sampling.

Wanted an RD1000 back in the day and ended up getting the RD700 many years later.

Obviously wanted a Minimoog but had to settle for the Subsequent decades later.

Grew up playing the organ and saw them thrown into skips so never really hankered after Hammonds, same with Rhodes. Played one as a teen and thought they just sounded clunky and out of tune (oh, how clueless I was).

None of these really scratched the itch of wanting one (or a similar instrument) back in the day.

 

However, the one that really bothered me…I was 17 and went into a music shop wearing my school uniform where the demonstrator let me have 3 minutes supervised play on a Roland D-50. I was in heaven but he ushered me out of the shop. Ironically, I bought his house 6 years later and he didn’t remember anything about it. Last week I picked up a Boutique D-05 and the memories came flooding back. I know it’s not the genuine thing, but it’s smaller, better and isn’t 30 years old. I’m having great fun with it. Maybe because it’s so much like the real thing, not a new instrument.

 

So, any gear you had to wait to get, and were you disappointed when you finally got it?

[mauriziodececco]

I also grew up in the 70s; with a couple of friends we built our own sound-making electronic circuits (i wouldn’t dare call them synths) dreaming of the Oberheim polyphonic synthetiser that was in the list of instruments used in our preferred records (Tangerine Dream and Klause Schultze). In the midle of the eighties, after an unsatisfactory flirt with a Poly800 i got a Matrix 1000, that i used for almost thirty years, and i sold to finally buy a knobby, vco based, synth with the Tom Obhereim signature, an OB-6. In the meanwhile, i moved all my composition work to an almost total software workflow, and for the moment i do not gig with the OB-6, cannot bring two keyboards in the parisian public transports … but i just cannot sell it 🙄

 

Maurizio

[Ed A.]

In 1974, when I was 16, I walked into the Keyboard Center at Trumbull Mall in Connecticut and saw a Minimoog sitting on top of a piano bench. I knew I had to get one someday. It wasn't until 1979 that I finally had enough money to buy a brand new one. The funny thing is that after lusting for one for so long, I sold it for $650 two years later because I thought it was kind of boring. That was also about the time I sold my modded ARP 2600 for $1000. A couple years later, I bought two DX-7's and never had anything analog since then, everything was either digital or digital/analog hybrid. My workflow now is also totally software (mainly Arturia V Collection 9 and Logic/MainStage instruments), except for an Arturia MiniFreak.

[JamPro]

I always wanted a DX7 - I never got one.  Now I have NI FM8, which has significantly more capabilities than a DX7, tho' I use it only rarely.

 

I've always wanted a B3 and a Leslie.  As a young man, I bought a used M3 (that supposedly toured with Sonny and Cher), and two Leslie 145s.  I eventually sold it all.  As an older dude, I got an XK3, and a MotionSound 145 Pro.  That is what I use today in my studio to scratch the B3 itch.

[nadroj]

I spent years - years - fantasising about simplifying my rig. 
 

I remember sitting through college lectures (when I went back as a mature student for 2 yrs) ignoring the lecture while reading 300+ pages of GearSlutz forums about the Nord Stage/Kronos/Kurzweil Forte.

 

I bought a MODX when it was first released but quickly realised it wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I didn’t like it at all.

 

In January this year I got a trade in deal for a Hammond SKX (not the Pro). 
 

I literally haven’t thought about gear since then. There’s nothing more I want. The sounds and functionality do the job, and the only thing that can improve now is me, and I’ve been working on that a lot these past few months. I just love sitting down to play music now - gear is hardly a factor.

 

I’m in a hotel room just now waiting to go back to the venue we’re playing at tonight. That 2-manual organ is currently sitting on stage waiting for me and I can’t wait to get my hands on it again and start playing.
 

I’ve no doubt my covetous GAS will return one day soon, but for now I’ve got the elusive “one keyboard to do it all” for all of my needs, and so far it’s ticked every box plus more.
 

I mean I even recorded piano on it for an acoustic track and it sounded pretty damn okay lol.

 

When I think about how much time I spent thinking about gear I get pissed off and a little embarrassed. I’m glad to be rid of that burden for now.

