When I was a young kid, I built an electric piano/synthesizer called the UB1 (picture right). The synth had two analog oscillators and a filter that was so unstable that at times it acted as an oscillator – and this was not by design.
The keyboard and the massive toggle switches on the right side came out of an EKO organ that didn’t survive the impact of my screwdriver.
The UB1 was nothing great by today’s standards but I believe it is this very keyboard that sparked off my passion for music and electronics and later got me into this wonderful industry.
Unfortunately the UB1 got lost during a factory move and for the past 40 years I always wanted to build a synthesizer again. When I shared my deep passion with the Midas engineering team in Manchester UK a few years ago, I was very surprised how many of these engineers had a tremendous passion for synths, too.
That’s when the “madness” started and there is no other way to describe it as for the past few years these guys literally worked day and night to get it done.
The synthesizer was initially considered a pure “labor of love” project as we had no commercial aspirations. However what was considered a simple synth project, got completely out of hand and sound capabilities plus features got added on a weekly basis.
People constantly heard me say: “Pete, we got to stop this now”, but you can imagine that it had little impact and the team kept on adding and adding. I can’t even remember how many front panel design iterations we went through and I believe the guys are still adding more features as we speak – of course without telling me
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Because the team wanted to fulfill my dream and build me a synthesizer, I had no choice than to let them go crazy and I am afraid this is exactly what happened
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At the same time, the boys also wanted to have some fun with the marketing so please forgive them for the teasers. I am happy to take the blame!
I like to take the opportunity to thank Pete Sadler, Rob Belcham and the rest of the Midas team from the bottom of my heart for what they have done for me.
Hopefully some more people out there will love the synth as much as I do.