Instruments created with extensive use of analog tape for recording and playing back the signal. Notice his choice for audio signal path was always analog, even in the 2000’s when digital could have been used so much more easily, with vastly more functionality. Great reference to the master to further your flimsy argument. Not sure the digital format can be equated with “an instrument unpopular in many quarters”. Unless by “many” you mean a tiny percentage. I guess that could still mean “many”. If putting forth a thoughtful opinion is equivalent to having a “closed, didactic mind”, then we might as well live in North Korea.
It’s your choice what you limit your instrumentation to. This is how my progression has gone so far:
All “instruments,” (no synths) as inspired by Rage Against the Machine
Progression to all analogue effects
Moog Voyager and Rhodes
other vintage analogues and Alesis Andromeda
JoMoX Xbase
EHX 2880 looper
Elektron Machinedrum
MIDIBox SID and FM synths (work in progress)
I really had trouble accepting that I could use a SID as it uses a hybrid digital-analogue chip. In the end I got over myself and went for it.
So, my analogue snobbery is declining. I still refuse to use a computer for music, so some remains.
But here’s an analogy: if you were a painter, would you refuse to use pigments which were synthetically prepared – for instance azo dyes – as opposed to ones which came from a natural source like cinnabar (mercury ores)? At a philosophical level, would you be more in touch with the natural chemicals, even though they represent a reduced subset of all available colours?
I understand your analogy, but my analog snobbery is not really a philosophical choice, it has to do with real listening tests and finding exactly what works best for me. But, as with any forums, a personal opinion/recommendation is regarded as a mean-spirited attack. I assure you, not my purpose. I am just putting forth what I know or believe to be true from personal experience, and welcome dissent, as long as its in good faith.
To each his own, and I respect the fact that you have tried the other side.
?? You completely misread my point. You seem to have taken completely the opposite from it that I intended. Let me try again. I was saying that when Bob was making analogue synths they were not popular in the traditional instrument sector. For example, in the UK my favourite artist Gary Numan (and this is in 1979) was accused by the Musicians’ Union of putting proper musicians out of work - as he was ever going to use a full orchestra or something! It was a common misguided belief that synthesisers would replace orchestras and other players - this may seem naive now but those are the sort of arguments that were touted at the time.
So in the same way that digital synths aren’t proper synths to you, analogue synths weren’t proper instruments to traditional instrument players. Each generation has its Luddites and nothing would ever get invented if it wasn’t for the Les Pauls and Bob Moogs of this world ignoring them. I didn’t really want to say more on this subject but just had to correct your complete misreading of my comment.
I disagree with your comparison and implication that I am a Luddite. I am actually in the minority on this debate, and analog tape users are in a small minority in a vast digital world. I am not some old school analog guy, I am only 31, and grew up with both cassette tapes and CD’s, the latter of which I actually prefer (though a fresh, never used, well recorded and mastered cassette sounds better to me). But I have just within the past few years, have gotten into recording and mixing, and am on a continuous search for the best possible signal path for the best possible sound for what I do. I have no problem with the use of any tools for getting things done in any way possible. In my previous posts, I praise the functionality, access, and facility that digital conversion brings to the table, and digital conversion is quite invaluable to me at this point for room sounds. But it is very hard to argue, in my humble opinion, that high end analog tape in its best form is not the best sounding format available today.
It is not hard to get digital converters to sound very good, especially when running through the tape machine for light saturation first, then converting. But where the real difference is, which is not subtle, is the ear fatigue. But for instruments like the Model D, digital conversion imparts something very noticeable to the sound. It kind of robs the low end and the “warmth” of the signal. It is acceptable, and I have recorded the mini into Logic and Pro Tools before with great results. And I just want people who have only heard digital music to try high end magnetic recording if possible, especially with drums, analog synths, bass guitar, etc. It’s really great. I think most would agree that listening to your analog synths through a speaker is quite a bit better sounding than running into a computer before the speaker, latency notwithstanding. And the high end tape machines I have heard are basically the same as running straight to the speaker. But I have been wrong before, and maybe there are some A/D converters out there that sound better in every way than tape.
