This is a brief discription of the instruments I use. My setup is made in let say 35 years and consist of a mix of analog and digital synths. Every instrument has its own character. In the past I own a SC Pro one and a Solina string synthesizer. They were good sounding synths but with both I had a lot of technical problems. I sold them.

My all time favourite Roland JUNO 106

Well that's clear. So simple, uncomplicated but nevertheless a fantasic sound. It was my first real polyfoon synthesizer (6 voices/oscillators, full MIDI implementation, 128 user presets). The first time I hear this JUNO was at a synthesizer workshop. From the start I had to buy this one. Bought new

in the early 80's. Most of the time I am using it for the "dark string" and other pads in combination with a sequencer/arpeggiator and a delay it can create lush ritme patterns.

Recently I had the "voice chip" problem, its fixed with clone's" and sounds still fantastic.

The good old Korg Lambda ES 50

Not to forget, a incredible stringsynthesizer, at that time (late 70's) it was a kind of polyfonic synth but actually it was a tone dividing down technique from the electronic organs.

This one is a heavy beast, real wooden cabinet, and registers like a organ (see picture).

But the sound, I love it, in my opinion better than the famous Solina (made in the country where I came from. It contains three oscillators, see right picture (each of them tuneable) and for each note a seperate envelope (adr-type). So every key has its own enevelope where the Solina had just one for all keys. The sustain on this machine is the "organ" name for release. It are all a kind of presets which can be slightly modified. Bought second hand in the late 80's

Nevertheless, a straight forward, good sounding string synthesizer.

The FM synthese based Yamaha DX27

The Yamaha CX5m

Good for solo work. Nice patches from the internet, one of my favorites was "O lord" and a factory preset Old E-piano. Everbody knows the DX 7, there it all started (although it was not the first fm-synth). But that was a 6 operator synth and was more powerful. This one is based on a 4-operator fm-synthese, but good enough for making weird sounds ore just to imitate. I think that at the end there were more 4 operator synth (ore soundchips in computers) build than 6 operator. There is also a MSX computer which is from Yamaha wich a 4 operator synth, the CX5m music computer.

The CX5m computer was a combination of a MSX (msx-dos-based) computer and a Yamaha synth unit. I used this for the "vibraphone" sound.

The computer contains a cartigdes for programming fm-sounds. Later I bought a second hand a memory cartrigde (64K) to store selfmade voices. A truly problem of the computer is the external power suply which is connected to the computer with a multiple pin connector. I sold it because I own also a DX27 and DS8 which are based on the same 4 operator FM synthese.

my mother keyboard without sound, the KURZWEIL MIDIBOARD

A heavy Midi controller board. It has pianolike wooden (balanced) hammered keys. Two midi out, a arppeggiator, programmable midi functions to control (group of) synths and a lot of another MIDI functionality. This is the machine I mostly used it to create the sequences (with the appaggiattor). When I bought this machine (2e hand) it was in combination with a Kurzweil pianomodule. It contains some famous piano samples of Kurzweil but also a few (very good sounding) string and organ sounds. I sold de midiboard, I am more focused on live performing and due to the weight and volume of this board it was not useable anymore (and the last few years I didn't use it so much anymore in the studio.

The KAWAI K1 r (in a older setup) in combination with the other soundmodules,

Korg 05r/w and the Kurzweil Micro Piano

No filters, it is impossible, well it is. But this rackversion of the Kawai K1 has some nice drumsounds I frequently use and a there is good imitation of a prophet sound. Nice to have around.

the WALDORF micro Q

Wish I had the keyboard version, what a good sounding and versatile synthesizer.

When people ask what is the first synth you buy after your gear is stolen, it is the Waldorf. The menu structure is tricky (because there are so much possibility's) but there are enough knobs for direct controlling and the most important synh funtions are direct acceseble. Bought second hand.

Do you want a good sequence, a nice pad, a Moog bass imitate, the Waldorf has all of it.

