On their 41st issue, about the earliest hip hop pioneers, the Electro Harmonix Mini Synthesizer was discussed twice. That’s quite a bit for such an esoteric piece of equipment! It even included a real fresh picture of Grandmixer DXT using one to play along with some records he was spinning.

(Taken with my cameraphone from the pages of Waxpoetics, used without permission. Honestly subscribe or get this magazine anyway because its one of the best)

Grandmixer DXT had this to say about the Mini-Synthesizer:

Waxpoetics: “…You’d play [The Exorcist] soundtrack theme “Tubular Bells” live on the synth and also on “Grandmixer Cuts it Up.”

Grandmixer DXT: “At parties, I would play bass or lead lines of all the hit records– “Heartbeat,” “Mama Used to Say,”– on a touch-sensitive Electro-Harmonix keyboard that was given to me by Gregory Struse Brown, one of my mentors. The audience was shocked. I had to change the synth patches. That was a treat.”

But also, something I didn’t know, the Mini Synthesizer was crucial to the forming of Newcleus. One of the most influential bands ever. In the Memorandium of Bob “Chilly B” Crafton (R.I.P.), Newcleus keyboardist Ben “Cozmo D” Cenac relates the story of how Newcleus became a band:

“[Chilly] came over and we said, “Let’s try something together,” recalls Cozmo about the birth of Newcleus. “All I had at that time was a little Electro-Harmonix drum machine and an Electro-Harmonix synthesizer. And we put together this song the first night, called “Until the Morning.” Because we played all night. That was the first time [we worked together]. First night, we just got together and did a song. A pretty good song too.”

So hats of to the Mini Synthesizer (and its Micro Synthesizer cousins)!