A couple years ago (a couple months before the pandemic started) I stumbled upon an ad for the Digitone while browsing the web one day. I was a guitarist in a metal band with no real prior background in electronic music at all… but I was intrigued by a little box that could make sega genesis music. I purchased it on a whim and became engulfed in it for months.
My little brother was a hip hop artist / rapper and would occasionally ask me to produce some of his tracks or at least mix them for him. Messing with the Digitone I entertained the idea more and started kicking around some ideas for him. a couple days after the pandemic my gf was clinically diagnosed with Covid and we were serving a two week quarantine. I was joking around with my brother on the phone and told him I’d have an albums worth of material after lockdowns. (this is back when they were telling us it was only going to be a couple weeks heh).
my brother ended up being rushed to the hospital a couple days after that conversation. Being in quarantine, I was unable to visit him even though the hospital was just a couple miles from my house. He died in the hospital that same night.
That Digitone never got touched again. I tried replacing it with a keys but just the tonal signature of that synth reminds me of that night. Part of me wishes I’d found a love for synths and electronic music sooner, that if I had been making music with my brother and was closer to him that he’d still be here. I know it’s silly to think that way but we can’t really help it with things like this I guess.
I bought an OpSix recently and even that makes me a little sad when i hear some of the patches. Weird how something as broad as FM could remind you of a particular moment in time like that.