Do you really need a vintage synth?

[Neal G]

I am fortunate to have a P5 but unfortunate in that it has been broken since 1990. A brief bang and puff of smoke as the power supply gave in. I paid £750 back then in old money and I can't count the number of times I have thought about restoration. I think as time has gone on the size of the repair has probably escalated with lots of deteriorating capacitors. Today I still only use hardware but reliable virtual analogs, twenty year old samplers and hardware sequencing (yes a bit stone age). I have even managed to get P5 sounds (or similar off a Novation synth). I sold a Moog I had about ten years ago ( )but not sure I miss it for the sound - just the thought of having it. Do we really need the hassle of some of these old synths and can someone give me a good reason to get the P5 fixed!

[fatbenelton]

I love vintage hardware but it's a personal thing and the truth is I probably don't need 'em all but I like them. VA's, software etc are all fantastic tools and will help you make music. Hardware is a bit more tactile and sometimes the 'mojo' of having old stuff may help you 'feel' more creative.................In a lab/bench test I'm sure we could determine that old hardware is 'warmer' etc etc but the truth is I enjoy owning all the stuff I lusted after when I was a kid and that connection with the gear is the tenuous thing that is hard to define but an important factor to all us hardware fanatics.........If you enjoy using the gear, you spend more time with it, you get to know it inside out, you are more creative. The same could apply to software but if you don't connect with it......

Now, to the other question.........Send the P5 to James Walker at Synth Repair Services, budget £200-400 to get it fixed and then sell it for £2000-£3000 - sounds like a decent reason to me!

[forumuser695516]

With so many new analog synths around today to choose from, im hard pushed to think of a reason to go for any of the old temperamental gear.
Yes, some of the old kit has classic status. But unless you collect gear, rather than use it, then I much prefer to discover new things from new synths, than just rehash what synths of yesteryear have already done.
I guess the exception for me is the 303.. But without flogging the dead horse again, a self built clone (x0xb0x) does me just fine for my 303 needs. However, even that proves much the same point, there are some very good clones, so no need to pay the frankly daft prices the originals now go for.

[Chaconne]

I agree pretty much with Fatbenelton on the reasons why...no need to go round this one again.

And its true that buying new is easy enough...

Except the for polysynths. There are some great polys that people still love, Juno 6 / 60 / Matrix 6 / 1000 etc, it is a shame there are no modern equivalents of these about. Simple 1 VCO 6 voice poly's - or a bit more choice at the top end if you dont like DSI's.

[baward]

I have way too much software!

[ken long]

the truth is I enjoy owning all the stuff I lusted after when I was a kid and that connection with the gear is the tenuous thing that is hard to define

Exactly that.

[deepblueaudio]

I must agree with fatben, fix it, sell it and buy new(or newish). If you haven't already checked out the DSI Evolover synth, do it. I currently have a monoEvolver desktop and will add a keyboard when money permits. Additionally you have the, Alesis Andromeda, Studio Electronics SE-1X and CODE, Oberheim Son of 4 Voice, Moog Voyager.... the list goes on. If I had enough coin and could actually find one I would LOVE a JoMox SunSyn...dream machine.

[hollowsun]

There was a 'Sounding Off' about this very thing a year or two ago.

The allure of these old things has long gone here and as much as I would LOVE a VCS3 or Synthi-A which I cut my teeth on as a 14-year-old in the early 70s when they cost just £330 (the VCS3/Synthi-A, not my teeth), it would be f'k'n INSANE to pay the s/h prices they command now. It would be purely and utterly for nostalgia's sake and to just look at with a warm glow of affection.

And even buying a 'new' one is unfeasible - £3,500 and an 18 month waiting list? I could build a monster Synths.com or Doepfer setup for that and whilst they might not be exactly the same, the difference is so negligible as to make no difference AND would have many, many more advantages.

But if the old gear floats your boat, that's fine by me. I'm waiting for my MKS70 to come back from the repairers. It's a mighty synth and that's fo' sho' but I'll be sampling the carp out of it and passing it on when I'm done! I'll likely be putting the proceeds towards a Synths.com modular for some serious action!

Actually, that's a good case in point...

A Moog 15 will (if you can find one) set you back about £10,000 or more...



It will quite possibly be squinky and unreliable.

Whereas this will cost you around £1,600...



It will come with a warranty!

No contest!

[jellyjim]

Need? No.

Want? Yes.

Well .. some. Within limits. I would never drop a few thousand pounds on a vintage synth as much as I'd like to. That could be 6 months rent/mortgage, a new car, a trip around the World, a month off work, clearing a personal loan or some such.

If I was feeling flush maybe I could justify £1000-£1500 on something interesting. I'd still love an original TR808 and I've always wanted a Korg MS20. Trouble is though for me when I spend that much it's very hard to justify keeping it when things get tough with money - as inevitably they do being self-employed.

Pay rent and eat or keep vintage synth? It's a no-brainer really.

[dubbmann]

here's a true story: in the early 1990s i was living in northern california, and a new acquaintance told me of an opportunity to buy the actual ARP 2500 that had been in 'close encounters of the third kind'. he had answered a newspaper ad and had found this monster, a full 2500 plus 3 extra bays and modules, being sold for $5000. it even had an engraved plate on the inside with alan pearlman's name (alan r. pearlman = ARP).

lacking the funds, he passed the opportunity on to another guy, who was amenable to selling it on for a tidy profit. at the time, i was skint, so i passed. although a small part of me wishes i had bought it, i knew then and know now that it would have cost me at least another $5000 (in 1990s money) just to get it in operating condition. every slide, every pot, every capacitor, every power supply represents a single point of failure. all in all, i've never regretted passing.

let's face it, these are toys which are wonderful if you can afford them but aren't essential to making music, which is what all of us are in this for. i've owned a bunch of less esoteric but still vintage gear (SCI T8 and VS, Memorymoog +, Yamaha CS60) and everytime i've switched one on there is that moment of dread when you fear it won't complete its power-up. all in all, a distraction to making tunes.

just my two cents,

d

[jellyjim]

Love the ARP story and it raises a good point. Some of these objects are becoming culturally and historically significant in their own right. I believe there is a Minimoog in The Smithsonian and it's certainly an object that should be remembered in 100 years time when we're all dead and gone!

