Our 500 plus posts about a formerly obscure little set of powered speakers got me thinking.

Often, I choose to play some pretty obscure stuff. For instance, I have a little computer controller (can't even find a name on it) that I use with a 15 year old Yamaha tone generator. Got the controller from Musicians Friend about 10 years ago for less than $160.00. I use it above an old MS-60 on one of my house jobs. Like the vibes, Rhodes and a few other sounds from the tone generator, which I got when I bought a Yamaha CPV 65. Controller is all plastic.

I choose to use an old Guild Barney Kessel like guitar over expensive better instruments. I'm comfortable with it.

I have a little Peavy 4 channel PA head that I just can't kill. Bought it for outdoor meetings in 1985. It still is my "go to" PA for certain jobs. Has passive EQ, a poor quailty reverb and it is heavy and awkward, but I keep using it for smaller outside jobs. It just won't die!

How about others? Do you have "unique" equipment choices that only make sense to you? Better yet, do you have equipment choices that make no sense to anybody?

R.

I use a Yamaha CS01 Monophonic Analog synthesizer that I play through the S900's Mic/Line in and use the effects and harmonizer to create pseudo polyphonic analog synth voices.

The little CS01, despite its small size and mini keys, is an extremely fat sounding analog synth with an oscillator range down to 32' and features a very nice 12dB resonant VCF filter and wickedly juicy Pulse Width Modulation

I can achieve some really cool sounds and effects by using this relatively obscure combination.

The CS01 is about 27 years old and in mint condition...I also have the breath controller for it which allows for incredible expression.

I believe Chick Corea used to use one, and they are very popular with today's electronic musicians.

Ian

[This message has been edited by ianmcnll (edited 03-25-2009).]

I gigged with a mystery second-hand unbranded set of MIDI pedals for over fifteen years. I was loaned them by a local dealer while waiting for a Roland PK5 to come into stock. The dealer went bust in the meantime, and I ended up scoring them free of charge.

Fast forward a decade and a half later and I finally acquired a PK5 and so stuck the old mystery pedals on eBay. To my surprise (expecting to get nothing for them) a bidding war promptly broke out for them. The winning buyer informed me they were in fact a rare set of Wersi (Alpha DX300CP/Beta DX400CP) pedals, of all things.

I gigged the hell out of those things!!

I am SO disappointed. I thought sure, looking a the name of the post, that this would be off-topic.
I'm using 30-year-old keyboard stands that look like erector sets. Can't find anything else as versatile, light-weight and stable. I have at least four of them assembled in various configurations to fit the keyboard of the month, plus a ton of extra parts.
DonM

Don't believe a word Mason says. I have it on good authority that he lost one of those "extra" parts just last week!

R.

I still gig regularly with an old Yamaha KX5 strap on 'keytar' into an almost as old Roland M-GS64 module...!

But my favorite 'no name' product I use all the time is an obscure compressor by FMR Audio, the RNC. Under $200, and for whole mixes, superior to anything under $2000 I have ever tried. Highly recommended.