My trusty Casio SK-1 has two broken keys: middle B and high A#. I'm crazy with electronic music-geek grief. Until these plastic ivories are restored all will not be right with my studio world.

I am a confirmed hardware junky, and this particular SK-1 is the first synthesizer I placed fingers on. In the swirling mists of history, I wrote several cassettes worth of baby songs with this bad boy, at first using multiple bounces on dueling stereo tape decks, later graduating to a Yamaha 4-track once I'd become a "Serious Musician." The sentimental value this machine holds for me is absolutely priceless.

I've carried the SK-1 with me through thick and thin: relationships, lack of relationships, bands, theatres, travels... it has always pulled through. It's met my blood relatives, snarling at most of them using its full 8 bit, 9.38KHz sampling capability. I've fallen asleep with it.

In every track I write now, I use some piece of SK-1 sound, if just a single, manipulated percussion hit. It's unbelievable how much sonic warping can impart new life to the cheesiest 80s consumer synth sounds using a tool like Ableton Live or Max/MSP. Layering a bassline with manipulated SK-1 Brass Ensemble == seriously thick and juicy.

I've thought about bending the device, but it seems somehow blasphemous to consider modification of this particular keyboard. I've no qualms about turning other SK-1s into alien noise boxes, but this one... it's my history, my present and my future.

I'll soon be installing highlyliquid.com's MIDISpeak retrofit in one of my Speak 'n' Spells, and then will try their SK-1 MIDI conversion kit. Something tells me I've not truly lived until I've triggered my SK-1 from my Access Virus kb.

The MIDI conversion will make the SK-1 playable again, but until I scavenge some replacement keys, it won't be whole.