What was the cheapest Synth you ever bought?

[Suburban Bather]

turned out not to be a deal, tho. turned out power came on once and it didn't work after that.


...because it was infested with cockroaches.


...so was the briefcase.

oops.

:pukeleft: :pukeright:

Juno 106 free of charge, did find two dead insects inside, but not an infestation of cockroaches. One or two dead 80071A's which I'm replacing myself. Actually, I'm replacing all of them anyways with clones so that I don't have to worry about that problem at all, as long as everything else holds up.

I read either a review on HC or a blog on Matrix Synth about someone finding an old bag of pot inside a synth

[redroomrecordings]

Jp-8080 for free.

and picking up tonight a virus ti desktop for $700 CDN!

[mingle]

He He!

An ARP Pro-Soloist for $5 (Australian)!

Got it at a Sunday flea-market... I saw the classic "ARP" logo and rushed over, expecting a price tag of a couple of hundred!

The bloke selling it bought it from a garage sale for his kids (also for $5!) but was disappointed to find it had no built-in speakers!

I thought I misheard him when he said $5 - but I snapped it up!

Kept it for about 10 years and ended up selling it on eBay for $580!

If only every Sunday was as good as that!

Cheers,

Mike.

[th0mas]

picked up a ace tone rhythm ace FR-2L analog preset drum machine and an ace tone model 301 amp (tube AND point to point build) on the side of the road the other day driving my girlfriend to work! They were next to what I can only guess was an ace tone floor organ, too bad it didn't fit in my trunk too

[zmd]

so, not the cheapest units i've ever gotten, but, a friend was down sizing her rig, and decided i'd be the recipient of her generosity!
i show up for the gear she is giving me (free!!!!) expecting not much, but here is what she had for me!

tascam patchbay (i so needed one too)
jlcooper msb rev 2 midi patch bay
alesis quadraverb
roland u220
peavey spectrum bass
yamaha rm50
yamaha tx81z
art multiverb
art sgx2000 with x15 ultrafoot
and a yamaha qx5

i went from no rack at all to a decent one in a matter of minutes. gosh i love free gear!

[analogholic]

Oberheim Xpander for $1000

Sold it for almost 3 x as much 6 months later...

Guess it´s the only time I actually didn´t loose money on a synth...

[c1t1zen]

Yamaha CS-5 for $25 on craigslist. The dude was bit grumpy that his wife put it up on there and got all these emails. I offered $5 more then they asked to make sure I stood out from the other e-mailers and went to pick it up the next morning.

The posting said "Old Keyboard, used to make piano sounds but now doesn't. Model CS-5 from Yamaha $20" I really hope to fix it up and get piano sounds out of it or else I'll toss it.

[mmp]

Hammond Organ & 122 Leslie Free for moving it
Korg MS-20 $100.00
Moog Sonic Six $50.00


Regards,

MM

[Hair]

Just got an Electribe M off of craigslist for $75, not AMAZING, but not bad either! It constitutes my first hardware x0x drum machine, and the synth section is cool too. I'm already having a blast with it.

[mirt]

junost 21 for free
lider 2 for free (ok for my knowledge, i've win it in analogia.pl competition, thanks guys )
ax80 circa 120$
bit one for 120$
dx9 for 50$
in country where you need to pay 1000$ for juno106 it's A BARGAIN!!!!

[Spike Vincent]

EDP Wasp for £40 in 1981,EDP Spider sequencer for another £40 in 1981,which was cheap then,and a Korg MS10 and a Korg Microkorg for £250 the pair a few years ago.The guy threw in a Casio CZ 1000 forfree and seemed to think he got the best part of the deal.

[Pro5]

Korg M1 + ram card + Korg Sound card set + case = £60 (it's price was the only reason I bought it I wasn't desperate for an M1). All of my digi synths have been under £100 pounds though (MY D50 was £80). I also once had a Juno 6 for £60 and sold it for £100 (in the 90s).


Ok my DIGITAL under £100 has now been broken.. recently picked up a NEAR MINT DX7 II-D with Hard Flight Case, Manual and original Rom for £120 (free delivery also!). And it's a beast... dump the 80s presets, get some unison/layering going and whack it through some effects and you have an amazing unique beast that sits between analog and SnS (romplers) beautifully. Plays great too (the feel and the portmanto/mono mode). Factoring in the case at say £30.. it would make the synth £90 so still a bargain imo.

[oryjen]

Korg 800DV: 260 euros
Yamaha CP30: 150 euros
Korg Poly800 MkII: 100 euros
Korg MS50: 700 euros
Yamaha CS30: 750 euros

Some better deals on old mixing consoles: 35, 30 and 20 euros (PMI 1008, Boss KM04 and Realistic Adonowich)

[Frayo]

Technically the Yamaha PSS-680 for $60.
I know lots of people want to bash it because it's cheap and has incredibly cheesy 2 OP FM synthesis (I know most of the people here are analog junkies, so please bear with me)
But when run through an external processor (MS-2000, KPII, Moogerfooger), this little guy gets ripped and distorted to bits and can make some crazy tones.
I know I'd be better off taking the DX-7 or ESQ-M, K3-M, VZ-10M or Juno through such machinery, but its my pile of electronics, I screw with whatever I see fit...plus the rack mounts are hard to plug stuff into because I haven't ordered a patchbay yet.
Oh, the poor Korg DSS also gets a beating.
It's technically first place, but I don't consider it, because the poor little bastard can't make a noise on it's own without a floppy disk, or me drawing a waveform for it. Harmonic structures are left to the better-suited Kawai K-5...and waveform drawing ability is inversely proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed before grabbing hold of the slider. I got this one because the guy on ebay said he had no disks and couldn't get sound out of it. It went for dirt cheap and I decided "why not?". Turns out it works just fine.

Also, it should be noted that a Korg DSS-1 does have a resonating filter on it. The resonance is laughable, but it still exists.

[Christopher Winkels]

Yamaha TX81Z for $95, followed closely by a Kawai K3m for $125. Despite having some experience with FM synths before (I owned a DX100 for a while), I never warmed to the TX and have never missed it. The K3m was nice enough, but a little lacking in character.

All I can say is.... you get what you pay for.