And for the bass sounds, the MOOG little phatty

What can I say, a synthman without a Moog, impossible. The looks, the sound, but be carefully with that baby, the base sound can drive your gear to the limits. And because it is real analogue it sometimes has to be tuned and don't think for a quik play, it needs to warm up.

I own the Tribute edition and did the factory upgrade to the LP2.

The digital Korg DS-8

What a beauty. The DS-8 was the first Korg equiped with Fm-synthese (4 operators). I bought it second hand and it was not in a very good condition. One key was broken, the display backlight was almost faded away and the internal memory was erased due to a battery change and shows the terrible glitch mode display. I cleaned the keys, fixed the broken key and display backlight and restored the original banks with a old labtop (Pentium III). After that the Korg could show his big advantage, the sliders for hands on control and some beautiful sounds. Later I bought a Stereoping controller for easier access to the parameters.

Realistic Concertmate MG-1

The Realistic was not cheap at all, I paid 300 € but it is a real old Moog. After cleaning the foam inside (one of the big problems of this synth) and cleaning outside it was ready for making music, and.... it did. This is what I like, you turn on the power, and instant after some knob twisting and sliding a warm nice Moog sounds appears. Both the Little Phatty and the Concertmate MG-1 are Moog's with there caracteristic Moog sounds but so different.

Roland SH32

A virtual analog with suprising sounds and features, later I put some selfmade wooden side panels to it.

The Kawai K4

I love the sound of the K1r and decided to buy this one, especially the Choir sounds...

Waldorf STREICHFETT

the little stringer, easy to handle. It does not sound like my Korg Lambda but its a nice instrument to use at stage.

VERMONA PERfoumer MKII

A German analog monsters, discrete components, no memory and a lot of real knobs....jammy. So pure.

Another additions are a surpising sounding ROLAND U110 pcm module (Good for descent overall sounds), a KAWAI C-Mega, a KORG 03r/w, a KORG 05r/w and two, in Greece build, incredable powerful synths. Advantage of the Dreadboxes are the patchpoints which can be controlled by other cv controlled equipment.

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Dreadbox NYX Dreadbox HADES

Behringer Deepmind 6

It is analog but with a huge amount under the hood menu's, in the future I will use this one as main arpeggiator instead of the Moog Little Phatty. The arpeggiator is far more better.

Beside these synths I bought a second hand Roland JV880 with the JV 60-70s board, a standard tool with some sublime sounds.

Arturia started with software, but they decide to do hardware also. I bought one, the

Microfreak, this one can really do anything with 16 synth models in it!

After selling some synths I decided to buy the MOOG Matriarch Dark edition. From the first time I listened to this instrument I was overwhelmed by its character. And beside that it fits perfect in my analog (patchable) studio corner!

After some doubts buying a modular I did, and this has a wow factor. It is really fun to patch and create sounds. Although my modular is rather traditional in set up it consist of some units which makes it rather different from the rest of my synth setup. I use Behringer, Dreadbox, Doepfer, Expertsleepers, Mutable instruments, Makenoise, Grayscale units. Later I replaced the Behringer system 112 for a Roland 512 and changed the Behringer 182 for a Captain Big O. Both because I needed stable oscillators.All placed in a Behringer Go-case.

I always see professionals playing Clavia Nords, de famous red coloured keyboards from Sweden. After my performance with Stephan Withlan I did knew why and searched for a Nord Electro 3. Wow what a nice keyboard, beautiful crafted, very good piano sounds and very easy to tweek with the onboard effects.

Eurorack really did catch me, so I decided to add some more modules and combine it with other ones I already had. My son made a beautifull skiff for it. Later a added some Behringer 2500 modules and replaced de Behringer 112 for a Tomatek microRings and a Doepfer VCDLFO (red version).

Normal in my setup I control the Go-Case with the Deepmind and the other two small cases with the Microfreak. What I missed in the small cases was a good bas sound, luckily I found a Dreadbox DIY Hades (allready build) and I allready had the desktop but this one is slightly different!

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