[GovernorSilver]

In the past I was forced to wait before buying gear because I didn't have much disposable income, especially during my student years, and first few years after university graduation, getting started with my career.

 

After some years of advancing in my career, I quickly accumulated gear thanks to the combination of low living expenses and increasing income enabled impulse buys.

 

These days, there tends to be a delay of about 12-24 months between finding out about a new gear release, and acquiring said piece of gear, if I decide to buy it at all.    I try to do my homework on the piece of gear's capabilities and limitations.  I've passed on quite a few synths, samplers, etc. after having some initial interest, then after analysis concluding it's not a fit for what I want to do.  

 

I do have a recent impulse buy - the D'Angelico Melanie Faye signature guitar.  I just had to have that one.  Guitars don't require as much pre-purchase homework and analysis as synths, keyboard workstations, DAWs, etc.

[Ibarch]

As a student I wanted a Roland D-50 but not having the cash I allowed a salesman to sell me a U-20 instead. The U-20 gets a lot of hate for being a mere rompler but I absolutely loved it. It sounded brilliant, way better than my girlfriends Yamaha SY-22.

 

That decision reinforced me as a keyboard player and I've remained pretty clueless about proper synthesis right up till the last couple of years. The preset kiddy hat still fits.

[Ibarch]

Have the Roland Cloud D-50 now. Still waiting to aquire a real one. 

[CEB]

I wanted a Jupiter- 8 when it was new … really bad.   But, I couldn’t afford it.   
 

I still can’t afford it. 😀

[DeltaJockey]

47 minutes ago, CEB said:

I wanted a Jupiter- 8 when it was new … really bad.   But, I couldn’t afford it.   
 

I still can’t afford it. 😀

I remember as a teenager in the 70's going in to the music shop when the Jupiter 8 was first released. There was a line up of musicians waiting to have a go. It was pretty special compared  to all the previous Roland synths. When I got to have my I go, I looked at the price tag. In Australia it sold for $5,995, a lot back in the mid 70's let alone for a school boy! I sold my inherited family upright to buy a second hand Korg Mini 700. I think I paid about $180 for it. I was so disappointment with it being only monophonic. My friends and I joked about its limitations. After a couple of years I sold it. Boy do I regret that now! I bought a Roland EP20. Pretty pathetic sounding piano though, but at least I could play chords

I finally did manage to buy a Jupiter 8, (that urge never went away). I dragged my family with young kids 400km in the car, and an overnight motel,  to go pick it up.

It had faulty RAM chip problems, which in the day, I was able to order the chips from Roland and fixed it. Sadly, I ended up trading it in a couple of years later on a Kurzweil K1000. Big mistake again to offload it.

[David Emm]

I was able to buy mid-range gear until I hit the motherlode with a Korg workstation. The one hangnail is a familiar tale: D-50 lust. I couldn't afford it when it was new and I was just the victim of craptastic timing on two subsequent occasions, narrowly missing it. 

 

Fast forward a few years and I preach the merits of the Cloud version. The hardware had one of Roland's better keybeds, but the software version sounds notably cleaner. It includes the PG-1000 programmer, which has partly meant that I have a history of Roland synths in one place. I have several sys-ex patch sets that are amazing, with things like strings often sounding seriously sampled. So I not only got a D-50, I got a sort of v.2 whose general tone is even better than I remembered from my music store dabbling. I Autosample the hell out of it, too.  

[ElmerJFudd]

Ya 70s kid here as well.  Dad worked for a company, mom left her job to care for the 4 of us. 
 

I learned piano on a POS no brand piano someone was tossing. First keyboard was a Casio MT65 I got with delivering papers and some birthday money at Bambergers (local department store). 
 

Some time in high school I acquired a DW6000 I bought off a friend.  And in college I picked up a Kurzweil K1000 which was my gigging piano for many many years.  
 

Something I always wanted… 

 

Yamaha DX7, Yamaha SY77 were always out of my reach.  I eventually threw a PLG150DX in my S90ES which replaced my K1000 in adulthood.  And I picked up that plogue OPS7 for MainStage. 
 

https://www.plogue.com/products/chipsynth-ops7.html

[Tom Williams]

I bought a nice Moog theremin used at a nice price a few years ago.  Like every other keyboardist on Earth, I was sure my musical instincts would allow me to pick it up as easily as I picked up trombone.

