what do you do with a cranky prophet?

that really sounds like it ought to be the setup for a joke but if it's a joke it's totally on me.

Caveat Emptor is the phrase for the week... possibly the month. Depending on how much I have to shell out to get this thing working right.

by now you must be wondering what I'm on about.

I'm talking about an analog synthesizer. Oh no, the Korg I got for my birthday is working fine it's nearly perfect and the small instabillities in that one aren't enough for me to worry about it.

it's the other one.

I bought a Prophet 600 analog synth back in March for $650.00 a price I bargained the guy down from 800 on and thought was a good deal until I brought it home. It's a polyphonic synth, which means I can make chords and play more than one note at a time (unlike my other synth). Anyway the keyboard was acting really strange and not in tune with itself, it was playing a bit like an old piano that's been ignored for twenty five years, you play one note and the next one is flat and the third one sounds just like the first note you played. Anyway that was my problem. So I called a repair shop which specializes in old gear, they're mercifully near by. long story short they got it fixed in a couple of weeks and for only about $275 including labour and parts, that's great I bring it home and have a ball, making sounds with it, learning how to program it and teaching myself how to play two keyboards at once.

Then this week I decided to go through all of it's memory (it can store 100 different sounds that can be accessed by a keypad that looks a bit like the one on your phone)

Anyway this was a good idea at the time, it meant I could make notes of what sounds were where and get a better idea of it's capabillities.

still no problem.

then yesterday I'm playing it and it's drifted out of tune. I tune it but it's not goten better, it's actually a bit worse, then I notice that I've been doing it wrong and that's thrown it out of balance. I've spent the last two days trying to get it back and slowly it's been complying. not a problem right?

wrong.

I decide to try some different sounds and discover much to my own frustration and curiosity that it seems to be out of tune in each patch and in unique ways, one might be flat another sharp another just so slightly that it sounds off to the ear and still another that's three or four notes off completely.

I've heard that this synth was legendary for going out of tune, that's one of the reasons I think that the manufacturer made it so easy to re-tune it (just hit a button if it doesn't work do it over and over untl it sounds right, just make sure you have the mod wheel in the right place first).

except that I have 100 different sounds and many of them are uniquely out of key.

aarrgh

I'm going to have to call the repair shop and ask them if they know what's wrong with it I'm praying I don't have to get it repaired again because it's a little pricey even if the synth itself is badass when it works right.

ok so lessons learned:

1. don't buy vintage synthesizers from craigslist

2 if you do buy old gear from craigslist take the time to test it thuroughly if the dude, or lady who's trying to sell you the gear starts to get irritated with how long you are taking to check it in every concievable way you're doing it right.

3. what's that phrase again? Caveat Emptor: buyer beware. Even if you've worn out your welcome, and haggled like a Lebonese grandma to get the vintage synth of your dreams that doesn't mean that it's still ging to do what you want it to when you get it back to your place, especially if it's older than some of your friends, that shit don't have warrenties.