What was your first piece of gear?

[schoolbabyboy]

i was a young boy, probably 12 or so when i asked my parents for a microkorg xl. bless their souls, they got it for me (maybe with hopes that i would pick up piano again) and of course i was too young and impatient to actually learn how to use it. ended up selling it.

then maybe six or so years later, after a couple years of dinking in Ableton, i bought a PO-33 from Patchwerks’ original tiny location here in Seattle and got hooked from there. still a sampler boy through n through ten years later

[CCMP]

Synth-wise, a Yamaha PSS-480, Xmas 1988.

Guitar-wise, a Digitech RP-1, birthday 1992 (I had a guitar earlier, but this was my first piece of ‘gear’).

[error.eyes]

Ooh, I had the RP-10! Nice.

[Matmcr]

[ramcmdr]

Earliest recording thingy

First software

First hardware

First Elektron

[Uija]

First music gear was a guitar. First gear I started to make electronic music with, was an Amiga 500 with a Sampler-Adapter early 90th.
Then came no hardware other than a midi keyboard, first Cubase, later Logic for ages, and when I started to really dig into electronic music, I bought a Digitakt.

[berlin]

BOSS SP FUCKING 303 !!!

I made that shit bleed for many years. It was awesome and i’m sure still kinda is.

I sold it to fund other gear. Regreting it ever since…

[shigginpit]

we used to use this one on playstation back in the day, I assume it’s a rebranding of the same game/software.

[waftlord]

what a beast! wish i hadn’t circuit bent it to death!

Elektronauts Hiphop Beat Battle #15: Into The Sunset— Morricone edition

[shigginpit]

I still have a pss-140 that I use on a regular basis just to figure out melodies in polyphony without using octave up/down on elektron trigs. I keep thinking about buying one of the midi retrofit kits but like you say, I don’t want to mess with it too much especially since I got it in the 90’s and it’s still working.

[swanage_fan]

my first bit of gear was a Yamaha PSS-51, i was suckered in, believing it to be a synth because it offered “vector synthesis” which was actually a joystick that let you crossfade between the different PCM pianos, marimbas, and pipe organs. was a bit disillusioned but sold it and got a Casio CZ-3000. now that was a synth to put hairs on your chest

[swanage_fan]

oh lol i didn’t even see this post before writing my PSS-51 rant!!

[waftlord]

vector synthesis was just a 4 voice blender.

i liked it really low down, some crazy aliasing!

[swanage_fan]

i loved the electronic kick drum on it but it didn’t doof hard enough so i used to layer four or five MIDI notes on top of each other in the belief it made it louder

[waftlord]

haha. yeah it was a certain sound. cowboy vibe!?

the sequencer was pretty raw…

[swanage_fan]

i don’t think i used the sequencer, i did all my sequencing using Breakthru on the Atari ST, which i still maintain was the absolute pinnacle of MIDI sequencing and will never be bested

[thermionic]

As a kid, I owned a handheld noisemaker that was a different oscillators, modulators, pitch knobs, and I absolutely can’t think of what it was called but I LOVED it until it died. It was the size of a longer tricorder, not the chip made famous for the 80s “ray-gun” and “blast people on the road” noises and later use in dub sirens

I wish I could find it! I’d probably be hella disappointed considering what I own now, but I would love to find it again.

[shigginpit]

was it the radio shack thing? I’m blanking on the name but I could probably find it. what color was it?

[ElectricBear]

Casio SK-5 (35years ago )

[exitdevice]

Still have it. Frankly a great piece of kit and great for learning synthesis. Started having a weird parameter drift issue where the LFO depth would change when you weren’t touching anything – very annoying. Now it lives in my closet and I should probably sell it.