I was driving north on Pacific Coast Highway somewhere in Malibu, California one late winter afternoon when Moby pulled up next to me at a stop light behind the wheel of a bitchin' late 60's electric blue Corvette convertable. I looked to my right, he looked to his left, our eyes met and we nodded in friendly greeting. When the light finally turned green we each put pedal to the metal, driving seperately and alone into that burnt orange winter sunset and never to meet again.

 

@superliquidsunshine thanks for sharing this ^
Moby to me is what a great artist is all about
All his records are amazing
This is my newest favorite track of his :

 

Does a vintage drum machine really have any value from a music production standpoint? I just can't fathom spending thousands of dollars on something like that. And why in the world did this guy collect 200+ of them?

...and why would he choose a charity that basically just promotes a vegan diet to donate the proceeds to? I am not sure if the "Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine" even really does anything useful from what I've read. Couldn't he donate the money to cancer research or something a little more pressing?

 

You're born a writer

 

Eminem will buy all of them.

 

People collect all manner of objects because it makes them feel happy. Japanese pottery, antique tools, stuffed animals or thousands of other groups. As an musician of his genre I guess Moby has a love for drum machines and the cash as well as the space to have them and possibly pull them out to use them and am sure to sample their sounds for later use in projects and songs.

I can't certainly speak for him about his choice of the donation, but probably his lifestyle reflects the core values of the organization he is donating the proceeds towards. The living torture of animals on modern day animal farms is barbaric and is fabricating disgusting protein riddled with antibiotics that have certainly helped to enable deadly bacteria to proliferate and now have no natural enemies in which to combat them. Have you ever had a pet? If so, would you subject it to the conditions on a corporate farm? Probably not. Some of the other things the PCRM advocates you might have issues with, but at the core I believe are dedicated to changing the current paradigm of animal abuse and fostering healthier lifestyles for all however you might disagree with their way and mission.

How hard with the billions and billions of dollars have the large cancer research institutes fought to battle against the destruction of our precious soil from Roundup and other chemicals or tried to actually tackle and take down the causes of cancer? Perhaps that is why he chose to aim his donation in a different direction, but only seeing him that one time on the road, cannot speak for him. Maybe you could send him a letter and ask him yourself to get it directly from the horses mouth.

 

You would agree that to create something out of nothing you'd need inspiration, right ? So if a particular piece of gear inspires you to create, it is valuable, or better... invaluable.

I had 9 drum machines and 20+ synths & samplers at one point at about the late 90s. And i never came close to the money Moby has made. I was just a musician that had lots of gigs and loved my job and the gear that came with it. I did sell 90% of them when they stopped representing my goals. I guess - but i can't be sure- Moby "sits" somewhere there, the gear collection stopped making sense, plus he's contributing to a great charity with his collection sale.
The same way like the drum machines and synths, i have 5k+ vinyl records and i am still buying more frequently. Also 1500 cds as well. It's a fetish, an addiction and a way of life all the same. I thought many times of selling them but since i collect them for 44 years now since i was about 8 y.o., i find it very hard to let go of what has become an essential part of my personality.
Cheers

 

Thias could be the beginning of a novel

 

Or the end of one. It is nice of you to notice the possibility. If I ever garnered the patience it would take to actually attempt such a thing, it would be a miracle.

 

I find it a bit odd that he's selling them, but otoh I sold most of my precious stuff in the late 90s thinking plugins would be enough. Now I wish I waited a bit longer. Like never, perhaps.

Anyway, the money goes for a good cause and that makes me happy. He's a really great chap and an artist. Great move, Moby!

 

I can't believe he never owned an 808. About the Sonivox drums and Kraftwerk, can someone expand on this?

 

There's a Bentley Rhythm Ace in there!

Quoted from wikipedia:

Journey is the third and final studio album by British experimental rock band Kingdom Come. After the band featured drastically different styles on their first two albums, and after several line-up changes, band leader Arthur Brown worked the band towards a new direction for Journey. The album was the first album in history to use a drum machine responsible for all the percussive sounds on the album. The drum machine in question was the Bentley Rhythm Ace, manufactured by Ace Tone.​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_(Kingdom_Come_album)

 

Well he looks like sort of tightfisted dude who'd go around borrowing stuff.

 

Of cause they play a role in modern music productions. For example Martin Gore (arrangeur and composer of Depeche Mode) collected over 200 pieces of analog/modular gear like synths, drummachines, sequencers etc. And you can hear lots of them on their last 3 albums.

 

Wave Alchemy will buy them all

 

I was looking at Reverb but was unable to find where is his sell.

 

Why?.. well because they have different sound each one of them, he doesnt settle for second best when he´s making music, besides he do have the money for it
he doesnt say "hey i found this free vst that have an analog snare"
his experince know by using that shi* - the whole song sounds like shi* allready from start ;-)

 

Ask and ye shall receive.

https://reverb.com/shop/official-moby

 

I don't know why anyone would prefer some 8-bit drum sample poorly recorded in the 80s (or before) when they could hire a real life drummer and record the part in better acoustics with better hardware. You just can't recreate the energy a real drummer brings to a production no matter how good of a midi programmer you are. I sort of thought synths and similar gear grew out of fashion after their brief popularity boom in the 80s; as far as I am concerned drum machines are just practice tools for musicians without a band.

It seems these days words like "old, obsolete, garbage, etc..." are being interchanged with "vintage". People need to stop coveting these obsolete items from their childhood when there are far better modern alternatives out there.

I sort of figured the sort of person Moby is by his choice in charity, that tree hugging hippy/PETA type of individual.

Animals die so people can live, it is sad but that is just the way things are. Without the recent advances in cancer research (at the expense of countless mice and other animals) hundreds of millions of more people would die each year and we wouldn't have many of the early detection methods that save so many peoples' lives. Hopefully soon chemotherapy and other archaic forms of treatment will be a thing of the past.


...and I sort of got way off topic from the original post. It will be interesting to see what sorts of prices his gear sells for when they go on sell next week.

 

God i can imagine the tone you speak with in real life just by reading this.