analog

CatSynth Pic: Gizmo, Little Phatty and Poly 800

Gizo poses with a Moog Little Phatty and a Korg Poly 800. Submitted by J Lugo Miller via our Facebook page.

Why does Gizmo love the Little Phatty and the Poly 800 so much?

Well, they are both fine synthesizers. The Little Phatty started the modern Moog “Phatty” series that includes the Sub Phatty we have here at CatSynth HQ and lives on with the Subsequent 37. And the Poly 800 has a place in the history of MIDI analog synths of the early 1980s.

At a time when Roland was doing well with their Juno-series, KORG countered with a poly-synth of their own in 1983 with the Poly-800. The Poly-800 was comparable to the Juno-106, at the time, with respect to the fact that musicians now had access to affordable programmable polyphonic analog synthesizers (it listed for under $1,000) with memory storage, stable DCOs (digitally controlled oscillators) and a new state-of-the-art technology called MIDI (although there was no SysEx implementation yet).

CatSynth Pic: Betty and the Yamaha CS20m

Betty on top of Yamaha CS20m

Adorable Betty the black cat sits atop a vintage Yamaha CS20m synthesizer. From Edda Jayne Hill via Facebook.

Betty loves the CS20m

And she is certainly in good company! Long before Yamaha’s dominance in the mid-1980s with the DX series of FM synths, they created the CS series of analog subtractive synthesizers. Although similar in topology to other analog synthesizers of the era, they had their own unique sound and character and were prized by many artists.

CatSynth Pic: Merp, Modular, Mother-32

Big Merp enjoys hanging on the synth side of the studio among the cat tchotchkes. He blends in quite well behind the main modular system, next to a Moog Mother-32 and our Roland VP-03 vocoder.

CatSynth Pic: Brisket and MS-20 mini

Brisket and Korg MS-20 Mini

Meet Brisket, an adorable tuxedo cat. Brisket is showing off a Korg MS-20 mini today. You can see more photos on Steve Peglar’s Instagram, embedded below.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1RHwvvnJD6/

I have been intrigued with the MS-20 mini since it came out a couple of years ago. Sure, it’s not the original, but both the smaller size and the modern features like USB+MIDI make it quite attractive. You can see our review from NAMM 2013 here.