Well, my last (and primary) Christmas gift from my dear, dear Mother arrived today. What is it you ask? A synthesizer. I've always loved playing with software synthesizers (ahh, Rebirth. I miss you so!) and for some reason since about a year ago, I've been pining to get a real hardware synthesizer to play with. Not that I'm all that musical, it's just fun as hell.

So, having no idea what else I would want for Christmas, I as like, "Hey! I can get a synth." And so, I researched. It came down to a choice between two nice, low-end systems: the Korg Microkorg and the Alesis Micron. The synthesis capabilities were pretty close, but the Micron has a step sequencer (think drum machine programming, etc.) and the Microkorg didn't. So, despite the fact that the Microkorg has a much cooler old-school look, I went with the Micron.

And it rocks! It's so cool! I really haven't figured out all of the features yet, but I've gotten down filter cutoff frequency sweeps and I've messed around with the REALLY cool vocoder effects. Just plug in a microphone, and go to town with some mad robot vocals. Wee!!!

I'm such a nerd. :)