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Alas, I am not famous enough yet to have a dedicated road crew to
haul around my signature Yamaha 9ft. grand piano and Hammond B3 with
stereo Leslies, so I must make do with the technology of today. 
I currently use a Korg
X3 as my main keyboard. I occasionally use an
old Yamaha
DX series synth for other fun sounds. For effects, I run the
signal from the Korg over a Monster
100 series cable into a Morley
PWA Wah/Volume. (I am niether famous nor rich enough to be
able to use Monster cable throughout my signal chain, but who is!)
This runs into my Roland
KC-300 keyboard amp. I also own a Motion Sound Pro-3T
Leslie speaker simulator, which I use on my organ sounds.
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 I
just got a funky old synth. Its an ARP Omni-2 synth. It doesn't work
all that well at the moment, but I'm turning it into another DIY project.
The Omni-2 is a synth that was produced during the late 70's, but only
for about 2-3 years. It never gained the recognition of its older siblings,
the string ensembles and the like, but it does have a few interesting
features of it's own. There are 4 string presets, and a dedicated synthesizer,
with sliders to control all the important parameters. Click on the pic,
to see the inside... its pretty cool. If you have any thoughts on how
to repair this instrument, e-mail
me!
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The X-3 seems to be the "little-deformed-brother-that-is-locked-away-in-the-basement"
member of the Korg family. This synth is no longer even mentioned on
their homepage. It seems to have been swept under the carpet by the
new N-series boards. This can make getting support difficult. A lot
of the presets were pretty cheesy, but I started reprogramming some
of them, and they're getting better. The "real" sounds, ie. strings,
piano, are pretty weak. However, a lot of the synth basses and techno
sounds are right on. The resolution on the internal sequencer is a little
low also, at 96ppqn.
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My best piece of gear is a vintage Hammond
C3 organ that I purchased a few years back. It had been sitting
in the basement at Pomfret School for about 30 years. The school bought
four of these beasts wholesale from the US Army. The Army used to use
them in field chapels for religious services. Anyways, I'm working on
a custom rebuild of the organ. I'm removing the original case and building
a smaller, lighter one. The idea is to get the organ as portable as
possible. I plan on using speaker stands for the legs, and mounting
handles on the sides for transport. I might even cover it in green velvet!
Check out the organ
page to see how things are developing.
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