As an avid synthesiser lover, I’ve gotten several of these magical pieces of musical hardware toys throughout the years. It started on my 6th or 7th birthday, when my parents got me the Casio SA 3 (listed below, as I still have it in a functioning state). It took me some time before the next one (the MicroKorg), as I played guitar in high-school and after that. The MicroKorg opened the doors to a new universe for me and synths have turned into a passion for me ever since. I am at around 15 pieces now and still constantly looking at new ones to add to my collection. The next ones I have my eyes on are the Arturia AstroLab 37, the Sequential Fourm, the Roland TR-1000 and Superlative’s SB-01 (Space Bee). More on these underneath the list with my current collection.
Korg MicroKorg – got this in Sofia ca. 2015 when I was upgrading from playing the Casio SA 3 at Jin Monic gigs (I was playing the synth part of Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy”, as we mainly played covers back then). I vividly recall the sales person at the Music Center Ikonomov shop in Sky City Mall switching the synth on, giving me a pair of headphones and letting me play around with it for 10-15 minutes, after which he asked me: “Did you fly away yet, mate?”. Well, I’m still flying as of today.
Korg MicroKorg 2 – being convinced that the MicroKorg is one of the best pieces of music gear ever created, when I heard the 2 was coming out, I pre-ordered immediately. Had to wait almost a year, as the premiere and the delivery got pushed out several times, but it was worth the wait. I love how it evolved and it’s so much fun to play!
Korg KingKorg Neo – got it as part of the MicroKorg 2 order, not sure why I decided to get this one as well. Looks like a mighty one, but haven’t got the chance to play around with it a lot. It still has some of the folio on the little screens, I haven’t removed it yet. It has a nice vocoder so I played it at the 25 years high-school reunion in December 2025 (or, actually, didn’t play it, as the sound guy hasn’t turned it up in the mix at the right time when we played Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”).
Korg Monologue – when I heard that Aphex Twin has worked with Korg on a new synth, I couldn’t not get it, so here you go. It’s obviously a mono one, which I didn’t entirely realise when I got it, but I am still quite happy with my purchase. Amazing build – feels wonderful with the aluminum housing and the wooden details. I have the silver version, which looks just stunning – especially with the red lights of the sequencer blinking. Another reason I got it was that at that point I experimented with the “software” version of the Moog One and I needed a hardware controller with lots of knobs to be able to control the Moog One app on my iPad via MIDI, so it served this purpose for a while as well. Great piece of equipment!
Korg RK-100S 2 Keytar – I obviously got this for the stage. It served its purpose several times and I’m quite proud I took the step of adding it to my collection. In terms of usability I wouldn’t say I’m so happy: the experience of the regular “desktop” synth works much better for me, but I was really wow-ed by the touch functionality (I accidentaly discovered it after my 2nd gig with it). It’s recently noticed a great brand new Bulgarian band called Zebra sporting a keytar on stage, but it was the much less cool looking Alesis. Still – keytars are here to stay and I admire them quite a lot, regardless if it’s me playing it on stage or watching someone else enjoying it. Always a great emotion!
Moog Subharmonicon – Blago from Hayes & Y messaged me one sunny afternoon alarming me that Moog are abruptly increasing the prices of all their stuff so I immediately went to Thomann.de and got the first thing I thought would be cool to add to my collection: a Eurorack “bundle” of the Subharmonicon, DFAM and a tiny mixer, together with quite a colorful bunch of patch cables – everything one needs to experience the magic of modular synthesis as a beginner on this slippery slope. I still explore it until today – probably the weirdest synth I have to date.
Moog DFAM – see above. Drummer From Another Mother. Nothing more to add. Except that it’s not really a drum machine, but a regular synth with a nice sequencer (although quite limited), which if operated very specifically, can emit percussion sounds. Cool thingie, especially combined with the Subharmonicon.
Moog Matriarch – my collection’s absolute Beast. It’s a semi-modular piece of absolute kick-ass-iness and although it may take some time to learn how to get your balls trembling when playing it, it’s a total roaring animal without any compromising. I love everything about it and am not sure where to start, so I won’t. I’ll just say that I love the string reverb! OMFG, I love this synth!!
Moog Muse – I got this almost immediately after it came out and bought it specifically to play in our Berlin apartment. I even got studio monitors specifically for it and spent some magical moments exploring it there. Now that we’re spending most of our time in Bulgaria, it temporarily moved to a friend’s place in West Berlin. I’m sure they are both doing well. Before I got this one, I thought about getting the Moog One, which, since it came out, I considered the ultimate synth. Well this one is also the ultimate synth, but much less expensive and it has wonderful presets. Very intuitive, too!
Waldorf Blofeld – I believe I got this one because I saw Thom Yorke playing it somewhere (or maybe he played another Waldorf and I looked the brand up and liked this one). It’s white and heavy (true metal) and very German: not a lot of fun when it comes to controls, but absolutely merciless towards its output. It’s also not analog, which kinda makes it sub-optimal for my tastes. It’s currently residing with my mate Ivailo, who is on a years-long journey of picking the right keys for his own thang. Good hands!
Telepathic Instruments Orchid – fun toy, looking like the Elka vintage calculator. I gotta admit that it’s a lot of fun and Kevin has donated a lot of his genius to it. The marketing campaign was also a case study of how to do GTM right nowadays. Firmware got several huge updates, which was a first time for me – never thought a synth can get such a different feel after a couple of clicks and looking at some beautiful dystopian animation for 10 minutes. It’s a perk that Matt Berry made some videos on how to play it. They also have a great series on YouTube with musicians making covers on it at the back of a limousine. They keep coming up with new cool content and stuff to keep fans engaged, so I’m excited about the ‘to be continued’.
Casio SA 3 – I mentioned it already: my first love. Still works! It has some hidden demo songs, which I couldn’t help but discover by chance after spending hours and hours and hours of my 6th or 7th year exploring it and exploring music in general. It’s only duo-phonic, but that was absolutely enough for me back then. Love the percussion buttons as well (all four of them) and still remember all the tones in the demos by heart.
Arturia Minilab MkII MIDI controller