I recently spent a few days servicing my trusty old Roland SH-09, an analog monophonic synthesizer that has been with me since forever. Afterwards I was so astounded with how good it sounded now. The not so simple task of cleaning and re-lubing all the carbon sliders actually improved the sound A LOT. Since I also did the so called noise mod I can now blend in a selectable level of noise along with VCO saw or pulse (and sub osc). This is not possible on an un-modded SH-09. Check out my video and hear for yourself. I suggest using headphones or a good pair of speakers to enjoy the rumbling bassness.

I just uploaded a new video to Youtube where I play around with my HYVE Synth.
I wouldn’t call it a real performance though. It’s more like a demo of what this thing is capable off. I’m still learning how to use it.

Developed by Skot Wiedmann, the HYVE is a 60 voice analog polyfonic synthesizer where each key senses pressure, vertical position, and horizontal position. By pressing down and just wiggling your finger a little bit you can control the sound much more than with a normal keyboard. For example you can balance the stereo position of one voice by leaning the finger a bit to the left or right and the volume of the voice by how hard you press.

The layout of the bottom part of the HYVE is similar to that of a normal keyboard with the addition that you can play five octaves per key, all at once of course. In the top section the keys are arranged in different chromatic scales which makes it “easy” to play chords and drift though voices that would be pretty hard, if not impossible to do on a normal keyboard.