There's no photo that can do justice to just how full of keyboards this house is, even though Kent insists that "It's actually not that bad at the minute.” It's enough to make a synth fan weak at the knees. When I visit, there's a full family of Yamaha's CS-series polysynths - CS80, CS70, CS60 and CS50 - awaiting Kent's ministrations, alongside an Elka Synthex, ARP Odyssey, Minimoog, Roland Juno 60, Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, Prophet 10 and a huge Oberheim Eight-Voice. But you can't do that any more, because the machines' value has risen by so much that even for a wrecked CS80, people will want three or four thousand pounds - for something that doesn't work.” Restoration StationsĪn example of how complex analogue polysynth design can be: the interior of an Elka Synthex. "I used to be able to cannibalise a wrecked CS50, or even a really destroyed CS80, and break it down for spares. "The customised ICs in the CS80 are not exactly abundant,” says Kent. Keeping such synths functioning more than 35 years after they were made gets harder as spares become more scarce. "I would imagine there's still about 700 in circulation - mostly in studios, being used as workhorses, but when restored they behave themselves and can be used for touring.” "I have seen CS80s that at one time would have been broken for spares, but now they're restored, almost at any cost, because people are willing to spend the money to bring them back,” Kent says. They were expensive in 1977, when they sold for £5000 (the average UK house price was about £10,000) recently, a fine example sold on eBay for £11,700. Of these, around 300 have come through his workshop. Kent estimates that Yamaha manufactured only 800 to 850 examples of the CS80, the 100kg synth perhaps most associated with Vangelis's albums and film soundtracks for Chariots Of Fire and Blade Runner. Kent Spong of Kent Spong Restorations (KSR) is one of the UK's few experts in the maintenance and repair of vintage analogue synths, and as well as offering his services directly to owners, he restores instruments for RL Music, founded by his old school friend, synth dealer Richard Lawson. Some were manufactured in such limited numbers - from the low hundreds to low thousands - that the small and ever-decreasing supply and insatiable demand have pushed prices beyond even the king's ransom they sold for originally. Keyboards circulate between musicians, studios and collectors, and the recognisable sounds of favourites like the Yamaha CS80 or Minimoog continue to appear on newly released records, often in genres undreamt of when they first appeared. The enduring popularity of analogue synthesizers means that many vintage instruments have lived on decades after their designers imagined they'd be only so much scrap metal and plastic. But keeping them alive takes a special kind of expertise. Vintage synths are objects of fascination to musicians and collectors alike.
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