Progressive electronic music in CGI video

http://arp2500.blogspot.co.uk/

I'm always fascinated by the early Moog and ARP modulars - they were so badly built. When you compare the electronics in this with modern electronics, it's quite amazing that they worked at all. 

Those who have no idea what they're talking about will say "that's what makes them sound so good" and ah ah no, it's frankly not. If you're trying to get enough voltage at one point on the PCB to get something to work properly or even reasonably, and you're using badly toleranced resistors and leaky electrolytic capacitors, the "charm" of using bad old components soon wears off. 

Moogs from the same period look similarly thrown together, unsurprisingly. A lot of components would have to be hand tested to see if they were in reasonable tolerances. Replicating the same technology today using modern versions of old components, it's a lot less work. I can be fairly sure that what I build now is going to work. 

Mind you, I did confuse two Schmitt inverting trigger chips for TL074 op amps recently in a Timbre generator, which lead to a lot of white smoke and curses and the multimeter coming out. All sorted now. ;-)

By the way, when I mentioned how it was difficult to sell a Mini Moog for around $500 in 1989, just think: that same price (I mean $500 in current day money, not inflation adjusted) in this day and age can only get you a Yamaha DX-7, or any other similar 1980s digital synths.

It was around 1993 that I started learning more about analog keyboards (also where I started getting exposed to lesser known prog acts), and between 1993 and 1995 I was able to acquire a couple of analog keyboards, the ARP Omni-2 and ARP Solus, both for around $400 each. The big shock: I purchased a non-working ARP 2600 for just $30 in 1995, you read right, $30. It was the 1974-76 version, where the keyboard gives you duophonic capabilities if you plug a patch cord from the keyboard to one of the oscillators. Anyways, I sent it in to be repaired, I only had a $300 budget, and had it returned to me mostly working, but it still didn't transmit in stereo, and the pre-amp still didn't work, but I loved getting those classic analog sounds. It even had book with various patches, one of them being Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein", it was such a trip that I was able to recreate that synth sound effect heard in a classic rock song! So I was able to acquire some vintage synths in the 1990s with not a lot of money (the only real granddaddy being the ARP 2600), but in this day and age, that would be totally out of the question. I still have them with me, unfortunately in storage, because I live in a duplex where there's no space to put them in. To see what vintage keyboards go these days is just plain insane. It reminds me how many of these rare and obscure prog LPs are going for insane prices, like the UK swirl Vertigo LPs, for example, the Gentle Giant LPs regularly going for at least $200 (but unbelievably, I acquired a UK swirl original of Acquiring the Taste just very recently, in 2015, for only $20! It's all playable, no skips, just the usual wear and tear, and someone writing an "X" on the cover), of course that's nothing compared to some of the Italian prog LPs, like an original Italian pressing of Museo Rosenbach's Zarathustra, heaven forbid an original of Cherry Five. It's almost impossible to find the Gentle Giant LP I mentioned for $20, maybe a later US pressing on the spaceship label, but definitely NOT the UK swirl original, which is the big reason for the shock.

Money in pocket. Sat next to a rack of Rickenbacker basses, which no one wanted. Picked a few up, messed about - usual neck problems with Rickys, thought, naaaa. Went home.

That was my last chance to buy a 4001 or 4003. ;-)