Prince

Prince had an old Yamaha CP-70 grand in the basement of his Kiowa Trail home studio (similar to the CP-80 model, used live), recorded with an AKG 414 microphone. Heard on the rehearsal take included on the Piano and a Microphone 1983 album.

Prince used the Oberheim OB-Xa as his go to Analog Synth on 1999 and Purple Rain. It's even responsible for the "Church Organ" intro on Let's Go Crazy, and it is all over "The Beautiful Ones" and the posthumously-released "Father's Song". The picture included is from around late 1984 during the Purple Rain era, of Prince playing at Lisa Coleman's synth rig.

source: http://blog.zzounds.com/2016/05/02/prince-musical-instruments/

Purple Rain was the first album to introduce digital synths in Princes music. It was Yamaha dx7.

According to Duane Tudahl's Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions 1983 and 1984 book, Prince only used the Yamaha DX7's preset sounds, and hardly ever got around to programming it. Probably because it was rather difficult to program, unlike the Oberheim. Summer 1984 was the only period in his whole career that he used the DX7 the most, on several of the songs he was recording. Including all over The Family album and Around The World In A Day. Later albums it appeared on included Parade and Sign O' The Times.

Prince started to use the Fairlight CMI around 1985 he wrote a song titled Tibet which used a handful of samples from the Fairlight CMI. He used the synth a lot for The Sign ‘O’ The Times Album and continue to use them for a long time. He later had two of them fixed around 1996 according to an interview on http://www.fortheloveofthefairlight.com/tag/prince/

In a photo taken in his personal studio, Prince is seen using the Akai MPC60II.

we see the instrument, at prince's home studio in paisley park

In a 1990 interview on prince.org, Dr. Fink mentioned that the only remaining Oberheim keyboard Prince used was the OB-8.

In an interview with Dr. Fink and Rosie Gaines, when talking the gear use to use Dr. Fink said “The Oberheim was the main synthesizer he used in the studio back then. He used the Yamaha CP-80 electric grand too, but for synths, the Ober-heim was the main axe”.

Here is an excerpt from an interview with Dr. Fink and Rosie “ What is the bands using for piano squnds? Fink: I've been using'the [Roland] MKS-20. It works really. well, We, do our own patches and EQ them to taste, so they sound more realistic. On the last tour, I was using the MKS-20 and the Emax II grand piano sample. Sometimes I mixed them together; other times I used them separately, depending on what we needed. Did Prince play any keyboards in the most recent show? Fink: Yes, as a matter of fact. He did a .. whole section by himself, just playing piano and singing. A real piano? Fink: No, but it looks like one. [Pause.] I don't know if I should be announcing this. Oh, go ahead. Fink:: Well, this was my idea, actually. About three years ago, we had a real Yamaha grand. We put Barcus-Berrys and other pick-ups in there. They sounded okay, but they picked up a lot of ambient noise. And Prince used to get up on the piano and dance, so forget that. Anyway, the sound man came to me, because he didn't want to bug Prince, and said, "Matt, I got this problem with the sound in the piano. What do you think we can do?" I said, "There's this new MKS-20 thing. I think we should try that out, and put the Forte MIDI mod in the piano." So we put that in to trigger the MKS-20. I tried it out, and it sounded really good. Prince showed up for rehearsal a couple of days leter. He had no idea that we had modified anything in the piano. He sat down at the piano and started playing, not saying anything. I walked over to him and said, "So what do you think of your piano sounds" He said, "Sounds really great! What did you do?" I told him what we had done because of the ambient noise prob-lem. He said, "Wow! Good idea. Thanks a lot."”

In the interview with Dr. Fink and Rosie Gaines, Dr. Fink said “ I know that for the Batman album and for Graffiti ! Bridge, he pretty much used a [Roland] D-50 and the old Emax 12-bit CD-ROM library for a lot of sounds”.

