I live in the Chicago area and make music using vintage-based keyboards and synthesizers: Arp 2600, VCS3, Hohner D6 Clavinet, Fender Rhodes, Mellotron Mk. VI, Mellotron M4000D Mini, Moog Voyager, Hammond organ.
From 2012-2015, I was a member of The Margots, with Ken Vandermark and Tim Daisy.
I've been playing keyboards since was 12 years old.
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I had known about the VCS3 since the 1970s, from listening to music by Pink Floyd and Roxy Music. When I began buying gear for my music studio in 2005, I was interested in the VCS3, but prices in the re-sale market were too high, and I basically forgot about it.
Around 2010, I somehow heard that EMS was making a limited run of new Synthi and VCS3 synths. I contacted Robin Wood at EMS and added my name to a waiting list. I heard nothing for years and assumed that I would not get one. Then, suddenly in 2016, Robin contacted me to ask if I was still interested. I was, and in 2017 the VCS3 arrived at my house.
Although I couldn't afford to buy one of the new Cricklewood keyboards Robin offered, I knew that the VCS3 could be controlled using a midi keyboard with a CV-Midi converter box. I actually bought a converter box because I fully expected to use a keyboard with the VCS3 in the same way I used a keyboard with my Arp 2600.
But once it arrived, I began exploring the VCS3 without a keyboard and quickly saw that it could add a new dimension to my music simply by doing what it does best: creating interesting textures, colors, sounds and effects.
The VCS3 has encouraged me to take my music further into spaces outside of standard and non-standard harmony, which is something that has interested me since I began avidly listening to music by Xenakis, Penderecki, Partch, Stockhausen and others in the 1970s.
I love exploring the VCS3 even though aspects of it still slightly baffle me. But I've heard others who've used it for decades say the same thing. It's helped me approach composition from new and different angles. And it's created opportunities in my music for unexpected, purely intuitive things to happen that add wonderful colors to pieces.
It's a beautifully constructed and elegant instrument, and I'm grateful to have it.
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