Synth Gear

I've never considered myself a "gear head" - one who is obsessed with the makes and models of musical equipment that one owns, or longs to own.  Much like my feeling about cars, as long as I have something that will do what I want it to do, I'm pretty happy.  I wanted to document the various keyboards and pieces of electronic music equipment I've used throughout the years, but I haven't kept meticulous records of the makes and models, so this could be interesting!

Casio MT-100

This was my first keyboard ever.  I received it as a birthday gift from my parents and boy was I happy!  I had already been taking piano lessons, after my dad bought a second hand piano which was housed in our laundry room / my sister's bedroom, which was unfortunate for her that she had to deal with the sounds of the washing machine, the dryer, and my amateur ivory tickling.  But this being the MTV age, it was all about electronic keyboards for me, so I just HAD to have my own!  This one was pretty cheesy, something I knew even back then, and it would never have produced tones similar to Duran Duran and the Thompson Twins, which frustrated me to no end.  One thing it WAS good for was coming up with cheesy pre-set beats that I could add melodies on top of for our "TV station", UBC, which we ran out of our basement.  It was great for opening credits, news bites, and movie soundtracks for our little productions.  I ended up selling this keyboard at a garage sale in high school after I had gotten a better keyboard.  Unfortunately, I don't remember anything about the second keyboard I had.  I think it was a Yamaha PRS something or other, but I may be confusing that with one my friend Denny had given me (he gave me two of his old keyboards back in 2002).

Oberheim Eclipse

This was my first "real" keyboard, which I purchased after graduation using money family had given to me for this purpose (many thanks to my Uncle Ronnie who was very generous with this).  This was a great keyboard, but at the time there were a couple things I didn't like about it.  First, it was built into a road case, which would have been great for a touring musician, but at this point in my life I hadn't ever played a gig at all, and I thought it looked silly that it was build into the case.  Also, it either didn't have it's own sounds, or it only had a few, I can't remember.  I was supposed to use this keyboard to rehearse in college, but we had piano studios on campus that I preferred anyway, and I didn't have much room in my dorm.  Finally, around 1996, my brother and I formed our first band so this baby finally got to see some real action!  However, being that I was the "synth drummer," the action it saw was mainly just on the left hand when I hooked it up to a drum module and would use a few fingers to tap out a beat.  Later, this was the first keyboard I used in Shitting Glitter, but it was very quickly stolen from my (unlocked) car from a (locked) parking garage underneath Amy's apartment, just above Sunset Blvd., a block away from the Viper Room.

Alesis DM5

As I mentioned, in my first band, Singe, I was initially the "drummer," and I had set out trying to build an electronic drum kit.  My idea was to use frisbee discs, since disc golf was a big thing for my friends and I at the time and they were in abundance.  I was going to attach these electronic triggers to the backs of the frisbees and hook them up to this drum module.  I had ordered the triggers at my local Radio Shack, and paid for them, but they never showed up and I don't think I was ever able to get my money back either.  Anyway, I gave up that idea and decided just to hook this up to the Oberheim (I also used my parent's electronic piano sometimes).  There are so many great drum sounds in this thing, and I still have it today... I think.

Optimus Concertmate 990

Even though I still had the bulky Oberheim above, once we really got rolling in Singe, I was able to play keyboards with my right hand while tapping out the beat with my left, and I wanted more sounds to experiment with.  However, being on a tight budget, I couldn't afford much so I drove to Manhattan, Kansas (the little apple!) and bought this very lightweight piece of plastic.  Even though it was cheap, it had patches that I liked and fit into the Singe sound, and it was very easy to transport because it was so lightweight.  I have actually held on to this keyboard for some reason, and today it's stored in my brother's garage.

Me jamming out on the Concertmate

Roland MC-303 Groovebox

This one makes me sad.  It was a time when I had more money than I had skill or patience (very rare!)  I bought this in college while Brandon and I were living together on 4th Street in Hays and I was SO excited when the delivery man came to the front door! I believe I took the rest of the day off to fiddle around with it.  So much power in my hands, but yet I without the knowledge or the focus to be able to harness it!  This was supposed to help us in Singe, as we transitioned into Plaything, as there was some thought to just programming bass and drums, and then eventually we got a drummer and we were going to use this for bass sounds.  I just didn't "get" how it worked, and could never get it to do what I wanted.  It was great for the preset beats though, and we used those to full effect on the few D-Bag (my rapping alter-ego at the time) tracks like "Hootieville" and "Do the D-Bag".  After awhile, I was able to work up a decent program for an electro version of "The Hole," which had become my favorite Singe/Plaything composition, but by then it was too late... the band broke up, and Brandon and I moved to California.  I used this a couple of times in rehearsal for Shitting Glitter, solely as a sound module, and then it was stolen from my car along with the Oberheim, as mentioned above.