Prince used a Hammond B-3 organ, which is featured in several of his concert films, including "Rave Un2 The Year 2000" and "Prince Live At The Aladdin Las Vegas." Although the specific model is uncertain, some suggest it might be a Hammond XK-5 SKX. Photos from Andrea Mai's article on Paisley Park provide further insight into Prince's gear collection.

Prince used an Ensoniq ESQ-1 on the Lovesexy album.

we see the instrument, in prince's home studio in paisley park.

https://twitter.com/rhodesstory/status/988400851378102272

we see the instrument, at prince's home studio in paisley park

In a interview Lisa Coleman said that Oberheim was a big part of Prince’s sound. She later saids Prince was incredibly bold in the way he would just use a preset and then brighten the fuck out of it! He would turn the filter way up so the sound would cut through the mix. I still have the OB-SX from those days. It’s one of the most simple Oberheims - there are just a few knobs on it, but that was the most quintessential keyboard from that era. There’s the organ sound from When You Were Mine or The Beautiful Ones. If you play that organ sound with a delay pedal, there you go! And the horn punches? Play [preset] C1. That’s the sound!”

In an interview featured on prince.org, Dr. Fink and Rosie Gaines discuss Prince's use of the ARP Solina String Ensemble, highlighting its role in his music production.

Prince used a Moog Polymoog on For You and Prince. It is mentioned in the liner notes to For You.

Used by Prince on the Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic album.

Prince used a Moog Minimoog on For You and Prince. It is mentioned in the credits to For You.

A photo from Whatson shows Prince using the Roland Jupiter-80 76-Key Synthesizer during a performance in Dubai.

Prince is seen using the Korg Triton 61-key Music Workstation at Paisley Park, as shown in the provided image.

Dr. Fink was auctioning off this MemoryMoog and he said he played it on the Purple Rain Tour.

An excerpt from an interview from Dr. Fink and Rosie Gaines. Fink: “ The following year, the crew people came up and said, "We can't haul this big Yamaha grand around anymore. Besides, it's totally useless, since you don't even need the soundboard anymore." So I said, "Why don't you have a fake piano shell built, and mount a [Yamaha] KX88 in it?" That’s what they did, and they strengthened the top so that Prince could get up and do his stuff on top of it. Gaines: I play that piano too, on "A Song for You," the old Donny Hathaway song, which I do by myself”.

Excerpt from an interview with Dr. Fink and Rosie Gaines “ What other keyboards do you play in the show? Gaines: I only use that piano and a D-50 onstage, although there’s about eight racks behind me, with [Korg] M1Rs and other stuff”.

An excerpt from a interview by Dr Fink and Rosie Gaines “ What instruments were you playing then? Fink: By the time I joined him, my peronal setup was just a Minimoog, a Rhodes, a Farfisa VIP 345 with a Leslie speaker cabinet, and a Freeman string synthesizer. At that same time, he had all this gear he bought with money from his record deal, so I integrated what I had with what he had. I got rid of the Freeman and went to an ARP String Ensemble, and the old Oberheim Four-Voices and S.E.M. modules. I kept the Minimoog, and added a [Hohner] Clavinet and an ARP Pro-Soloist... a lot of stuff! It was a Rick Wakeman kind of setup. Then, as time went on, I pared things down, and every year kept updating as things changed”.

Prince played an ARP Omni-2 on Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999 and Purple Rain.

In an interview featured on prince.org, a photo from Prince's storage room reveals an E-mu Emax SE synthesizer on display. While it's known that Dr. Fink transferred Fairlight samples to the Emax II, there's speculation about the possibility of similar samples being placed in this Emax SE, although this is not confirmed.

A photo of Lisa Coleman using the keyboard was taken during Prince and The Revolution were rehearsing it can also be spotted during the 1999 tour in the year 1982. This keyboard was owned by Prince and used on his albums.

Prince used an Oberheim 4 Voice on For You and Prince. It is mentioned in the liner notes to For You.