What made you interested in synthesizers?

When I was really young, in the late '80s, I had a neighbor whose dad was a manager of a Radio Shack. He also played guitar in a band.

My interest sort of culminated from several disparate things. The first was Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms." It was the first CD I ever heard and the Some of the keyboard work on it was neat.

I used to go over and play on their Tandy 1000, and I understood what a disk drive did. I went to one of his dad's concerts and saw that his keyboardist had a keyboard with a disk drive and I was really intrigued.

Later, when the Beyond The Mind's Eye computer animation video came out, Jan Hammer's stuff really grabbed me. That was ages 8-11.

But it didn't really kick in for another 3-4 years later when I fell asleep in front of the TV and woke up to pee when I heard a crazy ass sound. I ran to see what it was and it was MTV's Amp. Sometimes they didn't show the name of the track at the end, so I spent years trying to remember the group names and watching the show diligently to try to see it again.

I befriended a guy who lived Nine Inch Nails, which got me more into industrial and lesser known groups, and we started playing with Fruitlyloops and ACID. At that point, I started learning a ton about synthesizers, discovered the track that was eluding me for so long was Underword's "Cowgirl," and my interest in synths matured, but I couldn't afford anything.

Finally, in 2000-2001, I bought a broke-ass Realistic MG-1 for $75 and that largely started my synth collecting.

I still have very little, but the renaissance in DIY and lower cost synthesizers is starting to ramp up what I can afford to get and play around with.

/r/synthesizers Thread