As per the title, what's the best and worst bis of kit you've ever had the joy of owning or using? (Not just in a shop)

To get the ball rolling:

Best:

Waldorf Q

Tied for first place as my "desert island" synth (with the SNII), the sheer power and complexity of this beast astounds me.

I play with this everyday and am constantly learning new stuff.

Novation SuperNova II

Finally got my hands on one of these (mint 48 voice Pro-X) after a good 7 to 8 years of searching, one failed attempt with a dodgy SNI, and trying (and failing) to fill the gap with an A-Station.

IMHO, the ultimate VA machine. 8 part performance mode, 7 effects per part, any kind of performance split you can think of, 8 separate arpeggiators, easy to use and program, a stupid amount of flexibility in the oscillators (formant width, skew, self-sync) and designed by Chris Huggett (OSCar's dad)

And... 8 drum maps with 49 sounds each x 8 in multi mode gives potential access to 392 different sounds at one point in time. Crazy.

Way ahead of it's time. Shame that this was Novation's peak and they then went massively downhill from there. Their finest hour.

Worst:

Roland MC-303 Groovebox

Ugh. What a useless piece of junk. Best used as a doorstop. Guess it did give me lots of fun nights mucking around, plus the joys of NRPN's and SysEx.

A Zoom and some other dodgy effects units:

Some kind of Zoom rackmount unit, and 2 matching ones I can't even remember their names of now (thanks god) that did either a) absolutely nothing, b) provided noise and feedback, c) hurt my ears.

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty O'Hara A Zoom and some other dodgy effects units: Some kind of Zoom rackmount unit, and 2 matching ones I can't even remember their names of now (thanks god) that did either a) absolutely nothing, b) provided noise and feedback, c) hurt my ears.

I hope youre not talking about the Zoom Studio 1204
cuz that thing is cheap and fucking awesome!

my favorite piece of gear is my mpc4000. i would never get anything done w/out it. this is the center of my set up.

my worst piece of gear... that would be my old yamaha psr-5xx or psr-6xx... it's been buried in the closet for so long, that i don't even remember what is the exact model number. i still kick my self in the ass, for buying this thing, instead of the mc-303. but hey, it was 1997, and it was my first time buying something.

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quote:

Originally posted by beats and beeps I hope youre not talking about the Zoom Studio 1204 cuz that thing is cheap and fucking awesome!

Zoom 1201 is even better... I have 2.
1204 adds MIDI onto it...which isnt really needed IMHO.
Have the original review from back in 1999!
Extract:
'Both will seriously mess with your sounds....without messing up your bank balance'
They weren't wrong!

Best:

Ensoniq ASR-10

Great sounding sampler/keyboard, with lots of flexibility and great effects. Only bad thing is that 16MB's of max memory isn't quite enough for todays tasks.

Roland JD-800

The best pad-machine ever, with possibly the best interface ever. Beatiful, silky synth sounds.

Worst:

Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic100

Muddy sounding, placebo tube amp.

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Latest tracks:
Come little children (Jehuti remix)
Connected - Change [progressive]
Connected - Glorafin [drum'n'bass]
Connected - A Year Goes By [progressive]

The point isn't to "get out of your body", it's to bring awareness to your consciousness while you're experiencing another reality.