There was a brief period in the late 80s and early 90s when knobs were out and buttons were in. People were so excited about the newest batch of romplers and digital synths that they were practically throwing their old analogue gear out the windows of their cars on the way to music store. Luckily, I was working at one such music store at the time, and one of my customers apparently forgot to roll down his window on the drive in.

In retrospect it might seem opportunistic of me to have said, “No, we won’t accept your Pro-One on a trade.” But we really didn’t have any analogue gear on the shelves, aside from the occasional used TR-808, which you could still get decent money for. And while there might have been a Minimoog in the rental department, even the street price on that sought-after piece of gear was only about $800 CDN at the time. I’m not kidding. You couldn’t give the stuff away. So when the guy offered to sell the Pro-One to me for $50, I was actually doing him a favour by saying, “Sure.” Even though I only had $48 in my pocket at the time, because I worked in a music store.