Our friend Charles Whiley is restoring and upgrading a Roland JX-8P. We see Ansel (black and white) and Olive (tabby) hanging out nearby.
Tag: ansel
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Ansel and rack-mount synths

Ansel is showing off an absolutely insane (in the good sense of the word) tower of vintage rack-mount synthesizers. From top to bottom, we see:
- Novation Supernova Rack
- E-MU Audity 2000
- Casio VZ-10M
- Yamaha TX-802
- Yamaha TG77
- Roland SC-880
- Oberheim Matrix 1000 (x2)
Below the rack and just above Ansel we see a Sequentix Cirklon sequencer.
All in all, quite impressive – we at CatSynth are a bit envious 😺
From our friend Charles Whiley via Facebook.
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Ansel, JL Cooper Synapse, and Zara

Our friend Ansel poses next to a JL Cooper Synapse MIDI processor. We see one of his fellow cats hiding just below – we’re pretty sure this beautiful black cat is Zara.
From Charles Whiley via Facebook.
The JL Cooper Synapse is a MIDI router and processor which can route and merge various MIDI inputs and outputs. It’s very similar to the Digital Music Corp MX-8 that we have at HQ, but bigger. I recall seeing the JL Cooper one in brochures earlier on but it was out of my league at the time. Ansel is lucky to have found one, though.
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Ansel on the Console

Ansel poses handsomely on the back of a studio console. He is one of the “synth cats” that shares the studio of Charles Whiley in Arkansas. He is apparently a very sweet fellow.
You can see Ansel’s other appearances via his tag.
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Ansel and Yamaha QX3

The handsome Ansel poses next to a Yamaha QX3 sequencer in mid-repair. From our friend Charles Whiley.
The QX3 features the distinctive Yamaha industrial design that they used for most if not all of their instruments in the mid-1980s. This look holds a special place for me as it was the time when I started exploring synthesizers and electronic music. The QX3 also has those vintage computer-style keys, which is a very nice touch. As a sequencer, it is less convenient than many hardware sequencers, but still quite powerful, especially in an era where analog sequencers with short step counts have enjoyed a renaissance.
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Mr. Maximillion, Olive, and Ansel

Group shot featuring Mr. Maximillion (left), Olive (top), and Ansel (bottom). From Charles Whiley.
Identification of the keyboard left as an exercise to the reader.
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Ansel and Midas

Ansel sits proudly with a rather impressive Midas console. We are sure both cat and console do a great job of connecting up the many synths of Charles Whiley, who contributed today’s photo.