 

It was a fun three weeks.

 

Now it just sits.  I tell myself "I'm gonna make that thing work musically one of these days, dammit."  Of course, I tell myself the same thing about the trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, two trombones, and Holton double horn that are stored in the closet by my music room.  I've hardly touched any of them in decades.  Were I a smarter man, I could probably get 'em all lubed up and working, sell them, pay off my PC4-7, and have enough left over for one of those new generation synths that are soooo expressive.  

 

[D. Gauss]

as i kid, i always wanted a piano. every friend i knew growing up had a piano in their house . not mine. fast forward a bunch of decades and i finally was able to acquire a baldwin grand. now i just need to learn how to play it....

[Canoehead]

13 hours ago, CEB said:

I wanted a Jupiter- 8 when it was new … really bad.   But, I couldn’t afford it.   
 

I still can’t afford it. 😀

This reminds me of walking into Steve’s Music in Toronto some time in the late-80s or early-90’s.  They had a used Jupiter 8 and used PPG Wave with signs indicating that they had belonged to Geddy Lee.  The tag on the Jupiter said $1800 Canadian; can’t remember how much they were asking for the PPG. Man, I wanted that Jupiter but it just wasn’t feasible at the time.  
 

Time can play tricks on our memories, though, so the details may be off.

Anybody else remember seeing these at Steve’s?

 

Oh yeah, just like CEB I still can’t afford one!

 

cheers,

Gord

[re Pete]

B3. But not the weight. Early Mojo Classic buyer and very happy with it.

[brenner13]

I’ve always wanted a stand-alone Hammond clone, but I play classic rock covers and occasionally pick up a yacht-rock gig, so need all of those other essential sounds. Early 2000’s scored a lightly used Rhodes VK1000…a Roland sample based ‘clone-wheel’ that really sounds nothing like a Hammond. It has 76 (very delicate) synth keys with no aftertouch and a crappy Rhodes sample and crappy synth sample ROM’s. Very ‘90’s onboard effects. Despite the big display, the programming UI is a real pain. Also it is HUGE…about as big as the old Kurzweil 250, but it has a flat top, perfect to set another board or two small ones on top of. I gigged it and loved it for many years with a Yamaha EX5 on top, but knew it really wasn’t scratching my B3 itch. Eventually got tired of schlepping that monster everywhere and decided the EX5’s organs were just more convenient and went single board gigging for several more years, still pining for a good clonewheel.
 

Fast forward to January 2013 NAMM and Ed Diaz’s excellent demos of the new Roland VR09. This was the first board I ever bought as preorder, sight unseen. A very long wait for delivery finally on May 1st…excitedly unboxed it, plugged it in to the home studio and immediately HATED the toy like action on the default sucky AC Piano preset. UGH! What a horrible disappointment! It almost went back in the box that day for return. However, scrolling though some of the other presets, the synths and the organs were really very good to excellent. It took a while to adapt to the rinkydink keybed, but wound up loving the high trigger on the organs and the super fast action for synth solos.
 

Still gigging with the dern thing; it just does everything as well as needed, especially with all of my custom tweaks and deep synth editing with the iPad, and all of the firmware updates; I’ve not yet found a better tool to gig with. Nords are nice, but really outside my weekend warrior budget. The Yamaha YC’s are tempting, but twice the money of the Roland and a bit heavier. Took a hard look at a YC73, but the weighted action put me off as I mostly need this to play organ. Vox Continental nearly got my money several times, but ultimately never pulled the trigger. Dexibel Combo J7 also glanced my cart a time or two, but never did complete a sale.
 

I did nab a Studiologic Numa Compact 2X, and gigged with that a lot, but no mono mode for synth solos caused need for a second synth in the rig. The Leslie in the NC2X was pretty terrible, too. The latest firmware improved it, but the VR09 is still better. Also, I have terrible issues with several overly sensitive keys on the NC2X that make playing soft piano passages nearly impossible…another long story.

