What is your favorite analogue synth/keyboard?

[Poita]

As a spinoff from the learning piano thread, it seems we have a lot of old keyboard lovers. What do you all have hiding in your cupboards, or still gig with when it comes to tickling the ivories?

[kustard]

My first keyboard was a Casiotone 501, not a synth but it did have a barcode reader so you could program in songs and it would play them for you and you could follow the notes and learn the songs.

I then bought a Korg Poly 800 (Series I) when I was 16 which was great fun to play with and lasted for about 10 years when the magical smoke was released after a relative (who shall remain nameless) lost the plug pack and plugged the wrong supply into it, fried everything on the board...

About 2004 I bought a second hand Korg Triton LE which has some really amazing sounds and pads but I have never gotten around to fully using it, my daughter now uses it to learn piano on :)

[Satchmo]

I'm a fan of early 80's Roland synths. Also have a few Novation gear thats getting kind of vintage.

Roland Juno 106
Roland Sh-2
Roland SH 101
Roland SH 202 Microcomposer
Roland TR 606 Drums
Roland 707 Drums

Novation Bass- station synth
Novation Bass- station rack mount
Novation Drumstation rack mount

Its all in storage now but I dust various pieces off occasionally and give them a whirl .

[Omaroo]

At the moment I have a strange lusting for a Doepfer A-100 BS2. A very different sound to the Moog.

[Omaroo]

A favourite analogue synth doesn't necessarily need a keyboard, so here's the Phatty being dealt a blow from the Doepfer sequencer, and for good measure so is Logic 9 simultaneously on the Mac Mini running the GarageBand Rock Kit.

Good fun. I do like the Phattys.

Here's a sample from this afternoon's fun while I'm learning the ins and outs of the Doepfer Dark Time analog sequencer. Got to say it's a blast compared to software sequencers.

Here's a quick video of it driving both my SP and a soft drum kit running under Logic 9 on my Mac Mini after just a few minutes getting acquainted. It's a really, really nice bit of kit. Can't wait to figure it out properly.

Not musical, just a bit of fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCdCL2jlat4

Three minutes' work - simple-as. As I mentioned, not particularly musical, but great fun getting to know the machine nevertheless:

http://www.omaroo.com/music/DoepferDarkTime_MoogSlimPhatty_1.mp 3

http://soundcloud.com/omaroo/doepferdarktime-moogslimphatty

[irwjager]

I grew up in the post-analog world, so my gear was mostly digital.
I owned a Yamaha CS01 and Suzuki SX500 which were sort-of-analog, but strictly speaking these are equipped with DCOs instead of VCOs so the purists may not be that impressed - they lack that warm 'driftiness'. The CS01 can still sound extremely 'fat' and still blows away anything emulated I've tried since (unless recorded/sampled).

The filters in the CS01 and SX500 were properly analog though. I modified those so they could get close to that oversteering/screaming TB-303 stuff that was so popular in the 90s.

From here, if you're not into digital stuff, you may want to skip to the next post :P

I owned a whole heap of digital gear, but funnily enough, the ones that really stuck with me were the more affordable boards;


Yamaha CS1x; essentially a QS300 with extra waveforms. XG compatible, very versatile and those knobs just beg to be tweaked. First synth I bought new and, for what it did at the time, it was great value for money. I used it heaps.
Kawai K1m; The table top version of the K1. I've never heard these sounds anywhere else since. Incredibly airy pads, ominous bells. This thing was incredibly simple hardware wise; 8-bit waveforms, it lacked an effects section and even filters. Yet the sounds were out of this world.
Yamaha DJX. Don't laugh. It was marketed as a toy keyboard for wannabe techno-artists late 90s. It certainly looks like a toy. I picked one up a few years ago for a song (no pun intended). I was intrigued by its mild 'cult status' standing. The thing is, apart from my current Korg M3's Karma section, it has inspired more tracks than anything else. It just oozes fun. It's actually also a very capable MIDI controller.
Casio SK-1. 1.25 seconds of sampling RAM. 8Khz. Awesome. Hook it up to the TV or FM-radio and start sampling. Play them in a loop at different octaves and bang! you got yourself a freaky soundscape. Or sonic mess.

Virtual analog just never really did it for me. I owned a Korg Z1 and while interesting, I all sounded too clean and perfect for me. I owned a Yamaha CS6r with AN board and found the same thing. I also owned a Yamaha EX5r which came with the same AN capability built-in, but, again found it lacking.