General Music SX2

Ugh.  This one was a beast!  After my Oberheim was stolen, I had no other keyboards with me at the moment, as Brandon was back in Kansas City using my Concertmate for his S No S albums.  My parents kindly sent me a little cash, so I could go to Black Market Music (a used instrument store that used to be on LaCienega) and buy this monster.  It was SO heavy!!!  The body was all metal and I never even got a case for it because it already weighed so much.  It was almost indecipherable to understand how to program it, and even calling up the preset patches was no easy task.  But, for a while, it worked.  The only thing I ever preferred about this keyboard to any other, was that the piano sound was pretty nice.  I used it later on Shitting Glitter's "Incomparable White Six" single for the acoustic version of that song, and also on "The Amnesty Party," the closing track of our seminal album "Free Alongside Ship."  Later, when our friends Vertigo Venus came to California on tour, their keyboardist Jeff was left without a keyboard somehow (his either stopped working or was stolen) so I gave him this one.

Roland RS-5

Oh baby! This one was love at first sight, and we've had a great relationship since then! I just couldn't bare to keep hauling the General Music around.  If memory serves, I had a scare with it, where it wouldn't power up, and it freaked me out.  Even though it started working again shortly after, I had already resolved to get a new, more modern sounding keyboard, one that I would really be happy with and use for years and years. I've always had a thing for Roland, but so far all I could get was the MC-303, which as you know by now, was stolen. So once I knew I wanted a new synth, I looked up the current models of Rolands and saw this one, with the brushed aluminum face and the orange LED display.  It just seemed perfect! I went to Guitar Center to test it out, and determined it was "the one." Luckily, one of my band members helped me out by buying it for me on credit and then allowing me to pay them back. I feel just awful but I can't remember now whether it was Amy or Denny. A lot of this time period is hazy in my memory! As I said, I still use this keyboard to this day.  There was one scare I had where I thought it was no longer working.  I think it may have been an issue with the power chord, or it might have been the amp I was using, I just know that it resolved very quickly and I haven't had any other problems with it.  

Sometime after I bought this is when Denny, who was very briefly the bass player in Shitting Glitter, gave me two of his old keyboards, which were similar to the Casio and Concertmate above.  One was kinda cool and had cheesy preset beats that we used for a couple of SG songs (including "Man in the Meantime") but that got stolen from my car trunk.  The other one was less useful, but was notable for the (alleged) fact that actor Kevin Kline used it, I think for the movie Wild Wild West, to prepare for a piano-playing scene.  Eventually I had to get rid of that keyboard for space issues, since I didn't use it at all.

Roland AX-7

I almost didn't include this one because I almost cry just thinking about it.  This was my first keytar, one I wanted so badly, and was a gift from my partner Dylan.  An extremely expensive and thoughtful gift that I didn't feel I deserved.  This was the same keytar my idols, The Human League, used in their live shows, and I felt like I had superpowers whenever I strapped it on.  Sadly, I only got to use it for a few gigs before I accidentally either left it at a bar we played at called Studio Suite, in Valley Village, or possibly I had put it in my car and later forgot to lock it or something, because a few days after that gig I noticed it was gone.  I looked everywhere for it - tore the house apart, emptied out my car, called the bar, contacted the promoter - it was just gone.  It made me incredibly sad and angry at myself for not taking better care of it.  To this day I can't think about it without getting really upset.

Korg Electribe ESX-1

Now again, this is where I start feeling like I'm in the big time! It's also the moment where I learned that half of figuring out new technology, is determining what you want it to do. This was a machine similar to the MC-303 above, but this time I got it.  I could envision the parts of the song, how I could use this machine to program and sequence them, and best of all, it could sample! I used lots of the pre-sampled sounds already loaded on to the ESX-1, but I also sampled things: old keyboards, computer noises; vocals. This lead to a whole new way of working for me.  Previously in Shitting Glitter, I had been tasked with doing things I didn't know how to do: programming a drum machine, multitrack recording on a 4-track tape recorder, and now making the background beats.  But this time I had more practical musical knowledge and more focus to get things done.  Brandon also knew how to work it, and together we programmed some songs and then I started doing my own new songs.  Some of the songs that came about either completely with the ESX-1 or for the most part, included "Incomparable White Six" and "Static Cling" and later "The Apple Falls" and "19th & Lexington". I remember being extremely proud of my program for "Slut Buffet" which included sample of this little purple stuffed bag, a "horn bag", who said little phrases when you would squeeze him.  For example, he would say "I'm feelin' really horny." Which of course became the opening of "Slut Buffet".  Some of the wackier programs we came up with really had to be tamed down and rounded our musically by Hoagie Hill at Seamonster Sounds when we were recording Open for Business (which was at the time called Food Drinks Music).  Those included "Socially Activist" and "Treasure Good Things".  I've continued to use it occasionally in Devin Tait & The Traitors because the rather limited amount of tracks you can use and the way you have to sequence songs fairly simply makes it easy to play with live because you can hear the individually parts easier than you can hear an MP3 or a fully mixed backing track.