 

 Back OT, I still have yet to experience the pure, stand alone, high-end clone wheel in my arsenal, and have yet to find the gig that requires it. Someday, maybe.

[Paul Woodward]

42 minutes ago, brenner13 said:

I’ve always wanted a stand-alone Hammond clone, but I play classic rock covers and occasionally pick up a yacht-rock gig, so need all of those other essential sounds. Early 2000’s scored a lightly used Rhodes VK1000…a Roland sample based ‘clone-wheel’ that really sounds nothing like a Hammond. It has 76 (very delicate) synth keys with no aftertouch and a crappy Rhodes sample and crappy synth sample ROM’s. Very ‘90’s onboard effects. Despite the big display, the programming UI is a real pain. Also it is HUGE…about as big as the old Kurzweil 250, but it has a flat top, perfect to set another board or two small ones on top of. I gigged it and loved it for many years with a Yamaha EX5 on top, but knew it really wasn’t scratching my B3 itch. Eventually got tired of schlepping that monster everywhere and decided the EX5’s organs were just more convenient and went single board gigging for several more years, still pining for a good clonewheel.
 

Fast forward to January 2013 NAMM and Ed Diaz’s excellent demos of the new Roland VR09. This was the first board I ever bought as preorder, sight unseen. A very long wait for delivery finally on May 1st…excitedly unboxed it, plugged it in to the home studio and immediately HATED the toy like action on the default sucky AC Piano preset. UGH! What a horrible disappointment! It almost went back in the box that day for return. However, scrolling though some of the other presets, the synths and the organs were really very good to excellent. It took a while to adapt to the rinkydink keybed, but wound up loving the high trigger on the organs and the super fast action for synth solos.
 

Still gigging with the dern thing; it just does everything as well as needed, especially with all of my custom tweaks and deep synth editing with the iPad, and all of the firmware updates; I’ve not yet found a better tool to gig with. Nords are nice, but really outside my weekend warrior budget. The Yamaha YC’s are tempting, but twice the money of the Roland and a bit heavier. Took a hard look at a YC73, but the weighted action put me off as I mostly need this to play organ. Vox Continental nearly got my money several times, but ultimately never pulled the trigger. Dexibel Combo J7 also glanced my cart a time or two, but never did complete a sale.
 

I did nab a Studiologic Numa Compact 2X, and gigged with that a lot, but no mono mode for synth solos caused need for a second synth in the rig. The Leslie in the NC2X was pretty terrible, too. The latest firmware improved it, but the VR09 is still better. Also, I have terrible issues with several overly sensitive keys on the NC2X that make playing soft piano passages nearly impossible…another long story.

 

 Back OT, I still have yet to experience the pure, stand alone, high-end clone wheel in my arsenal, and have yet to find the gig that requires it. Someday, maybe.

I had the YC61 and the VR09 and one had to go. It was the VR in the end, but simply because it lacked the audio in and USB audio/midi of the YC. I too loved the high trigger point and some of the sounds in that board were great (mostly synth and brass though).

[stoken6]

4 hours ago, brenner13 said:

I’ve always wanted a stand-alone Hammond clone[...]VK1000[...]VR09[...]YC73[...]Dexibel Combo J7[...]Studiologic Numa Compact 2X.

 

 Back OT, I still have yet to experience the pure, stand alone, high-end clone wheel in my arsenal, and have yet to find the gig that requires it. Someday, maybe.

How close does the Hammond SK Pro come? Top-flight organ sound and action, and mono synth, but VR09-quality acoustic piano.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[NewImprov]

I have several stories:

 

1975-ish, when I was in Jr. High, in Eastern Oregon, there was a music store a couple blocks from my school, owned by friends of my piano teacher. My families' farm was over an hours school bus ride from town, so often after school, I'd just meet my mom at the music store on her way home, The owners would kindly let me kill a half-hours wait playing piano, etc. This store mainly had sheet music, a few pianos, a few non-hammond organs, and a smattering (clattering?) of cheap guitars and drums. Never anything cool until one day, they had a brand new Minimoog on the floor! By this time, I'd listened to enough Wendy Carlos and Keith Emerson to know what this was. So I bugged the owners to let me try it, I don't think they even knew how too get a sound on it. For about 3 weeks, I played that Mini every afternoon I could, until it sold. They were asking $1500 for it, if I remember correctly, which, given my financial state at the time, might as well have been several million. A few years later, I save up enough to buy a used Moog Satellite, thinking it'd be almost the same as a Mini. It wasn't. Eventually, my senior year in high school, I traded the Satellite towards an ARP AXXE, which was at least a step closer. 

