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.
Bobby the cat exploring editing functions of the Korg Monologue. Submitted by Erwin Kant via our facebook page.
Bobby showing me how the monologue works
Dexter A. Catt of Circuit3 three is out with a new composition on the Sequential OB6. From Peter Fitzpatrick via our Facebook page.
Handsome Spike, who is 14 years young, tries out a Moog Subsequent 37 synthesizer. From @DJLahbug on Twitter.
Eliot the cat sits atop a Behringer DeepMind 12, presumably enjoying the warm analog vibes. Submitted by Stiofan Dubh via our Facebook page.
Eliot helps with spacey sounds.
We at CatSynth are sure he is a great studio helper!
Cute Thala plays with her human and a vintage Roland synthesizer. I’m pretty sure it’s an RS-09 Organ/String synthesizer.
Submitted by Frederic Fantastic Preuss via our Facebook page.
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.
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.
Max, with his lovely marble markings, explores the studio. He is walking past an impressive collection of Eurorack modules, stepping on an Arturia BeatStep, and about to tweak some patches on the Behringer Model D. From coresect23 on Instagram.
Gracie is back and performing her duties as the quality manager for Synthetic Dreamscapes.
This Oberheim OB-Xa is not totally rebuilt yet, but our Quality Manager just had to get in on the action early!
The OB-Xa is one of the classic Oberheim analog synths and was featured in lots of early 1980s synth-heavy pop music. For me personally, it would probably be more interesting to have the SEM filter to complement the other instruments, but it still has a sound that would be instantly familiar to fans of this era.
The OB-Xa is a massive analog synthesizer with a very familiar and classic Oberheim sound. Its sound, size and power are very similar to the Prophet 5 from Sequential. However this one has up to 8 voices which can be split, layered and stored!
The OB-X was very similar to the OB-Xa except that its voices could not be split or layered and, more significantly, the OB-X had a lowpass-only discrete SEM 12dB/oct state variable filter, which had a great and classic Oberheim sound. The OB-Xa changed that in an attempt to economize manufacturing and increase stability by switching to CEM3320 Curtis chips for its filters. The Xa offered two switchable filter modes: 12 dB/oct (2-pole) or 24 dB/oct (4-pole). This hardware change resulted in a more agressive sound, not quite as creamy as the OBX original, but what still became a “bread and butter” sound of the Oberheim line.
Vintage Synth Explorer: http://www.vintagesynth.com/oberheim/obxa.php
