Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

My dad and I do car shows a lot and I always hear from the older people there hey I had one of those when they were new, and I sold it when I went into the service, or when I got married and I kick myself for getting rid of it. Now I wonder if any of you dudes and dudettes have any moments like that, but by the same token what about the synthesizers you really thought you had to have been hindsight being 20/20 you would have been better off not getting it.
My examples of letting go,

Moog Micro-moog (sold it for money to get the 500.00 SH-5 which the seller flaked off at the last moment on.)
Ensoniq ASR-10 ("")

examples of It was a bad idea

Roland Juno D (knobs kept turning when I played and messed with my settings, and keys began dying) 500.00
I later sold the D for FL studio 7 and a M audio 49 key USB controller
Yamaha SY-55 (Possibly the hardest to use interface I have ever messed with) 300.00
Sold it two weeks ago and got next to nothing for it

Getting: JX8P-Just didn't care for its sound; preferred the Alpha Juno to it
Selling: Not a Synth but Akai S2800 - Easy to use, Great filters; SCSI board died though

Waldorf Q Rack. Sold it to fund the Octave Cat SRM and got $300 on top of it. Good deal for me at the time but now that I have a big analog modular it would have been nice to have a big VA modular to go with it. I didn't like its sound but maybe I didn't work it hard enough could have probably just softened it up with some effects. Blofeld's are cheap but it just doesn't have the build quality or instant knobbage the Q had so if I went back down Waldorf road it would be just a Q rack again.

Yamaha SY-1. Turned it into a SE ATC-1 w/all the filters so on paper another good deal. SY-1 would probably still be a needless extra but it just sounded so nice and had really nice GX-1/CS-80 faders and such and mine was in perfect shape. Whereas the ATC will probably be on the market because I have other monosynths I'd rather not sell (Octave Cat SRM, MC-202, Big modular which can do the SE's job and much more.)

Getting: well, not a synth, but a sampler. ESI-4000. Absolutely useless, should've invested the money in something better (pretty much anything, since I got this thing new). I haven't regretted any of my synth purchases. Yes, some synths have disappeared rather quickly again, but I've found ways around that.

Selling: my first Juno-60. Should've kept it, but luckily I found a replacement for not too much cash (after 12 long years) that looks just as good (just needs the LFO trig fixed and the keys cleaned).

Regret buying:

Roland Juno-G:
I already knew it didn't have aftertouch and only 1 expansion slot, but I really wanted a workstation and felt I could still get by without those features. I was wrong. I think it's ridiculous for any modern workstation to not have aftertouch and since Roland only included 1 expansion slot, they could have at least included a decent acoustic piano, which they didn't. I should have saved up a little more and bought a used Fantom X6.

Ensoniq VFXsd:
This was an impulse buy. I was considering an ESQ-1 again, but found the VFX at a great price, so I bit. The sounds never really grabbed me (although I liked the grainy string ensembles). It's a shame Ensoniq negelected to include a resonant filter.

Regret selling:

Yamaha FS1r:
Fairly rare these days and they're only going up in price. This was one of my "if I'm not gigging with it, it's gone" moments many years ago. Stupid me.

Kurzweil K2VXs:
I only sold it to pay rent after I relocated. Would likely still have it otherwise.

Oberheim OB-8:
Sold it 8-9 years ago as it was too big to gig and I needed some funds freed up. Doh!
They've also gone way up in price to the point where I just won't pay what people are asking for them.

MicroQ:
I was downsizing and let it go but find myself missing it on occasion. Will eventually replace it with a Blofeld, I think.

Korg Polysix:
A ballsier alternative to the Juno-60 with that nice ensemble effect onboard and a unison mode. Mine was incredibly noisy, but it had character.

Roland Juno-60:
Found it online for $119 about 9 years ago. Beat up, but it worked. Sold it because I was too lazy to work for sounds without the chorus unit and everything started sounding same-y, which of course was my fault. I purchased another J-60 this past December, so I corrected this mistake.

None. I carefully choose my synths to make sure I'm going to like it... I can't regret selling anything because I never have sold anything.

Getting:
the esi-4000 gets another vote. since i'm not in an area where gear are easily spoted and tried i bought a s5000 and esi-4000 at the same time. i had in mind to keep the one i did prefer of them, the esi4000 never really did anything. i trade it rather quickly after its purchase.

microQ . i did tought that i would love it, i realy tried to but unfortunatly it did not worked out. i was still using alot more the microkorg. i sold it to buy a nord modular. a move that i will never regret.

Selling:
sk-50d . i didn't had any place for it so i trade it for the microQ and a modded apex tube mic. i did love it's sound.
sr-16 . i tought it wasn't that usefull untill it was gone. it's size and the ease of doing rhythm with it was hard to beat. a little limited, but it could be used in alot of places.

Getting.- No, every piece was worth getting.
Selling.- A Moog Sonic Six and an Arp Odyssey Mk III, those were sold to pay a bil I didn't expect.

i'll probably regret selling the polysix, but i never really did much with it beyond a whole lot of filter sweeps and the lack of MIDI was a problem i wasn't interested in paying hundreds of dollars to solve.

i regret paying $75 for a yamaha RX17 drum machine about a month ago, particularly when i found a (much more useful) RY20 about a week later for $40. might not regret it if i ever get around to bending the RX17 though.

Regret Selling: MS2000B, JV-1080, Voyager RME, MC-909, OB-12

Regret Buying: Virus C, Virus Rack XL, Nord Modular G2 Engine, Nord Modular G2X, Nord Electro 2 73, Ax60, Yamaha Motif 6, XV-3080.

This might sound odd, but I regret:
selling: Yamaha Qy-70.
getting: Roland MC-909.

I certainly miss my Jupiter-4, that old Roland sound was so unique and beutiful. But at the same time im glad im putting all my Analogue effort into my Andromeda, as that beast is one of the most rewarding Synths ever. Im using it as my only Analogue Synth, and have to say it's definatly my favorite Synth.

Regret selling my JX-305, might be able to get it back though. AC, are you wearing lipstick?

Regret Buying: None - All the synths I've bought have been cheap enough for me not to regret any. In the case of BRAND NEW synths - the only 2 I bought were psuedo synth HT-3000 and Yamaha TG-500 (half price but new). I guess it's silly to think those 2 alone cost me more (new) than my entire current synth stash (2nd hand) Each synth is a new adventure and it may or may not 'gel' with me but typically I don't buy at random (unless an uber bargain -i.e my Korg M1) and instead research for quite a while before buying so I'm not disappointed.

Selling: Roland Juno 6. Sold in the late 90s - CHEAPLY - for £100 bought for £60 so I made a profit but I'd rather have kept it around until I could find a Juno 60 or Polysix to replace it. It's not a massive regret as my JX-3P is just as nice to me (in some ways better - esp once I sort out adding a load of knobs to it )

30h5 wrote:Regret selling my JX-305, might be able to get it back though. AC, are you wearing lipstick?

Yes i am.

Moving swiftly on...i also miss my SH-09, that was such a useful little monosynth. And not forgetting my CS-10, which was another wicked bass machine. I definatly regret selling the SH more though, as im more into the old Roland sound.