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The Akai X7000 – One Of The Coolest Vintage Sampling Keyboards
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Akai X7000 Keyboard Sampler
This was the first sampling keyboard that I owned, and what a blast it was! I must have sampled everything within ten miles of my house and all my friends and relatives too!
If you can find this vintage piece (street price around $300 – $400) I know you’ll have a lot of fun as well. There are a few things to watch out for though.
It uses an outdated 2.8″ format disk drive that records to Quick Disks. If the drive is broken or wears out it could be very hard to find a replacement. As for finding blank disks, a quick search on Google didn’t turn up much. There were some hardware word processors that used this same disk format so that might give you some leads.
Also, the keyboard itself wasn’t very heavy duty. I’m a hard player and I had to replace the entire keyboard assembly every sixteen months or so.
However, you have to keep in mind that I was gigging and rehearsing five to seven nights per week, so it saw a lot of use and abuse. In your studio environment that probably wouldn’t even be an issue.
Other hardware samplers you might like to look at would be the Ensoniq Mirage and EPS, the Emu Emax and the Roland S10.
My Three Favorite Ways Of Acquiring Good Used Recording Gear
Posted by: | CommentsSo much great used gear, so little time!
But where’s the best place make great finds and find great deals? Here are my three favorite sources.
1. Local Classified Ads
This is a great source, though a little time consuming. Locate your local newspapers, including small independent publications like Penny Saver, Nickel Nik, etc.
Some larger cities have publications dedicated to buying and selling used musical gear and they can be a gold mine.
When it comes to your local newspaper, you will statistically find the most listings in the Wednesday and Sunday editions. Consequently, if you’re trying to sell gear those are the two best days to place a listing.
The main advantage here is that the gear will be local, so you can get your hands on it and personally test it before you make the purchase. Also, there obviously won’t be any shipping costs, unless of course you’re going to try and grab yourself a Hammond B3. 
2. Craigslist
This is another of my favorite hunting grounds. While this till typically be a local purchase for you, there is also the opportunity to search for gear in other cities. If you find a real gem it might be worth an afternoon’s drive or a little shipping through UPS or FedEx.
The great advantage you have here over local newspapers is that you can actively search for exactly what you’re looking for. In just a few minutes you can tell if there’s anything worth looking at on a daily basis. Once you find something all the positives of local classified ads applies.
3. ebay
I love hunting for used gear gold on ebay. I’ve bought and sold a lot of gear this way. In fact, I would estimate that at least 90% of the used gear in my studio was bought off of ebay. It can be a little addicting.
It can also be a little overwhelming though. You just have to take it one step at a time. The absolute best feature is the ebay saved searches. You simply save a keyword or search phrase and the minute something matching that description is listed you’re notified via e-mail. It’s like having your own personal gear scout!
Once you find something you like, it’s time to bid. But before you click that button and lock in your bid there are a few things to consider to insure a smooth transaction if you’re the winner of the auction.
First, how long has the listing seller been selling on ebay. Did they just get started last month? If so be wary. Alone, it’s not reason enough to shy away from bidding, but keep this in mind.
Next, how many transactions have they completed since being on ebay? Less than 10? Again, not the sole reason to make a decision, but something to consider in context.
The grandaddy of factors is their feedback. How pleased are the people that have dealt with this person in the past. You can’t please everyone all the time, but you should see a majority of positive feedback or something isn’t right. There are a lot of good sellers on ebay who’ve been doing it for some time and have 100% positive feedback. That’s a pretty good bet when you see that.
Using these simple guidelines I have never had a bad experience in ten years of shopping on ebay.
So there you are, my three favorite used gear resources and how to use them.
Happy gear hunting!
The Roland U220 – My Favorite ROMpler
Posted by: | CommentsAh, this is the first rack-mounted sample playback unit I ever owned, and I still have two of them here in the studio today.
The Roland U220 Sound Module
These type of units were known as ROMplers because they came preloaded (in ROM memory) with all the sample libraries it needed to make up its patches. You could also expand some of them with ROM cards that added new samples and new patches. The U220 has two of these slots. (I believe there was a library of about 12 different cards available.)
