How much gear did you have in high school?

Post by **aeon** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 8:14 am

I graduated from high school in 1986, and I had just turned 17.

I had a Roland JX-8P with PG-800 programmer, an Apple II with a Mockingboard 6-voice analog soundcard, and that's it.

In 1989 I bought a Roland R-8, and that is when the gear-whoring started.

cheers,
Ian

:||CHAMBER||: · Post by **:||CHAMBER||:** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 8:32 am

some of that is impressive.

all i had in high school was an Epiphone electric guitar with a Boss distortion and delay pedal, a little Crate practice amp and a microphone plus a cassette 4 track and my 133mhz Pentium with some early audio apps (ReBirth, Hammerhead, Soundforge, etc..) for "sampling", drums and sound twisting.

soon after graduation (1997) i bought my first two synths:
Roland JP-8000 and a Korg Prophecy

nearly 10 years and a lot of gear later, in hindsight, those are still two of my all-time favorite synths. for as little as i had in high school, i stretched and improvised things to some really cool results. i wish i had time these days to experiment like that... instead of it just being this very expensive hobby that i can play around with a couple times a week (if i'm lucky)

Check · Post by **Check** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 9:07 am

I'm 16, in hs, my gear is below

brian.only · Post by **brian.only** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:37 pm

the_analog_robot wrote: how i keep getting guitars handed to me is totally beyond my comprehension...

because all musicians are guitarists, didnt ya know!

Analogicus · Post by **Analogicus** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:40 pm

In Highschool I hadn't even begun to be interested in synths so my gear at the time was a big fat ZERO. but I'm making up for lost time as quickly as I can!

JBug · Post by **JBug** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 4:49 pm

I graduated high school in 1983 . . .

I had a Maxi Korg, a Roland SH-1000 and an Elka Rhapsody string thing.

I still have the Elka Rhapsody string thing. The amazing thing is that it is still working.

Edit: I totally forgot that i also had a Korg Poly800. I could finally play chords !

Strangenono · Post by **Strangenono** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 5:38 pm

In High school I wasn't fortunate ( and so am I now) , I had a korg 707 and a yamaha psr 300

Hokusai · Post by **Hokusai** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 5:44 pm

I didn't own any synths while I went to high school, just a banjo and a broken melodica. Got a Juno-D after I graduated and thats what I'm still using.
(bought a Fusion of ebay recently tho')

CROYBOY89 · Post by **CROYBOY89** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:06 pm

I didn't have much.... my first synth Microkorg, i really like it, and i probably will never get rid of it (i've grown too fond of it

) i had a boss drum machine... and a sr-16 and a casio CZ-5000 that i tried to sell last weekend and failed... and a few mics. I worked my a*s off and didn't make that much money. and it all went to car paymets, rent, insurance, cell phone bills etc.. things like that...

but i'm seeing a roland fantom Xa in my near future

Post by **Synthacon** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:11 pm

The sad thing is I was happier and more creative with the setup I had at school than with all the gear I have since, which is alot!

Will be going back to the basics in the New Year, as I'm fed up with it all and want to spend more time sound designing and making music than worrying about all the piles of gear I have/had in the studio.

ronP · Post by **ronP** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:16 pm

My introduction to keysynths came 24 years ago; a Casiotone MT-70, which I still have. A friend of my stepfather loaned me (for close to three years!) his MesaBoogie amplifier and Electric Mistress Flanger and Big Muff distortion box shortly thereafter. At that point I had my heart's desire focused on a complete rig that included both the BOSS DR-110 Dr. Rhythm and the Yamaha CS-01 monosynth.

Well, I saved and saved and improved my playing enough that I at last convinced my parents to take me to the music store -- Pianos and Stuff, it was called -- but instead of my modest wish list, which at the time would have run around $600, I left with a KORG Polysix and a USS stand, which ran the folks and me close $1,200!

Kyrandian · Post by **Kyrandian** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:45 pm

I'm 17, and just recently bought my first synth, a Roland JP-8080. Other than that I have pretty much nothing but an M-Audio Ozonic, BX5as, a cheap condenser mic (Audio-Technica AT2020), and my outdated computer.

kk994 · Post by **kk994** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:53 pm

I had no synths... but I used to rent out decks and mixers and put on nights fairly regularly. The decks where really my instrument. My uncle had a bedroom studio with a 4 track tape recorder and some kind of keyboard. I can't remember what it was but it wasn't too impressive. Myself and a friend used to make ambient and noise tracks. We couldn't play anything so we just prepared guitars by detuning them, sticking forks and pins, scrapping the strings with whatever we could get, we played drones from the keyboard.

We did have early experiments with computers and music. I remember myself and a friend bringing an Amstrad 64 and a CD player that had a loop function to a club night we were putting on and the idea was to play a looped beat from the CD player whilst adding in sounds from the amstrad and then playing vocal snippets from spiderman/superman comic book records thru the decks.... It was pretty terrible but good craic and it didn't last long...

redchapterjubilee · Post by **redchapterjubilee** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 9:31 pm

Weren't synthesizing in high school. I bought my first drumset in spring of 1991 (after spending a couple of years borrowing kits from various people.) Twas a 1960's Slingerland 3-piece kit (13/16/22) plus an assortment of Zildjian Scimitar and Camber cymbals plus a Mapex piccolo snare my brother gave me. The floor tom was out of round, no bottom heads anywhere, had to use a cinder block to keep the kick drum from creeping and I literally beat the Camber hi-hats and crash to pieces. Alas, I no longer have a single piece of that first kit any longer. I finally replaced the broken throne from said kit in 1999 and the rest of the stands/cymbals/drums were replaced over the years.

Oh I did have keys in high school. I had a Magnus organ. I wonder what happened to it.

RealitySage · Post by **RealitySage** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 9:38 pm

I'm sure I'm the old timer among all of you, but in high school in the early 70's I had a Fender Rhodes Stage 73 electric piano plugged into an Acoustic amp.
I eventually built my 70's setup to include a 2nd generation Arp Odyssey and a Arp Omni. That was my 70's stack and it served me well. It took a lot of gig abuse over the years and was just fine in the studio.