WELCOME
Yet another snyth-patch website?
Aren’t there already enough on the web you may ask?
The main purpose here is to share my passion for synth-programming (although I’m only starting out), sound creation in general and the challenge to learn wordpress to finally set up a little website.
So here is a quick rundown about my journey:
My fascination for synthesizers emerged in the late 80ies, while listening to the masterful ‘Synthesizers Greatest’ albums that came out during that time. The digital revolution of digital synth/gear was in full bloom and new musical genres like house, techno and trance arose.
Not only did I fell for that music during my college years in the 90ies, I also developed interest in the gear used for production.
After reading countless magazines regarding synths and checking them out at music stores, I finally decided to buy my first ever synthesizer in 1997. The Yamaha CS1x.
Yamaha CS1x
It offered a wide range of temporary sound patches (performances), GM sounds and a 12-part multitimbrality plus an additional performance part. All for a reasonable price tag at that time. In conjunction with Steinberg Cubasis 3, I created short tracks to learn the synth and music production in general. But there was something missing.
Although the synthesizer market was heavely leaning towards digital music generators, my demand for an analog synth slowly grew.
I can’t remember exactly – it must have been around the end of the 90ies – when I came across an advertisement I saw in a magazine selling second hand items. Somone was selling a Roland Juno-106 in supreme conditions. I bought it right away for a great deal, compared to nowaday prices from $2000 and up (2025).
Roland Juno-106
It was real fun to tweak all those sliders, creating sounds from scratch, and to learn how subtractive synthesis works. Just add a little reverb and/or delay and the Juno-106 sounds phenomenal. Nontheless there was a point – I bet many of you were there too – when you feel the gear you have just isn’t enough…
Virtual Analog was and still is a thing today. The hands on user interface experience from early analog devices paired with modern technology like plenty of integrated FX, Vocoder, Arpeggiator, Mod Matrix, huge preset banks and user storage, combined with more of this and more of that, in a compact device with low maintenance? For me it had to be the Novation K-Station.
Novation K-Station
Although my small home studio grew little by little, less time could I bring up using & playing the gear, let alone making music.
And before I really could get started to create ‘finished’ music – instead of just tinkering around – I took the opportunity to start my own business in the archviz industry in 2007. From there on I had no time to invest in making music anymore. The gear gathered dust and became more of a burden than something to enjoy – and wasting valuable space, too. As a consequence, I sold all my gear; of course regretting having sold some of them.
16 years down the road – late 2023 – the enthusiasm for electronically created music arose again, after listening to contemporary electro and synthwave. After watching tons of youtube videos, I could get a glimpse of what current tools and gear was being used and began investing in a small setup, of which included a NI Maschine MK3 25th Anniversary Edition in Ultraviolet.
Native Instruments Maschine MK3 Ultraviolet
This controller is really fun to use. Pushing the large pads let’s you trigger samples or play softsynths, the touch sensitive knobs let you assign any parameter you wish in a DAW. For greater playability, though or even playing melodies on the fly, for me a traditional keyboard is a better input device. Besides an audio interface, the NI Maschine also features 5-pin midi in and out ports to attach older midi gear.
And we’re at that point again: Why not buying a synth that also acts as a master keyboard instead of ‘only’ a midi-controller? This time a second hand one & reasonably priced? After an intensive online research, I came across the Roland D-50, which offers a characteristic sound specifically used in late 80ies and synthwave music.
Roland D-50
After I laid my hands on the D-50 and tried all its factory-presets, I began to search for other patches online and encountered a vast amount of available free patches. I was buffled of the sounding capabilities coming from this synth and immediately fell in love with its LA synthesis. The biggest issue, though: The D-50 lacks every aspect of a hands on experience for altering parts of a patch. Featuring mainly a Joystick for data entry or fading between partials, there is serious menu diving to consider. But we’re living in 2025 by now and there are a few solutions to level up your patch creation edeavor. They come in form of librarian/patch editor software that runs either desktop-/web-based or as apps on mobile devices. I looked for the one that accomodated me most and began first to alter existing and then to create my own patches completly from scratch. And now I’m here to share those fruits of labour with all, who are interested in the still sought after D-50 sound.