This is a picture of the Pro One keyboard that I take to gigs when I
want an analog sound for leads. I saw this Pro One in Starving Musician
a couple of years ago. Right before the analog craze really hit here it
was on their glass counter with the fuse holder broken for $99. I couldn't
resist it. Although I had never had a Sequential Keyboard before, I still
remembered some of my older analogs and thought this would be an interesting
thing to bring to the gig. It was fun to play the first night and people
thought it was a cool novelty item.
After a while I remembered my old CS01 that was in the closet. It was an
analog keyboard too but it was special because of the breath controller.
Well why not retrofit this Pro One with a breath controller?
After calling my wizard friend Craig Ochikubo, we decided to do it. I dug
out some old plans from EM I think and he designed the boards. We basically
knew what we wanted since we were both breath controller FANATICS. The first
Pro One we modified had an ultra sensitive circuit. It even picked up breath
noise and thus was noisy to play. However the great degree of control we
got was encouraging. Craig later did some modifications to the circuit and
we were in control after that. I took this keyboard to many gigs and got
many good comments on it's sound and it's amazing control.
After that, I started trying to pull all of the springs off of my wheels
on my other synths but that's another story....