[fatbenelton]

There was a post over in the Atari forum about an Atari ST and Akai sampler being on display in the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester!

[nathanscribe]

Hmm, looking at my pile of gear, the only synth that isn't vintage is the Liitle Phatty... though even I'm starting to have a clear-out now. Not so long ago I listed what I had in my under-stairs cupboard, and realised many people have made albums with less.

There's a kind of madness in acquisition sometimes. Someone told me "you'll GAS for everything till you've tried it", and that might be true. I've been lucky enough to own, borrow or just try out a fair amount of stuff, more than some, less than others - but I know if I had to go back to owning just my Juno 6 (bought in 1991), one mono, a sampler and a drum machine, I would probably make more music than I finish now.

That said, would I swap my old Juno for a Prophet08? No. I wouldn't swap my Rogue for an Evolver either (had one, sold it). Nothing wrong with the new kit at all, there's some fantastic stuff about, but personally I connect more with simpler things. The Evo was great but I never got my head round it all. That's also the problem with having lots of kit - time to get to know it all inside out. But even so, a panel of knobs and sliders that I can look at and tell what it's going to sound like is a big bonus for me. The old Juno is one of those things.

I don't think I've come across anything new that sounds like my old Roland stringer though.

[fay spook]

It is really useful to at least have had your hands on one to know what one can sound like and how much fun they are to use. Do you need to own one? Maybe not.

I've got older analogue (SH101, Axxe etc) and newer analogue (MFOS Ultimate). I use the Ultimate in some ways as it has more oscillators and filters etc as you get in a softsynth and I use the SH101 to get the great bass lines etc where a more simple sound is needed. Tweak both while you're recording and you will get some results quicker than you will with a mouse and automation. My Novation SL comes close but its a pig to set up- it doesnt even set up to the bundled Basstation very well,,,,,

[Neal G]

As has been commented on many, many times before, there is an important aspect of the look and feel of these old synths and how you interact with them. I remember first hearing a Minimoog live in a pub in Shoreditch, East London and just loved the sound - just had to have one. Fortunately at the time analog had just gone out of fashion and I picked one up in Rockstop Music on the Charing Cross road for £600. I remember at the time they also had a JP8 for about another £100..... At the time I also wanted to have a DX7 and a D50 which were also in vogue at the time but a bit beyond my budget. Whilst no doubt classic in their own kind of way when I eventually owned them the biggest disappointment was not the sound but the interface. Pushing buttons just isn't the same!! When my P5 blew up twenty years ago part way through a rehearsal it was like a death in the family . Even my mate who played guitar was more likely to twiddle and interact with the P5 than tackle programming on my old Korg M3R!

[jellyjim]

As has been commented on many, many times before, there is an important aspect of the look and feel of these old synths and how you interact with them. I remember first hearing a Minimoog live in a pub in Shoreditch, East London and just loved the sound - just had to have one. Fortunately at the time analog had just gone out of fashion and I picked one up in Rockstop Music on the Charing Cross road for £600. I remember at the time they also had a JP8 for about another £100..... At the time I also wanted to have a DX7 and a D50 which were also in vogue at the time but a bit beyond my budget. Whilst no doubt classic in their own kind of way when I eventually owned them the biggest disappointment was not the sound but the interface. Pushing buttons just isn't the same!! When my P5 blew up twenty years ago part way through a rehearsal it was like a death in the family . Even my mate who played guitar was more likely to twiddle and interact with the P5 than tackle programming on my old Korg M3R!

There's a theory that the best technology is transparent. That is to say we barely notice it's there. It is the absolute simplicity of older technology in general not just synthesisers that remains attractive. A lot of modern analogues are more complex and trade immediacy for function - the Moog Little Phatty is a good example. Fantastic sounding but not as immediate as a Minimoog. Of course it's a trade off and for any given individual there's a sweet-spot.

[tomafd]

Round here it's not necessarily the sound (tho that does come into it) - it's time, that defines whether I get a plug up or turn round and head for the old gear (Prophet VS, Voyager+ break out boxes, Korg MS20, MS50, Analogue Systems sequencer and controller) Yes, given an hour or two, I can probably get something a lot better out of the latter, but when the deadline is three hours away and I just need 'some kind of squelchy arp to give it flavour' then dialling up Omnisphere and whacking in the nearest suitable preset and giving it a tweak, often proves a lot quicker. If that works (well enough) then it'll just have to do- and make the difference between getting a better general mix (important) against a very subtle improvement in one line(not so important) That better mix might get me the job, if it's a pitch. A 'real' analogue synth line versus a digital one probably won't, in the end, by the time it's buried in the mix.

It's like turning on the hifi, finding the vinyl, giving it a wipe, carefully putting the needle down and then sitting in the sweet spot, versus heading for the ipod in it's crappy sounding 'dock'. A lot of-listeners- and a lot of our clients- can't hear the difference, or if they do, they don't care.

I just finished a bunch of mixes for a radio ident pitch- the most important consideration was 'how do they sound coming out of the iphone speaker', not coming out of the monitors .... (banging, as it happens. Let's hope they go for them ...)