Ever since I first heard Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene, a seven year old sitting crosslegged in front of the record player, I had an appreciation for the sound of synths. Recently, that was rekindled by the synthpop (for lack of a better genre name) group Joy Electric. There’s something about the sterile, yet, emotional tones that come from classic analogue synths.

So, after some research and deliberation, I went onto eBay looking for that special something.

I found the one I wanted. A Korg DSS-1 Sampler/synth. It was great because it could sample stuff and regurgitate it and still could generate it’s own stuff too (or some kind of combination).

It cost me 300$ American dollars. But I figured “I haven’t bought anything in 7 months, I should treat myself after kicking Crohn’s Disease’s ass (on a temporary basis). So I placed my bid. And fought off a deadly eBay sniper who tried to uproot my bid at the last minute. I was bouncing off the walls. I made contact with the seller who sorted out the shipping.

The shipping was estimated at 120$ US. Ouch. But I thought “Well, you kicked Crohn’s Disease’s ass as best you could for the time being, you haven’t bought anything in 7 months, and with the ileostomy, you need material possesions like this to raise your personal self-image, you big special rock star with lots of fans you”. So we carried on with the transaction. Final shipping (misestimated) was 150$ US. But the great eBay seller (to use his words) ‘ate thier mistake’ for me and covered the difference.

So I waited a week and finally I got home after having a bangup dentist appointment to two boxes in my room. As I was excitedly setting everything up, my parents told me that there was another 150$ worth of customs on it.

I almost got upset at that, but then I thought “Well, I did, just spend seven months in a hospital, and absorbed about sixty 2L bags of vein-food and all kinds of other expensive vein beverages, and it didn’t cost that much to me, I shouldn’t complain about this little taxation of my goods”.

This is becoming a much longer post than I expected, I’m glad it’s sitting next to Steve‘s monstrous post. All that to say that I now own a vintage 1986 Korg DSS-1, and if you know how to use it (or have a manual) let me know, I am full of questions.