 

1982/83, I'm in college, and doing a dual major in computer science and music. My music advisor develops funding for a project to build an electronic music studio. I sign on to it, help build and wire the studio along with a grad student from the EE dept., who taught me how to solder. We had a couple of Tascam 3340 4-track recorders, a TASCAM 2-track mix down deck, a Peavey mixer, some monitors and mics, and, an ARP 2600 belonging to another member of the music faculty. After opening the studio, I get a "job" as overseeing it, maintaining the gear, training students and faculty on how to use the gear, and, generally, spending every available hour I had playing and recording music. After a couple of terms, the owner of the 2600 movers away, taking the 2600, so we get funding to buy a brand new Prophet 5 rev 3, with the matching digital sequencer. I did tons of programming on that Prophet, This was pretty much the best job I've ever had.

 

2004, my friend Adam, who has for years been buying and selling rare instruments, contacts me, he has 2(!) Minimoogs for sale, and he'll sell me one for $1250, which was a deal even then. I go over to his place, play both, and choose the one that looked worse, but played and sounded a dream. Minimoog acquired, and I still have it!

 

Last year, I picked up both a Behringer 2600 and a Sequential Take 5. Between these and the Mini, I've pretty much fulfilled my GAS for analog synths. Except for Euro-rack...

 

[zukskywalker]

“I started out as a poor black child”

 

i couldn’t afford any of it. 
we had an upright piano in the basement for what seemed like forever before I got a Thomas organ that was an upgrade from a sears and roebuck reed/chord organ. From that I moved on to a red farfisa organ. Some old guys heard what I was trying to do and took me to a nghtclub,sat me behind what to me was a giant church organ and said “turn it on”.

I will never forget that day. It was my first b3 and I was 12. A few years later I scored an m3 that I absolutely adored and gigged with for many years. I also never in life could afford  fender Rhodes electric Piano but recently was GIVEN a MK II 88 that I am now restoring. Eventually it will be my next love story  but right now it’s beat to  hell so the verdict is still out. Meanwhile making good use of a yammi reface cp. and iOS is a wonder. For so  much less I now have hundreds of virtual synths that I could never afford in the real world. 

 

[Nathanael_I]

Pretty much everything musical that I now own.  I wasn’t blessed with childhood music lessons. I saw my first synths: SY77, Ensoniq, Korg  M1 as I was leaving for college. Instant desire and machined from pure unobtainium.  When I joined the military I saved every penny for months and ordered a 61-note Korg 01/Wfd. I didn’t know about NAMM and two weeks later the Triton came out. I used that O1/W for years.  I learned a lot on it. 
 

My grandfather gave me my first piano; a Hamilton (Baldwin) baby grand. I later paid for it to be fully rebuilt. Now 25 years later, I have a dream studio. Filled with sonic excellence and rare and special things from around the world. It was all dreamed about for years, assembled slowly over time. 
 

The Stuart and Sons concert grand piano I’m waiting for started as a dream over a decade ago - think 13 years ago, and it was the best recorded piano sound I’d ever heard. Again, pure unobtanium at the time and until just a year ago. 
 

so I don’t really have any other story than long held desire, hard work, and much later, acquisition. I wouldn’t have even known this stuff existed at twenty, much less what to do with it - which I tell to the young musicians who walk in and are blown away. I tell them, they don’t need any of this. They get it. It’s a blessing, yes. It’s also a season of life thing… some things take some life and financial maturity to go along with the dream. 

[SamuelBLupowitz]

In the early aughts, my first years of dedicating myself to music, I lusted after the exotic-seeming instruments that my heroes from the 60s and 70s played. I remember staring at pictures of giant keyboards and beautiful string instruments that seemed totally unobtainable for a 13-year-old in semi-rural Pennsylvania in 2002.

