Tropical Fish Vintage Instruments

09/08/2026

Instant suspenseful warm earthy synthy sounds, straight into e-piano sounds, and all analog. I’ve looked into how the flanger works on this and it starts to become clear why it sounds so incredible (side note, I never used to be a flanger person, mainly bc most of my experience has been newer fx pedals). I may have found a new favorite keyboard.

08/29/2026

We designed the M3 preamp to be flexible, for switching between guitar and keyboards, and typically to go to an interface, mixer or even another amplifier.

You can find out more in this article here:

You may know already that, when we started making this preamp, it was so we could have a great-sounding way to power a Wurlitzer pickup.  By that, I specifically mean add voltage to the Wurlitzer electronic piano reedbar, because it needs voltage in a similar way that a condenser microphone

08/23/2026

Walk on by is one of those songs that feels like it’s been around for ever. It might be because there are multiple good versions of it that are very different. It was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for Dionne Warwick (my favorite version!).

08/01/2026

I am particularly proud of the progress this 120 has made. Correct reeds are very scarce for them nowadays. We replaced over five that were dull and dying out way too soon. A shorter sustain is very characteristic of a 120, but an incorrect reed might ring out for 2 seconds. I’m playing ‘the love I lost’ by Harold Melvin and the blue notes. Trying to nail down what keyboard they used in their intro.

07/29/2026

Another Whippany Melosonic just left the shop. They are getting to be fewer and far between these days. Just an all around great combo organ. The best thing about it is the simplicity. Very easy to tune, and easy to maintain the contacts.

07/28/2026

The Casiotone mt-800 was released in 1983 and a year later this excellent hit by Billy Ocean ‘Caribbean Queen’ came out. I’d like to think someone at some point was playing this very same song on an mt-800.

07/25/2026

Wurlitzer 206 straight into the M3 (from the reedbar), then a little reverb, and into a Shure mvi iOS interface (which may actually be a vintage interface now).

07/14/2026

Really proud of the sound this amp has been producing. Here I am only plugging into the M3 followed by some reverb (my favorite has been specular tempus). Also using this interface has been an amazing headphone experience.

07/13/2026

We tried playing the Wurlitzer through a yamaha THR-5. Plugged the harp directly into the M3, then sent the aux out of that into the THR5, and done. The tremolo is coming from the M3, and the reverb is from the yamaha.

07/10/2026

Yesterday I played a portable keyboard in a 1959 booth that records two minutes of audio and then immediately cuts a vinyl record. (It’s at Autophoto in NYC, highly recommend!!) It’s so cool, can’t wait to share how the recording came out! It also makes me want to find another Casiotone MT-35 and start working on my mini keyboard collection again.