When he isn’t shaping industrial dance outfit Black Strobe Frenchman Arnaud Rebotini is releasing EP’s on The Hacker & Gesaffelsteins Zone Records and generally rolling techno terror for the underground.
The latest and possibly greatest release from the man ‘Pagan Dance Move’ follows on from his 2011 debut LP and again reassures us of the current techno renaissance.
Taking time out and un-burying himself from all his gear, Mr Rebotini gave us his ‘5 Favourite Synths’.
Be sure to read up on our Vintage Synth Series with the Polivoks, Yamaha GX-1 & CS-80, Con Brio ADS Family, Steiner-Parker Synthacon and LM-1 & Linndrum.
Roland Jupiter 8
The jupiter 8 is a monster Polyphonic analogue synth. Produced between 1981-1984, it’s a classic keyboard that I used on the track Their synthetic Majesties Request for the pads and some of the typical electro sequences, it was used a lot by DR Fink, (Prince’s Keyboard player) so it has these really fat and funky keys, I’m actually using it a lot now for the next Black Strobe album.
The MS20 with its 2 amazing low and hi pass filters is one synth you just have to have in your studio, it’s perfect and it can do everything that a Jupiter 8 can’t. It also sounds really good with guitar, and you can have rave or EBM monster bass like I used in Their Synthetic Majesties Request. Plus it’s a semi modular synth so you can experiment a lot with it.
The Two voice is suitcase synth with 2 modules SEM plus an easy step sequencer. So that means is that you have two voices and you can sequence or play live with the keybord. It sounds really krautrock, like early Tangerine Dream. It was produced in 1975 and just on its own you can play beautiful ambient music on it and improvise all these beautiful sounds, if you can play accoustic guitar too then it’s the perfect weapon to catch a Hippie girl.
OK it’s not a proper synth, it’s a Sampler, an 8bit Sampler with an analogue filter Produced in 1984, but it’s the machine I used the most on this EP. I used some Factory bank patches, you may reconise some of the sounds, for example the voices or some of the percussive sounds from the Depeche Mode classic album Some Great Reward. This machine made the sound of DM and most of the EBM bands of the Mid 80’s like Front 242. This kind of early digital sound is back now that’s I called a a track on the EP ‘Alan Wilder War Whoop’, because for this track i only used the the EMULATOR II. High Power Digital!
The SH-101 is my long time pal, one of my first synths, and it’s always with me on the road for both Black Strobe and for my solo stuff. It’s the synth you need if want to start to produce something serious! It has a small and light sound but it really versatile, you can make all sorts of sounds from Chicago House bassline to psychedelic leads. Plus It’s easy to use, with the SH101 you have the best of what technology could offer in 1983. Probably the best synth ever.
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