Open Mic: Did ‘Synther Claus’ Bring You Something Nice This Year?

Open Mic: For the holidays, our wish is that you have family, health and peace.

And, yes, since this is Synthtopia, maybe a little gear under the tree, the new app that you’ve been wanting or some great new music.

This year, ‘Synther Claus’ left us a classic ‘Moogsploitation’ album, Switched On Santa. It features Mooged-out arrangements of traditional Christmas songs, complete with sleigh bells and jazzy Moog solos.

Did Synther Claus bring you something nice this year…..or a lump of coal? Let us know in the comments!

Image: rthakrar

40 thoughts on “Open Mic: Did ‘Synther Claus’ Bring You Something Nice This Year?”

  1. I guess I was good this year, because there was a Moog Spectravox under the tree!

    OK – I bought it as a present to myself. But I was still pretty good this year.

    So far, I’m liking it. A lot of the synthfluencers were kind of ‘meh’ about it, because they were looking at it as a vocoder with modular patch points. To me, it seems more like a FFB or Buchla Spectral Processor, crossed with a basic monosynth voice.

    2. You can’t assess yourself and conclude that you were good this year and buy yourself a gift. That’s not how it works. Santa has to make that assessment.

  3. I treated myself to a Sonicware Mega Synthesis. It’s a rather cheap looking (and feeling) box, nothing like the sturdy LoFi-12 XT, but then again it IS cheap. It sounds wonderful; pure inspiration!

    I asked the wonderful people of cremacaffe.com if they could make a skin for it in the style of the retro XT, and they did!

    Merry Christmas!

  4. No new synths this Christmas season, but what I did get was some time to play with the gear I already have. So, thanks to Santa for that. And all the best to synth fans this holiday season.

    1. I know, right? Going forward, I need to behave in a manner that puts me on Santa’s naughty list so I don’t keep getting gear that I don’t have room for. Maybe you should consider doing likewise.

      1. I have room, as long as I don’t have any chairs. I finally got all the gear I ever wanted when I found a Kawai lemon keyboard MIB. Literally, every synth I ever thought was worth having for the sound of it. From now on I just pay bills and bank all the extra money. Retirement can be rewarding. I would like to figure out how to turn on that immortality gene. Right now I have a clock that runs counter clockwise and cancels out the others so that time doesn’t pass in my apartment. As long as I don’t go out I don’t age. Kind of like that Clifford Simak story Waystation.

  6. Bought myself a Kijimi mk2 very recently. I guess that counts. I think we all know that buying surprise musical gear for someone is extremely tricky, unless you get very specific in your wishlist (effect units come to mind, like stereo delay/reverb combo pedal, which gives you room for surprise). But with synths, especially with people who use them insttead of collect them, synth choices end up being hyper specific to fill a notable gap in your synthesis options/sound.

  9. My in-laws gave me Behringer’s Model 182 sequencer module after being baffled by my Sweetwater gift list; I had to make a little patch video to explain to them what exactly it was they’d purchased!

  12. Nothing synthy under my tree this year, but I did score a copy of Switched on Santa at a thrift shop a couple of months ago (I actually whooped in the store). I’ll take that as an early Synthsmass.

  13. Tight budget this year, the only synthy thing I could swing was Cherry Audio’s P-10 softsynth. I cut my teeth on a P-5 back in the day and know my way around the architecture well, so playing with it has been a delightful experience!

    1. I received some cash that I’ll be putting towards a base model M4 mini. It should be brilliant running softsynths. Also took advantage of the Arturia V Collection thanksgiving discount to upgrade my 5 year old software to the latest version. Excited to put it all to use!

      1. I was inline to meet the Higbees Santa and ask for a Moog Muse but the kid in front of me asked for a Red Rider BB gun and Santa gave him the boot and pushed him down the slide. When it was my turn I froze and ended up asking for a football. So I had to buy the Moog myself.

    2. I did the same thing, bought myself a Muse getting a 10% discount in the black friday sales. The downside is that the store that gave the discount didn’t have it in stock, so it’s been ordered and will arrive mid february. It takes some restraint not to fill the waiting period with other purchases.

  17. Well my Christmas music gift came in an unexpected way: my CS-30 sold on Reverb. Despite the significant amount of cash coming my way, I feel some sadness parting with the craziest , most powerful analog synth I ever owned. So mixed feelings, but with age setting in, it’s time to shrink the synth collection and focus on fewer instruments, more playing time.

    1. Sounds like someone is on Santa’s naughty list.
      I’m an adult, and I got a Behringer Kobol Expander. And I didn’t have to pay for it myself.

  19. Arturia gave my MiniFreak the 3.0 firmware update complete with samples & granular oscillators!!

    Rudolph’s nose is now in technicolour and he’s very happy.

  20. aWc: … my CS-30 sold on Reverb… So mixed feelings, but with age setting in, it’s time to shrink the synth collection and focus on fewer instruments, more playing time.

    Don’t feel too bad. We’ve all been there. I’ve made a couple of hard trades, like when I gave up my Roland XP-30 to a much better player who deserved it. I got a nice box full of pedals and other accessories in exchange. The -30 is one of Roland’s sweeter synths, bursting with sounds.

    Think of it like this: you got ample goodie-time with the CS-30, it’ll be in eager hands and you can drop a bit of cash on a software version of the CS-80. You’ve earned a little GAS relief. You didn’t just dump it in the trash to corrode and become a Net meme. 😛

  22. I’ve been purely evil this year like all years so i got myself a bargain second hand Meris Mercury7. For years and years i’ve only had an Alesis Microverb 3 which is bizarrely excellent and sounds great even when overdriven. I still love the sound and it sounds like a lot of 90s electronic records but it was time to step into the future a bit, looking forward to seeing how the two will complement each other.

  23. Santa came a few times this year.
    Oxi One
    Liven MegaSynthesis
    Hydrasynth Explorer
    Sampson patch bay
    Push 3
    Gamechanger Light Pedal
    2x Analog tape delay pedals
    Edge
    2x monotrons
    Live 12
    new ultrawide monitor
    and a bunch of cables

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *