Instruments & sound sources

Currently, vintage EMS and Moog instruments and a small Eurorack modular represent the main sound sources. Digital equipment is still used only for recording and sound editing. Back in the 1980s my first home-studio was equipped with a small Roland Studio 100 M modular system, an OSCar monosynth and a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer. Recording was done with a Tascam M-208 8-channel recording mixer, a Tascam 234 Syncaset 4-track double speed cassette tape recorder and a Revox B77 reel to reel tape machine. For live electronics i almost exclusively used a small TMS modular system, a Serge Modular clone built in the late 1970s by Ernst Thoma, a very talented swiss avantgarde sound designer, composer and performer. As in the late 1980s and early 1990s analogue synthesizers became affordable at very low prices, a lot of wonderful sounding machines were added to the studio (see list below), but only a few of these instruments were used for productions, in most cases they were later exchanged or reselled and some of them are now showcased at the Synthorama Museum in Luterbach.

The home-studio in 2023.

Studio gear as WUR [1983-1993]

Synthesizer & drum machines: ARP Odyssey Mk1, Quadra, Solina strings; Boss DR-55, DR-110; EMS Synthi AKS; Ensoniq EPS sampler; Korg MS 20, MS 10, Mono/Poly; MFB 601 sequencer; Moog Minimoog D, Polymoog, Source, Satellite; Oberheim Four Voice, DX drumcomputer; OSC Oscar rev. 7; PPG Wave 2.3; Roland System 100 (101 + 102), System 100 sequencer, System 100M (8 modules in 1983, 25 modules in 1990) with 4-CV keyboard, CSQ 100 sequencer, Jupiter 8, Jupiter 6, Jupiter 4, Promars, SH-02, VP 330 vocoder / strings, TR-808, TR-909; SCI Prophet 5 rev. 3.0, Prophet 600; TMS Modular, a Serge Modular clone built by swiss avantgarde composer Ernst Thoma; Yamaha CS 80, CS 60, CS-5, CS-30, DX7.

Recording, effects, outboards, others: Aphex C aural exciter; Atari ST; Barcus Berry and C-Ducer contact microphones; Digitech RDS 1900 delay; JBL Control-One (4 units); Marantz CP 430 portable cassette tape recorder for field recording; Revox B77 and TEAC X-10R reel-to-reel tape recorders; Roland DEP-5 digital effects processor and RE 501 analogue tape chorus / delay; Roland PA-80 power mixer; Sennheiser MKE10 clip microphone, ME88 directional microphone; Tascam M-208 4-channel recording mixer, Tascam 234 Syncaset 4-track double speed cassette tape recorder; Tektronix 545B dual-beam oscilloscope.

A partial view of the WUR home-studio in 1985.