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Your favourite musical instrument?
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Kosmischeboy
Kosmischeboy
664 posts

Edited Mar 13, 2010, 20:45
Re: Your favourite musical instrument?
Mar 13, 2010, 20:39
Mine is my trusty SP808 sampler. It's served me well over the years, in fact the one i have now is the second one i've owned. I bought (the first one) pretty much as soon as it came out in the late nineties, with my student loan. Me and a few mates set up a band called "project blue book" playing some cool stuff influenced by krautrock/early drum and bass and dub, pretty ahead of its time. We used my 808 for the heart of that project. At some point on my way into the rehearsal studio with an armful of gear i got caught up on the wrought iron gate and managed to drop the SP808 down a flight of concrete steps! The case got beaten up in the fall and one of the knobs got broken off, thankfully it still worked though! Because it was so new i couldn't get it repaired straight away because roland europe didn't have the parts for it, so we had to soldier on with it in its broken state for a few months. When it finally came back from roland all spangly and repaired i started the kosmischeboy live band up using it again as the heart of the sound, slaving all my midi from it's clock etc.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3147801&l=d497a8bb66&id=601255384

Me leaning on 808 number 1 and Fozz (AKA Kosmischeboy's Live Drummer) in our rehearsal studio circa 99. Also explains why i never smile much... "Howerdism" was still an issue then....

Eventually real life interfered and i had to put a hold on music stuff as well as slim down what i had so i got rid of the 808 and a bunch of other stuff and got an all in one box that sampled and sequenced (Yamaha rs7000) which i didn't really use much, thanks to the aforementioned real life it mostly stayed in it's box.

A few years later i was in a music shop in sheffield after a work meeting when i saw a second hand SP808 and also an MC505, the other powerhouse of our project blue book day, i spoke to the guy in the shop and he reserved them for me. I popped back a few days later and PXd my RS7000 for the pair of roland things. I was mega chuffed to get an 808 again and that kick started my recent creative phase which ultimately led to me quitting retail and going back to Uni to do all the digital media stuff and music i've been doing recently. I've still got it and i still use it live, in fact i used it last night at the digital scarborough event along with the 505 (that's pretty much my live rig now, occasionally with my micron thrown in for keyboard wibbles). I have had other more recent roland samplers but none captured me the way the Sp808 did. Having said that i will at some point get another rs7000 if i find one cheap enough, it had great potential which i didn't really use because my mind wasn't in the right place at the time. So there ya go... flashing lights, knobs and sliders ... are all you need to impress me!

i also have a soft spot for the korg prophecy too, it had one of the most playable keyboards ever and made some great sounds, again it was got rid of during the slim down, thankfully my mate bought it so i know i can probably get it back at some point when i am financially blessed... well i can hope!

a chuntering on a tad too much kosmischeboy
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