I’m a musician/photographer/software developer. You shouldn’t need any additional info to diagnose my attention deficit disorder. This blog is to chronicle my quest to escape the ghast mediocrity I currently find myself in.

So lets talk about synthesizers but first, my Kanye moment.

<kanye>My mayonnaise hued trinity of the Virus TI Polar, Waldorf Blofeld, Korg m3( w/ radias exb) is the bestest ever setup. It will be remembered as the setup of a generation. Kurzweil doesn’t like black people.</kanye>.

This isn’t safe sex with your wife, this is a bloody sunday orgy if you ask me. Did I say how hard this collection makes me?

The not so holy trinity is complemented by Logic 8, N.I Komplete, Kore 2, Korg Legacy Bundle, Arturia Analog Factory & Prophet V. As you would imagine, the plugins don’t get much use lately.

In the next couple of days, I’ll be posting pretty extensive reviews of all 3 synths. My good friend refers to the blofeld as a poor man’s Virus but I think the little German kitten has some tricks up her sleeve that would melt the T.I snow. I guess a Virus, Blofeld, Radias shootout is in order so prepare for some white on white crime.

Read my reviews knowing that my perspective has been shaped by past dalliances with …

ALESIS:

• Micron – Gr8 sounding but the Blofeld covered a lot of the same ground.
• QS6 – This had a Wurly that I really loved. I traded this in towards a Nord Lead

CLAVIA

• Nord Lead – This synth was the San Grail to me for quite a long time. I remember walking into Turnkey’s in London during the Chronic/Doggystyle era and being blown away because I could play those Dr Dre synth leads. Plus the nord looks sexy as hell. When I finally got one years later, I didn’t do much with it. I was disappointed by the lack of effects and strangely enough, I didn’t really program it much. Must have been the first synth I sold on eBay. I remember dropping it of to the guy that won the auction at an Ikea parking lot. Hmm what did I do with the money? Dime bars, dime bars, lindenberry sauce over meat balls biatch.

KORG

• Triton Classic/Extreme w/MOSS – Classic -> Extreme -> M3
• Z1 – Replaced with MOSS, I miss some features but I generally don’t care for physical modelling
• MS-2000 – Loved it but I wasn’t much of a programmer when I had it so let it go.

E-MU

• E6400 Ultra – This is the first sampler/synth that got me programming. Loved the Z filter and the simple modulation matrix. Who uses hardware samplers any more? Replaced by Kontakt 3. Kontakt doesn’t have a replacement for all the Z filters but makes up for it with a lot more.
• Proteus 2000 - I went gaga for this when it first came out. EP Roller, Wormy Lead, Guitar sound D’angelo and Sean Paul used. It was also the first synth I used that had an audition feature. I didn’t really program it.
• ESI-4000 -Another cool sampler. For me, the E-mu samplers always played Mac to Akais PC.
• MP7 Command Station – Cool sequencer with a gang of knobs. Great combo with the 6400 but there is something about emu presets that make them grow old so fast.

YAMAHA

• Motif ES-Not the most intuitive interface but the best sounding rompler I’ve owned. Synth architecture was nothing to sniff at though but I never really programmed it. At one point, it was cheaper to buy the AN200 & DX200 loopfactory groove boxes than it was to buy the PLG expansion boards so I bought the pair ad transplanted the PLG boards to the Motif. The boards sounded great but the interface was not happening
• A4000 – Another great sampler but with a quirky program/zone/sample hierarchy. Great efx really cool interface with some intuitive shortcuts.
• Rmx-1 – This unit was the bomb. So simple with flash memory and so immediate. Brilliant combo with the E6400. I sampled a single note of the Subsonic bass patch from this bad boy and I still use it today in Kontakt.
• RS7000 – A combination of the Rmx-1 and the Motif. Not too shabby. Dope grid record mode(Head banger, head banger. EPMD).
• FB01, TX81Z – Yamaha FM crap boxes. Decent bass but definitely a crack head move on my part to pick those up. Great for those early 90′s swing beat sounds though.
• PSR *** – I don’t remember the exact model number but it had a built in sequencer, drum pads and an orange lcd. Got this from the music store on Cold Habour lane in Brixton way back in the day. The dudes in there were so old school. They referred to sound modules as “expanders”. Thats the same store that had the Alesis SR16 in the window.

ROLAND

• VP-9000 – Interesting unit but I’m not really into loops plus the way I trigger my samples when I do hip-hop doesn’t really require time stretching. That is one of the few limitations that yields creative results I think.
• MV-8000 – Wonderful beatbox. Head and shoulders above MPC 1k, 2k, 2500. Wonderful feeling pads, very quick workflow with nothing more than a couple of button presses away.

In the end, what matters is the music and this journey through programming, is really just another way to find a distinct voice. I’ve been procrastinating for a decade partly because I only wanted to be a producer rather than an an artist but now I feel like I have a great album or 2 within me .

I’ll keep you posted on that as well. The alias is Alternegro and the working title is Chupacabra’s Revenge.