The London College of Music at the University of West London

The Pete Townshend Synth Collection

Welcome to the world of the exotic vintage synthesisers that belong to the legendary Pete Townshend. The London College of Music is proud to be the custodian of such a great collection. This website is a repair chronicle by Really Nice Audio, following the work of keeping these historic instruments playing: mostly servicing and putting right the inevitable effects of age, along with a couple of full restorations of machines that arrived not working.

See Pete in the Townshend Studio at the University of West London↗

The collection

Synths, organs and drum machines

EMS Synthi 100

The room-sized modular and its 256 digital sequencer.

ARP Avatar

ARP’s guitar synth, serial number 0001.

Lowrey TBO-1

The organ behind the Baba O’Riley intro.

Linn LM-1

The drum machine that kicked it all off. s/n 0038.

Yamaha DX1

The mother of all FM synths.

Yamaha CS-80

Yamaha’s legendary polysynth.

EMS Vocoder 5000

EMS’s classic vocoder.

EMS VCS3

The classic pin-matrix synth.

Analogue Solutions Colossus

A giant modular inspired by the Synthi 100.

Sequential Circuits Prophet 10

Two Prophet 5s in one.

Roland Jupiter-8

Roland’s flagship polysynth, killer arpeggiator included.

Yamaha GX-1

The Electone GX-1, forerunner of the CS-80.

ARP 2500

A fully fledged ARP 2500 system.

Moog Minimoog Voyager

The Minimoog on steroids.

Waldorf Wave

The original wavetable monster.

Fender Rhodes

Originally bought for a Stevie Wonder UK tour.

Wurlitzer Electronic Piano

A Wurlitzer Student Electronic Piano.

Moog IIIp

The first of Pete’s two Moog modulars.

Moog System 35

A 2015 System 35 in two cabinets.

Korg Oasys

Korg’s flagship live workstation.

New England Digital Synclavier

The legendary digital workstation.

Want to help add content? Contact matt@reallyniceaudio.com.