Renowned DJ, producer, electronic artist, photographer, animal rights activist and synth collector Moby is selling some of his most iconic and beloved musical equipment from an illustrious career of nearly four decades.
Over 100 items will be put up for sale on The Official Moby Reverb Shop, due to launch on Thursday 26 April, all in aid of The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
One of the highlights of the collection is his Roland Jupiter-6, which was previously owned by pioneering techno producer Joey Beltram. “I used this on almost every early techno record I made, from Go to U.H.F. to Thousand.”
Another highly sought-after lot will, no doubt, be a one-of-a-kind Serge Modular Custom synthesizer Moby considers a “very unique gold standard for modular analog synths.”
Also up for grabs is a 1980s Ibanez guitar that was his primary live guitar from 1984 to 1998 and is the “one thing I was possibly tempted to hold onto.”
Other items from the sale include:
- A Yamaha SY22 Vector synthesizer that Moby used on “Go,” the first single he released under his own name. Specifically, he used the keyboard to replay and rework Laura Palmer’s Theme from Twin Peaks on the song.
- A Casio CZ-1000 that was one of the musician’s first-ever keyboards in the mid-'80s.
- A Yamaha SY85 synthesizer used to create the distinctive synth sounds on 1995’s Feeling So Real.
- The Roland Juno-106 synthesizer used to create the bassline on Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? and We Are All Made Of Stars. Of the synthesizer, Moby says “I’m sad that I’m selling it because this one, in particular, is so incredibly versatile.”
- A Technics SL-1200MK2 turntable that Moby calls the “workhorse” turntable. It comes with its own Moby slipmat, of which there are “probably only four in the entire world,” according to the musician.
- A Fender Precision bass guitar that was played on every record Moby made that had live bass on it from 1991 until 2013.
- A Gibson EB-3 bass guitar. “I’m a little embarrassed by this, but there was a time in the mid 80's when I actually played bass in a reggae jazz fusion band,” Moby admitted.
- A Harmony Lap Steel Hawaiian-style slide guitar that is the sister of a similar guitar Moby bought for renowned filmmaker and composer David Lynch. “So there was one Christmas when David Lynch and I were sitting around in the house where he filmed ‘Lost Highway,’ playing Hawaiian slide guitars,” Moby said.
- Two sombreros worn by Moby and The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne in the music video for The Perfect Life.
- A reissue rosewood Moog Minimoog Voyager XL, a Roland Space Echo RE-100, three rackmount Oberheim Matrix 1000 Analog synthesizers, two Vintage AEA ribbon microphones, and much, much more.
For a full preview of the sale head on over to Reverb now.
This massive study compares 2,368 synths, samplers and drum machines from 1896 to the present day - and the results might surprise you
“I was going to buy a Minimoog because Keith Emerson had one. I was in the store and I was trying it out and I hear a voice behind me say ‘you don’t want that’”: Why Foreigner’s Al Greenwood said no to the Minimoog and bought a little-known synth instead
