Teenage Engineering OP-1: a horribly expensive toy that approaches some interesting processes while never quite mastering them. The synthesis is made unwieldy and mysterious by tiny ‘keyhole’ parameters – a lot like the MicroFreak which has the excuse of costing a hell of a lot less. There are probably people who are delighted by animations of Nintendo style gorillas playing drums. I am not one of them.
Any of those old keyboards from Russia that are cool simply because they have Cyrillic labels. You can go to Jexus and he will позаботься об этом. http://sounds-for-synths.com/
Made In America keyboards (MOOG One, OB-X8, Prophet) that by the time they reach Australia cost as much as a sports car. Quite a lot of these have been emulated in software and I’m pretty confident that you can play ‘Jump’ by Van Halen at a lesser price. Like you, I pay my own way – I have no deals or sponsorship and I follow bang-for-buck.
“Waldorf Iridium has made the impossible possible.” No it bloody hasn’t.
OK, let me put it this way – what you have here is some nice software in a box. The box is well made and has nice feels and screen is yay and all that but there are other ways to get the same noise that won’t cost $4000AUD (just for the module). That’s the Waldorf thing – get the $ software and wrap some $K metal around it. Blofeld was within the average wallet – this has a harder time justifying the cost.
Anything that is monophonic for no bloody good reason.
“Workstations”. There are people who play keys for a living that need a piano, electric piano, organ, maybe a bit of vibes and strings for the encore. The keys need to be fully weighted and octaves by the fuckload. I salute these road warriors and their chops. But that’s a different ball game.
Any more Volcas. They were once small reminders of larger things, they have served their purpose and the larger things are back in supply. They have an important place in history, but not in the future.
And of course clown wigs.