Nice tracks on your website Sweep! Had breakfast the other morning with your web player for my wake up music. Like the detailed descriptions for the various tracks too! Very nicely done. 
Wow, thanks for sharing that. Those Casios are a really cool variation on the DX7 sine wave FM idea. Using “Phase Distortion” via the 8 part envelopes can make some incredable sounds. I had a similar experience with a CZ-101 through a small amp. Was doing bass like tones when I held out a note and with the amps distortion, it sounded like the note began to feedback with a higher overtone. WTF! I had to figure out what was going on, it sounded really cool. Turns out the patch had the one of wave shaping envelopes slowly return the distorted wave back to the original sine an octave above the other slowly fading out wave. With a bit of compression and distortion, this sounded like a guitar screaming. Never got that tonal quality out of any synthesizer before. Has been my CZ-101 signature sound since that happy accident.
Here is a small sample of the CZ-101 playing a lead over a Moog modular bass sequence and Roland System 100M playing the higher sequence, percussion via a Simmons SDS1000, played live.
Casio CZ lead over Moog modular
Another fav unique digital that sounds great with my Moog is an old 1983 NED Synclavier II. That has a very unique and huge digital sound. Plus it has shiny red candy like buttons all over it. 
Small sample of the NED with a soundblaster tron flute playing live over a Moog modular sequence.
NED SyncII and Moog Modular
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it. Did you also check out the second site, the Synthi Music Site? Most of the stuff on there is me, sometimes duetting with other people, though there’s also a track entirely by Frank Spears. That’s another analogue/digital interface area: it’s sometimes original EMS Synthi, sometimes software inspired by the Synthi, and sometimes my V-Synth Synthi emulations.
I’m impressed with your CZ 101 patch. I had a CZ 1000 for a short time, but I didn’t do a lot with it. I basically didn’t like the non-responsive keyboard, and it wasn’t possible to tweak the sounds as they occur as you can with the DX7, so I made a few sounds I liked and sampled them, then sold it. I can get more variation tweaking the samples than I could tweaking the original CZ 1000. It’s another example of different synths suiting different people - I didn’t get a signature sound as you did, and Tim Blake also evidently liked the CZ more than me judging by his Magic album.
It’s interesting to speak to someone with a Synclavier. I like the track you did - very Tangerine Dream around the time of Sorcerer and so on. The production is good - the atmosphere is there very nicely.
You’re welcome, I like to tell that story and actually retold it to Mercurio himself after a talk he gave at a school I went to a few months ago. But to be honest, the sounds I got that night were just a fluke, mostly just crazy effect sounds, and hearing the DX7 played by Herbie and actually liking it was also a fluke. My old roommate a couple years ago actually had a Casio CZ-1, and I could not even listen to it long enough to tweak parameters, it sounded so bad. I think there are decent modern digital synths out there (though I would not spend a dime on one), but the dx7 and Casios in my opinion are not close to good. Maybe with the right effects and signal chain they might be acceptable, but alone no way. And I am so used to hearing the beautiful purr of the Model D, a shining example of analog perfection, so that may be why digital synths sound terrible to me. It’s hard not to be a snob once you’ve heard the sound of Moog.
https://soundcloud.com/misterpete/hallucinogenic-children
this is the ONLY way i can really play my $100 DX-7… when i do play it~ it’s very early model with a very half-assed MIDI
which doesn’t matter much since I never think much about presets these days though am curious to play with the sequencer presets in dopefers maw 16/3
i agree with fyvewitches i always hated them, too- almost as much as i hated that sorry ass Korg M-1.
The entire concept behind the old “classic” FM synths is brilliantly efficient as an engineering problem, and the DX7 helped make synths an affordable option for hundreds of thousands.
I met John Chowning at Stanford twenty years ago (Max Matthews the same day, incidentally) and he struck me as a genuinely nice guy.
I hate FM when it attempts to imitate the partials on real winds, however, and was very happy to see those sounds swept away from fashion as the 80s ended.