Casio Privia PX-310

This is a real moment of growing up for me.  Despite my fascination with technology and synthesizers, it becomes apparent that I need a "piano" that I can sit at, tinker on, and improve as a musician.  Having keyboards when you live in apartments is theoretically great because you can jam out with headphones whenever, but the reality is, that unless you have a place at home where you know you can always sit down and start playing, it's easy to just let the keyboards sit in their bags in the closet and not practice.  I bought this keyboard right around the same time I bought my iMac, using money I made delivering groceries outside of my normal 9-5 job.  Both this piano and the computer were highly transformative for me as a musician, making it possible to do bigger and better things than I had done before.  It was so great to be able to have a full size "piano" in my apartment that I could just sit at and practice anytime I wanted to - with or without headphones.  This is how I ultimately ended up writing several of the songs on my first album, first composing on the piano and then hashing it out on the computer using Garageband.  I worked up an acoustic set which I played at my first ever solo gig, on this electric piano, at The Palms in West Hollywood in 2010.

Roland Phrase Lab MC-09

Yuck.  This was a craigslist find gone wrong!  I thought it would be a great way to incorporate new sounds (I think I got it with the intention of primarily using it as a sound module for the AX-7) and maybe even create some cool patterns or sequences for new songs.  Unfortunately, this was another piece of equipment that I found impossible to learn how to program.  Even just simple things seemed beyond my comprehension.  I was used to the ESX-1 (above) and this was an older machine that was far less intuitive.  I made a goal to at least program one new SG song with it, but that never came to fruition.  In fact, the only thing this ever proved useful for was making weird noises on "Socially Activist" - most of which ended up being buried in the mix or completely left out of the finished studio version of the song anyway.  I still have this thing packed away somewhere.

Yamaha SY-22

At this point, it becomes a bit obvious that I have what my partner Dylan describes as a "keyboard hoarding" problem.  I obviously didn't need another keyboard at this point; I estimate I already owned around 4 already at this point.  But, my friend Hoagie had seen the full-size version of this keyboard for sale on Craiglist, and knowing that I had enjoyed noodling around on this one, asked if I wouldn't mind picking up the larger one (perhaps an SY-99?) for him.  In exchange for getting the new one for him, he would give me his SY-22.  I obliged, because the SY-22 has a really cool vector control joystick that you can see in the top left of the keyboard, which makes for really trippy sounds. The on-board patches aren't that great and I haven't used it for much recording wise.  The only song I can think of that I used it extensively on is "Man vs. Nature," a b-side on my first solo single, "Alien Nation".  It now serves as the default keyboard at Turbo Sunshine's rehearsal studios.

Alesis Micron

This is a pretty sweet keyboard, huh?  I first started wanting one after I saw my friend Melissa's.  The pitch bend wheel lights up red as you turn it!  I knew I wouldn't be able to afford an actual analog synthesizer anytime soon, but this is an analog modeling synth, as close as you can get to the real thing, and it also sequences and plays back patterns which makes it really cool for live gigs when there are complicated synth parts that I need to play while also singing.  You can hold down a button and it will play a whole phrase that you've pre-recorded.  I began using this immediately for Traitors gigs as it's so handy for it's compact size and great on-board sounds.  Once Jarod joined the Traitors, I set it up for him to play.  I also use this often in Turbo Sunshine. I bought it from a guy on Craigslist for way under the market price.

Roland Lucina

After the disappearance of the AX-7, I desperately wanted another keytar but didn't have the money for one, and also feared losing another one.  Eventually, I really needed one in the Traitors, because as the front man I needed to be able to move around and not be anchored behind a keyboard stand. Having little funds and even less faith in my ability to not lose a keytar, I ended up buying a very cheap ($20) toy that would suffice after I read that one generation of the keytar for the game Rock Band (specifically Rock Band 3) was MIDI-capable.  I bedazzled it with rhinestones and used it for many gigs, actually, but it was very limited being only 2 octaves and really not designed for complicated playing.  So when I heard about the Roland Lucina... I knew one day she would be mine! I had to wait for the price to come down and my available funds to go up, but finally at the beginning of 2014 I was able to turn dreams into a reality and purchase my very own, brand new, black sparkle Lucina!  I treat this one like a baby, never letting it too far out of my sight, because I am NOT going to lose this one!  My fondest memory with this baby so far is the 2014 LA Marathon where we played to hundreds of runners as they sped past us, many of them seemingly impressed with my keytar skills! I love my Lucina!

So, there you have the bulk of my musical equipment that I've owned over the years.  I've left out the non-electronic instruments like my oboe, flutes, melodica, drum kit, etc., and I may have even forgotten a keyboard (in addition to my second one, the Yamaha or whatever it was), but these have been the main tools of my trade.  I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed taking this trip down memory lane.