Mothballs

And so, we've reached a strategic point: the point at which the large finished room in the basement is once again required for a birthday party. Which means some tidying, some paring down of the old toys and books scattered around it, and some moving out of things that are a) breakable, and b) rarely used.

Including, as it turns out, all of the electronic music equipment I've accumulated over the last 25 years or so, which I confess I've barely touched since we moved in, nine years ago - certainly not much since the basement was finished and it was all installed in that room. So goodbye, for now, to the following dearly loved bits and pieces of electronica, which are now stashed mainly in the workroom, possibly pending re-installation sometime in the future. But maybe just waiting for Ebay.

The synthesizers: a collection of digital, analogue, and hybrid beasts from the unexciting end of the professional musical instrument scale, circa the mid-1980s:



The rack of associated gear, including a few more synthesizer modules, a 12-channel mixer, and an extremely dodgy 1985-vintage sampler:



Various and assorted home-made distortion boxes:



The guitar amplifier, which would be more useful if I could play guitar with any level of skill:



And even the AKG dynamic microphone, with its built-like-a-tank construction and post-cold-war German industrial chic:



Sad times indeed, although as years go by I'm finding it increasingly difficult to be sentimental about all of this. I expect the birthday party, with crafts, games, and an overarching Princess-y theme, will be a great success. And if I need to satisfy my electronic music obsession sometime in the future, well, I've got a laptop and a digital audio interface that almost works, so I guess I'm set. The rest of the hardware, it seems, is doomed to storage for now.