Tycobrahe

video upload by Kory Westerhold

"Little improvised piece with the Portabella (from PIN Electronics) and the Minimoog…"

Maxim MDS-500 (Japanese Simmons SDS8 clone) SN 009396

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Kory Westerhold

"Brief video for a Reverb listing showing the state of this very rare old Japanese Simmons SDS8 clone, the Maxim MDS-500. It’s obviously seen better days as I’ve had it in storage for quite some time, and is in need of a tune up/servicing. As you can hear, there is a hum/noise (ground?) coming from all the different outputs (1/4”, headphone and XLR) and some of the pots are scratchy as well—but as is, I suppose you could run it through a comb filter and filter out the noise and have a rad glitchy drum brain ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, and the pan pots work but I’m an idiot and even though I had a few of the channels panned, I didn’t have L/R panned on my mixer, so everything is running through the center 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️"

via this auction

CLICK FOR MORE »

Synare PS-1

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Kory Westerhold

"Walkthrough(ish) of the Synare PS-1 I have for sale on Reverb. There’s only one other video of this on the internet, from like a decade ago...so here’s one more 😬 I didn’t really try to do anything particularly musical with it, but just wanted to give a sense of how it sounds and operates. Sorry the right side of the video is a bit out of focus!

This thing is quite the odd bird. Even though it’s from Synare, it’s not so much a percussion synth like the Synare 3. It’s more a straight monosynth, with 4 tunable multi-zone pads and a bunch of modulation routing. It has all has a pretty wild ring modulator that you can mix into the sound.

One thing I *haven’t* been able to figure out on this particular one is the noise. Not sure if I just don’t have the right sliders up or something but otherwise, it’s in quite amazing shape and sounds great for what it is."

via this auction

"Selling my insanely rare Synare PS-1

Even though it’s technically a Synare, this is the first model, and it’s not so much a percussion synth like the more widely known Synare 3—but more a straight monosynth, with 4 tunable multi-zone pads and a bunch of modulation. It has all has a pretty wild ring modulator that you can mixed in as well.

It’s in quite amazing shape, both physically and operationally, compared to how dried out and ratty a lot of these old “padded” instruments can get.

Be sure to check out the video I took of it below. It’s like 12 minutes long and I just kinda bang around on it, but you’ll get a sense of some of the dissonant tones you can get out of it.

It has this rad handle on the back/top, I guess so you could carry it on stage, as well as a mount on the bottom for attaching to a drum or percussion stand.

It also has high, low & headphone output on the back and comes in a super sturdy travel case (see pics) which is great, but it means it’s QUITE heavy. Just over 40 lbs in the case.

On the “why very good and not excellent?” Side of things, it’s missing a couple of slider caps on the front, and on the sound side, one thing I *haven’t* been able to figure out on this particular one is the white and pink noise. Not sure if I just don’t have the right sliders up or something but I haven’t been able to get the noise to play through the mixer. Otherwise, though, it’s in quite amazing shape and sounds great.

Shipping is gonna be quite pricey given the weight and size. Be sure to check the pics of the case and the picture of it on the scale...40.2lbs (and that’s before being boxed) so would be great to do pick up I’m person, but we can work something out on shipping for sure"

CLICK FOR MORE »

Elka Drumstar 80

Kory Westerhold

"The Elka Drumstar 80 is a thick sounding, punchy vintage machine from Elka that came out in the mid-80s. Known by many as the Italian Linndrum, it features 20 banks of different presets —with 3 fixed and 1 programmable variants for each...giving it a total of 80 presets. It’s also programmable, in the vein of an Oberheim DX or Linndrum. There are also intro, outro and fill patterns for each preset, as well as a programmable fill. Feature wise it has 8 individual outs and the main outs are mono OR stereo, as well as a mixing section at the top for individual sounds that takes them up and down in the main mix. It has a cartridge slot for RAM memory as well, though I don’t own a cartridge.

A couple quirks of note on the Drumstar 80. One is that it actually has an internal fan to help cool the machine, which can run quite loudly during operation. It doesn’t affect the sound output at all, but is kind of an odd trait of the machine. I left at bit of the room noise in at the beginning of the video during power up to give a sense of it, and cut in a bit at the end of this video that hopefully is a more accurate capture of the noise.

The second quirk (and this happens on the Drumstar 64 as well) is that the tempo/bpm doesn’t move up and down in linear increments. It may clock to midi fine, but it moves in fixed increments. Just something to note."

Elka Drumstar 64

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Kory Westerhold

"Short demo of the vintage Italian drum machine, the Elka Drumstar 64 for Reverb. It’s just a preset box, but has killer, punchy disco-era rhythms presets...and gives you the ability to pan between different sounds. It’s actually a stereo machine, with individual L & R outs, but this was recorded in mono."

via this auction

"Here we have the Elka Drumstar 64, which is cool, punchy old Italian disco machine from the mid-80s. 1985 I believe 🕺🕺🕺"

CLICK FOR MORE »

Noystoise Synare/Syndrum Clone

Published on May 27, 2020 Kory Westerhold

"Just a poor, brief walk through of just a handful of the percussive noises the Noystoise clone of the Synare can make. Apologies for the poorly scripted, off the cuff demo."

Moog Opus 3

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Published on Aug 11, 2019 Kory Westerhold

"Quick demo of my Moog Opus 3. Not a complete walkthrough, just showing it works (but is in need of a good cleaning)"

via this auction

CLICK FOR MORE »

Macbeth Elements (EL2) SN EL2-016

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Published on Jul 20, 2019 Kory Westerhold

via this auction

"Reselling my Macbeth EL2, which is the latest revision of the Elements that Ken released last year. I’m the second owner. I bought from a guy in Switzerland here on reverb back in May [posted here] and just have ended up needing the money to fund a couple of outboard purchases.

There were only 30 of these made, and this is serial #016

Since there aren’t really many videos (or audio for that matter) of this thing online I made a couple of brief videos of it in action (though it can do SO MUCH MORE than what is in the videos)."

CLICK FOR MORE »

*Very Rare* ARP 4-Voice Electric Piano

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.
Published on Mar 31, 2018 Kory Westerhold

"Just a simple walkthrough video of the ARP 4 voice electric piano I have for sale on Reverb. The piano itself is quite rare, and there aren’t any videos I could find of one online, so hopefully this is helpful to the 2 of you out there looking for more info in them 🤣

As far as I can tell, these were released (for a minute) under the ARP badge, but later rebranded to Rhodes when CBS musical instruments bought out ARP.

The preset voices one this are a traditional acoustic piano, something like a Wurlitzer, a Rhodes-y type electric piano and a harpsichord.

Hope this was helpful.

Also the sound seems to get a little out of sync towards the end. Sorry!"

via this auction

"These were later rebranded under the Rhodes name after CBS Musical Instruments bought out ARP. Not much info is available on them online unfortunately, but basically it's a 4 voice electric piano with sounds similar to a acoustic piano, a Rhodes, Wurlitzer and harpsichord."

CLICK FOR MORE »