Categories
It Happened to Me

The synth I kept

A Korg Wavestation A/D rackmount synthesizer
The Korg Wavestation A/D. The best damned synth of 1991, and I’ve got one. Tap the image to see it at full size.

Moving to another country requires you to seriously pare down your belongings. I brought only what I could fit in my previous car — Rhonda the Honda — which meant I had to be choosy with what I kept. One of the things I kept is my trusty Korg Wavestation A/D rackmount synthesizer.

Long before that fateful day when Karl Mohr and I took our accordions out on the streets of Toronto, I was a synth player, and my favorite synth was the Wavestation, which I bought from my friend, TV/film composer Steve Skratt back in 1992.

I played it during back at Crazy Go Nuts University, in our grungy, Faith No More-esque band, Volume…

…and after I graduated in all sorts of projects including providing sound effects and background music for my work making interactive CD-ROMS…

…to synth jam sessions, such as the time when Steve Skratt, Karl Mohr, and I were part of the group providing the music for the book launch of The Lion in the Room Next Door, which was written by Karl’s mother, Merilyn Simonds:

As I’m in the process of reviving some old computers of mine and bringing them back to active duty, I’m also bringing the Wavestation A/D back to life. Expect to hear it sometime soon.

If you’re curious about what the Wavestation A/D can do, check out this video, which provides a grand tour of this classic synth:

Leave a Reply