Archive for July, 2010

Photo shooting (Part 2)

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

Part 2 of the great day in the photo atelier. Please note that these snapshots as well as the ones in my former post are only taken with my cheap 70 Euro camera. The high resolution pictures, taken by the actual photographer, will follow somewhere in the future. These will be definetely even much better.

These snapshots are supposed to replace some very old pictures on my site.

a dignified evening of life (part 2)

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

Some posts ago I reported about the rusty Musicaid SDSV frame SN#72. Today I had the opportunity to disassemble the device. While the outer chassis has obviously suffered from humidity, the internal cicuit boards look pretty good. All soldering joins seem to be ok. Only the socket of the fuse and the power LED need to be replaced. No big deal.

The SDSV: consisting of only a handful of electronic parts, not really rocket science, but somehow mean

this picture reminds me of my first car, a 1970 Volkswagen Bus T2 right after purchase

The rust and old lacquer has been sanded away

the sanded surface grounded with a special undercoat

some dead insect….

The next step will be to replace the fuse socket and power LED, then I will assemble all parts again for testing. Stay tuned

Photo Shooting

Friday, July 9th, 2010

Instead of waiting until my gear has rottened in my basement, I rather prefer to place it in the limelight. Yesterday I had the opportunity in the photo atelier of a long time friend:

Howard Jones? THE Howard Jones?

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

When Howard Jones released his first hit single “What Is Love?” in 1983 I purchased the entire album. This initial smash hit was followed by countless more chart hits. I was told that when he used to perform he integrated several Simmons gear into his setup, for example the SDS6 step sequencer and SDSV (the emphasis is on “I was told…”).

For whatever reason Howard Jones was looking for two Simmons pads, I assume in order to integrate them into the percussion setup of his upcoming shows. One of the former Simmons protargonists forwarded my email adress and so I got his request purchasing two SDS9 pads last week. (Un-)Fortunately I don’t sell any gear from my collection. But I offered him to send two pads for free if he would return some Simmons gossip and pictures of the setup for my blog. He was very happy about my offer, but his counter-offer said that he would invite me for his Indigo2 show in London on November 6th. And I will join this show together with my wife!

Today the pads arrived in England. Howard kindly documented the arrival with a picture of him, together with none less than Rupert Hine, world famous producer, posing with my SDS9 pads. Thanks guys! Another story for my grandchildren!