Some of the sounds are classics that I still use today. Some of my favorites are the piano, the overdriven B3 organ, the muted trumpet, the soprano sax, the smooth tenor sax and the Benny Hill-ish, honky, rock-n-roll tenor sax. Another handy thing was that it had 30-voice polyphony for all these voices.
There were two great playback demos in the U220. Here are both of them for your listening pleasure.
Now, this one has a couple of interesting tidbits I have to point out. First, the bass line is cool and demonstrates the unit’s ability to set different pitch bend values for bending up and bending down. Second, this demo was created by Eric Persing, the genius behind all the Spectrasonics plugins; Omnisphere, Stylus RMX and Trillian (formerly Trilogy). I wish this guy would put out a whole album!
Eric Persing - U Might Be The OneYou can pick up a U220 on the used market for just a couple of hundred bucks these days. It’s well worth a look if you’re thinking about adding to your rack!
My Old Friend, The Roland D50
Posted by: | CommentsMan this was a cool keyboard! It was was first really big, new synth purchase…over $2,000! But, boy did it turn out to be worth it.
Roland D50
Not only did I record with this keyboard, I toured and played live with it for more than a decade without one single failure! Now that’s roadworthiness.
But more importantly, there was the quality of the sound! At the time everyone was raving over the Korg M1, and it was okay. But when I laid my hands on this piece of gear, it was magic to my fingers and my ears. Once I got a hold of many of the top aftermarket patch cards for it, it really took it over the top. Layering it with my Roland U220 was also a scream. Talk about thick!
Here’s a great breakdown on this powerful synth from the Vintage Synth Explorer blog:
The D-50 is an all-time favorite digital synth that’s still just as popular today as when it first came out in ’87. Once Roland’s hottest digital synth, it competed against the Yamaha DX7, and was much easier to use.
By joining 8-bit PCM samples with “LAS” synth-generated sounds, the D-50 is capable of unique and complex sounds. The PCM samples contained the attack transients, while the rest of the sound came from the Linear Arithmatic Synth (LAS) section which sounds very analog, with subtractive-style synthesis and low-pass-resonant filters.
Built-in chorus and (for the first time) digital reverb are also included for giving your sounds space and life! It also has a joystick controller for real-time timbre manipulation. The D-50 was great for new and non-acoustic, percussive, ethereal and beautiful pads & sounds.
The Roland D550 Rack Mount
Both the D-50 and D-550 benefit from the PG-1000 external controller which gives you very plain and simple slider/fader type control of all adjustable parameters of the synth.
The D-50 includes MIDI on all 16 channels but because it is monotimbral you can only use one channel at a time. There is an upgrade which will give the D-50 and its rackmount version a full 16 channels of simultaneous MIDI multitimbral data communication.
This popular synth has been widely used in all forms of music. Eric Clapton, Enya, 808 State, Jean Michel Jarre, Vince Clarke, Apollo 440, Eat Static, LTJ Bukem, Fluke, Information Society, Lab-4, Gary Numan, Rick Wakeman, Kitaro, Rush, Vangelis, Richard Barbieri, Boston and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran are just a few of the many satisfied users.
I’m glad I decided never to sell this important part of my personal music history.
A Gear Feast For The Eyes!
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s nothing like walking through (or performing in) a top notch commercial recording studio. It looks great. It feels great. It even SMELLS great! lol
All the more to drool over if there have been famous artists who’ve recorded there, or if hit albums have been produced there.
If you’ve never had this opportunity, here’s a glimpse into what it’s like. It’s a tour of The Village recording studio in Los Angeles, California USA. It’s home to many classic recordings from Fleetwood Mac to J-Lo. In addition to creating chart topping albums, The Village is well known for its impressive list of movie soundtracks. From The Bodyguard and Shawshank Redemption, to Wall E and Walk the Line.
Sit back and enjoy. There’s no way you can watch this and not want to buy a new piece of gear.
