Synth shops

Does anyone go to them? Does anyone even live near one?

The only one I am aware of near me is Control Voltage in Portland. Every time I've been in there it has been such a great experience, the employees and general customers have always been super nice and informative. If I lived closer I could see myself visiting it weekly. It seems like such a good opportunity for building community and friends with like interests.

Makes me wish you didn't need a shop just to hang out and discuss bleeps. There aren't many electronic-heavy venues near where I live so that's out of the picture.

What are your experiences with these sort of shops? Or music shops in general? Yay? Neigh?

There are a few here, not really dedicated to just synths though, all kind of acoustic & electronic instruments. One store owner is funny to me as he will passive aggressively answer any question with something like; 'you'll probably get it of internet anyway, right??!'. Making you feel not welcome lol, the store has a cat though which kind of balances out the bad vibes.

I like browsing the secondhand sections, sometimes gold can be found.  

Switched On in Austin is truly a treat. GAS heaven

i live in portland and coincidentally work at a synth shop

http://modular8.com

portland is kinda full of synth stuff. there's lot's of various events and free classes and workshops and shows and open mic nights and all that.. . control voltage has been great for all the things they've done over the years. i'm glad that jason and crew have done well. joseph who also works at 4ms is a great dude.. knows tons and seems tireless when it comes to sharing tricks and info etc. his classes are good too. yuseppie (sunfalls) also good dude.  he used to come into the muffwiggler store (which i also worked at).

anyway.. if you come through pdx you can make a day of synth shops and breweries in between :)

Damn, I didn't know there were that many out there. Shit. How many is that again? 4?

I'm going to have to plan a trip. You seeing Laurel Halo on December 3rd?

  On 11/11/2017 at 5:57 PM, drukqs said:

Damn, I didn't know there were that many out there. Shit. How many is that again? 4?

 

I'm going to have to plan a trip. You seeing Laurel Halo on December 3rd?

i don't know.. maybe.. didn't know she was coming here to play. 

there's 2 synth shops in pdx. synthrotek closed flamingly. 

There is a few here in Montreal.

The best for new synths is Moog Audio and then just nextdoor there is a rental studio where you can go and record with vintage synths.

I went there twice to record with Prophet 5 and OB-X and Memorymoog second time.

Unforgettable lush memories.

https://www.synthpalace.net/

There used to be this little one a town away from me called R&R music that would frequently get old synths and effects from the 70's and 80's that were in somewhat good condition. I think the owners would go to pawn shops and pick up things for the store too, since some of the origins of the synthesizer inventory were questionable and vague. I got there the same day a band was offloading a bunch of gear from a truck and I ended up buying a Roland SH-5 and a Alesis Microverb from there for $375. They had a decent selection of ancient Akai, and ESQ gear there too on top of some unusual worldly acoustic instruments. Unfortunately they shut down due to gentrification in the downtown corridor (New Westminster, B.C.) and a travel agency sits there now. :(