My first synth…

Ok, so I never actually owned one, but my first long term, hands on relationship with a synth was with a Korg Mini-Korg 700S like the one featured in the video below. I was a student at Stowupland High School, a fairly new secondary school set deep in the middle of Suffolk in England. A year earlier, in 1982, I had been at another High School, Attleborough (the school where I had my first musical epiphany and discovered my ability to play the drums), a result of my parents divorcing and mother remarrying. Stowupland was therefore my third Secondary school (and thankfully my last) and being a little bit of a loner who managed to pull off the trick of never being associated with one particular clique but was welcomed by them all, I often liked to spend my lunch breaks in one of the three purpose built music rehearsal rooms with a piano, drums and the 700S.

I had done plenty of research into synths, mainly because that was all I could afford to do, so understood the concept of synthesis but this was the first time I had ever been able to put any of it into practice.

Just like you remember your first kiss, your first sexual encounter and the like, I remember this machine with deep fondness and it’s one of the main reasons that I still hold on to my Korg Prophecy, which I always saw as a direct descendant of the 700S, both in looks and sound.

So, courtesy of AnalogAudio1 via MatrixSynth, enjoy this video of my first, true synthesizer love….