Strip Steve

«This one was offered to me by a promoter I became close with. It took me a while to get into it I must say – probably because I didn’t pick it personally, when I come to think of it – but once I did I became a bit obsessed with it. It can be CV linked with the rimshot of certain drum machines (like the 707 or 909) to play a pattern of notes you programmed into the synth. It’s so much fun to jam like that. That’s how I did the remix for Surkin and Bobmo’s ‘Harry’, live recorded in one take with just the original loop playing in the back, a bit of arrangement afterwards, but it was wrapped in just a couple of hours and I think you can totally feel it when you hear it, which is something I love. You’ll notice that I’m generally pretty fond of the Roland brand»

«The Juno is the very first synth I bought after getting my first gig paycheck in 2007. It’s still my favourite, a great workhorse which taught me the hands-on basics of synthesis. Every time I turn it on I know it’s gonna be fun and easy»

«I got the DX7 about three years ago maybe. It’s pretty cheap (they produced a lot of them back then) and a lot of its presets are used in classic songs that I love, whether it’s house, funk, new jack swing or pop in general. It’s very heavily used – if I played you a couple of notes it’d bring so many songs to mind. So yeah, I bought it originally for its ‘classic’ sounds, not really to fuck with it – it’s notoriously known for being a pain to program – but then I discovered FM synthesis is actually super interesting and weird compared to analogue»

«This is a clone of the famous TB-303, the acid machine. It’s about a quarter of the real 303 price and to me the best sounding clone there is on the market. You can buy the separate components and build it yourself, but it can be tricky to tune certain parameters so I chose to buy it already made by a guy that looked like he knew what he was doing. He named it ‘The Beast’ and engraved it on, so that’s obviously why I chose to name the acid track I made for the BNR compilation like that… I must have done half a dozen unreleased tracks with the x0xb0x synced with my 707 alone, but nowadays I try to include it in more surprising ways than just retro acid house tools…»