 

Now, in my adulthood, I have the Hammond and Leslie, the clavinet, the Wurlitzer, the bass pedals. So I guess all I’m still holding out for is the baby grand piano (white if possible). And the Rickenbacker bass. And maybe an Ampeg B15 to play it through…

[analogika]

I wanted a Memorymoog for 19 years before I finally had it at home. 

[Stokely]

After starting to use sequencers in the late 80s (Performer, Vision) I dreamed about one day having the sounds and effects actually in the computer.  I stopped doing music for years only to realize sometime in the early 2000s that this was actually being done.  It blew my mind.  I went in the box and never looked back for home studio use.  I have more "keyboards" than I could have dreamed of, for relative peanuts, and convenience factor 10000.   My two dream keyboards from the 80s were the Prophet and some model of Oberheim (OB8, OBXa etc) and software can get me most of the way there.  I can't deny that the OBX8 seems incredible but at home I just don't want to go back to cabling up external devices. 

Hardware-wise (for live shows), I have been wanting a nord stage (2, then 3) for many years and have ended up buying "almost there" keyboards that I haven't been happy with.  I finally picked one up (from forum member cphollis) and it's everything I knew from my Electro 6 with a great synth engine.  Should have done this years ago and saved myself the hassle of buying/selling things that didn't quite meet my needs.   I feel equipped to go into most gigs with one keyboard now, and have been thinking of adding a completely-unnecessary Behringer vocoder (vc340) as a 2nd keyboard--because it would be fun as hell!  I'm quite literally going through our song list checking off which songs I could get away with using vocoder/string synth on and which ones where it wouldn't make sense  

 

[Threadslayer]

On 5/13/2023 at 3:57 PM, CEB said:

I wanted a Jupiter- 8 when it was new … really bad.   But, I couldn’t afford it.   
 

I still can’t afford it. 😀

I wanted a * when it was new … really bad.   But, I couldn’t afford it.   

* Prophet 5, Jupiter 8, Oberheim 8-voice, Minimoog, Clavinet D6 ...

  I still can’t afford it.

 

[CEB]

4 hours ago, analogika said:

I wanted a Memorymoog for 19 years before I finally had it at home. 

Those 18 oscillators in unison mode are the ultimate shredding machine and … As Moe once reminded us. Those 18 Oscillators can heat our houses in the winter 🥶.  😃

[Outkaster]

I always wanted a Hammond B-3 Console.  I finally got one at 52 years old.  I have to say the aura of the whole thing has worn off.  I wised I had got one during HS.  It might be different now.

[analogika]

30 minutes ago, CEB said:

Those 18 oscillators in unison mode are the ultimate shredding machine and … As Moe once reminded us. Those 18 Oscillators can heat our houses in the winter 🥶.  😃

 

The quote that first got me hooked was from someone on the analogue heaven mailing list, who wrote "Hearing those 18 oscillators on a single note in unison mode on studio speakers is a near-religious experience", or words to that effect, back in the late 90s.

My only synths at the time were a Prodigy, the SY77 I'd bought new when I graduated in 1991, and the Casio VL1 I got as a gift when I was eight. 

 

He wasn't wrong. But a split-mode arpeggiator in stereo on the Lintronics Advanced Memorymoog is more than that. 

[RABid]

I always wanted a NICE wooden drum set. I had a Ludwig Vistalite and those clear plastic shells were very hard to get a good sound out of. Had a white Pearl (in my profile picture) set that was lined with fiberglass to increase sound throw. But still, I wanted a nice, pure, wooden set. When I retired I started looking and found a Doc Sweeney set on Ebay, a floor model for half price. Half price put it in the upper limit of my price range and I grabbed it. With no tom mount on the bass drum it is a little hard to arrange the way I like. Note, they are not arranged for playing in this picture. This is a myrtle wood with walnut inlay. I also have a DW Performance Series 15 piece kit, 2 bass drums, 3 flor toms, 8 mounted toms and 2 snares. It got bumped to the garage when I got this set.