I love synthesizers. I own a couple of vintage ones, and other bits of vintage audio gear. There's something very interesting about how they look and how they are designed, they're like a little time capsule of a bygone era, fascinating for a wide number of reasons. But it's also true that electronic bits of kit tend to degrade and break down over time, and we're talking decades here, so there's always something that doesn't work perfectly.

I suppose that's part of the charm really, and also what has now become part of their identity in a way, the noise, the inability to keep perfectly in tune, these little imperfections have become so synonymous with vintage synths that there's even digital effects designed to 'degrade' the pristine sounds of todays' instruments to nail that vibe.

But when you actually go through the work of restoring a vintage unit to factory standards something strange happens: you'll find that they perform far better than what you expect them to, and they sound present, punchy and bright. Sometimes even so much so that intuitively it feels wrong, like some of that old school magic has been lost. It's an interesting conundrum.