For almost 10 years I have been performing and working the NoiseFest which is held in Sacramento, CA. This year will be our 18th year. I’ll be performing as Chopstick, as usual. Previous years I have done various projects and there was a time where I would be playing with maybe 5 acts throughout the whole weekend. This also reminds me that I owe recordings to people that I ran into last year that said they would release chopstick stuff. Sorry guys, lots of changes at the home and job front which has been keeping me from recording long projects.
I’m currently in the middle of restoring a Sequential Circuits Pro-One. Actually planning on working on it today. If I get it in working condition then it’ll likely be at my Noise Fest performance.
The keyboard on the synth was relatively beat up. The case too. I had been toying for months of the idea of re-housing the synth parts without the keyboard. I was talking with another synth friend who actually had done the same thing to his setup, admitting that a lot of people may be upset at his decision. “Vintage” people specifically. The concept of restoring versus repurposing are at a civil war these days. (I feel like I should do a rant on that, favoring repurposing over restoring).
My thing is, I can’t really play the keyboards. I’ve never really practiced or got good at the keyboards. Or to a level that I am with the guitar. It doesn’t feel natural to me. Playing the keyboards feels like trying to translate between two languages. I would ideally like to control these things through other means: theremin, midi/cv, guitar setups, etc. So this pro-one may be housed in a briefcase with access to CV in’s and out’s.
I’ve had this Pro-One in my closet for about a year. A friend bestowed it upon me when she moved. I recently watched the documentary I Dream Of Wires and naturally started shopping for modular synth items online. Eventually, I may delve into that world, but I have some analog synth gear already that I’m not utilizing entirely yet, so I should mess with those first. Also modular gear is pretty expensive and my car needs work and blah, blah, blah. Thus, I’m cleaning up this pro-one.
I’m taking pictures as I go. The intent is to write up a project blog of what I had done. I don’t think it will be posted to instructables.