Archive for March, 2010

What do I follow up with away from Simmons gear?

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Right, I unplug it and “pick” something else

Collecting WHAT? Electronic drums???

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

When I seriously started playing music at the age of 13, back in 1983, the medium-term target was of course…girls, as many as possible, as beautiful as possible. I was fascinated by great rock bands, the money, the fame. At this point my experiences with girls were to help them learning latin vocabulary or to teach them mathematical formulas. So it was about time to start something “exciting”. To be honest, I was blinded by a show: I more or less lived from making music for about 15 years, but girls: No progress that might have been related to the fact that I was a music playing vagabond. My “attraction” (if it could be decribed as such) was more based on the fact that I was “recommended” as a reliable, anodying (I try to avoid to say “boring”) listener (at least this reputation is the reason how I got to know my wife, so please: I won’t complain). So all in all the best requirements for someone to start a collection of boring stuff like … hexagonal electronic drums. Probably it worked out to impress a handful of guys. But girls? No… “WHAT do you collect? Electronic drums? What’s that? Next, please…”.
I am happily married, I find some understanding from my wife but I guess that she actually considers my hobby being more than strange: paying a hell of a money for old and unfashionable, often none-working gear. So what?

Claptrap Mania

Friday, March 5th, 2010

It’s done. I have completed my collection of Claptraps. And to be honest: Until probably two years ago I did not even know that there had been more than the famous digital Claptrap from 1984. Yes! The first Claptrap was analog and it was a Musicaid device, built approximately 1979/80, likely assembled by Dave Simmons himself, followed by the analog Simmons Claptrap (technically the same as the Musicaid but with a humanizer function and a slightly different case) and completed in 1984 by the digital version: the “Simmons Digital Claptrap”, one of Simmons’ most important “bread and butter” products. In fact it was called “digital” because it carries the basic sound on an 8 bit Eprom but this sound is processed by a chain of analog Simmons filters. I am looking forward to provide some sounds of all three devices soon

For whatever reason the two analog versions found their way to Simmonsmuseum much quicker than the Digital version did. I saw dozends of Digital Claptraps passing by on Ebay but I was never willing to pay lots of money for a device in poor condition.Llast week i was lucky