The bad news is that the whole thing is so heavy that it is hard to transport, and actually even hard to lift. We collected it from Europe, got it down several flights of stairs safely, back to VEMIA, went to pick it up from one end to put it vertical... and the handle snapped, and the lifted end of the instrument fell six inches onto a cork tiled floor. That shouldn't have done it much harm, but now the top keyboard is loose. We feel it must have had a few more accidents in its long life, because you'll notice that every single one of the handles is actually snapped. Although as far as we are aware all the modules worked fine, it was already going to need servicing - one of the keyboard CVs not working, some noisy pots and a few missing sockets, plus a lot of the peripherals of unknown working order - but now that will include re-fixing the upper keyboard.

That's the bad news. The good news is that even discounting the peripherals the modules themselves are rare, interesting, and valuable. It must be one of the best-specified Soundlabs in the world, with four VCO21 120s, four VCF21 130s, two VCA21 140s, three VCADSR21 150s, two MFM21 160s each with noise, random, LFO, S&H, ring-mod, and a little mixer, two joystick modules, two keyboard controller modules, and the power supply. There is also a neat switching system for routing each keyboard to each module, It comes with a good collection of 24 stackable banana leads ranging from short to long. Cosmetically the case and some of the peripherals are 6/10 at best (one corner protector is missing, the fittings are probably under-specified for the weight, and there are signs of localised damage to the case although the whole thing is still structurally pretty solid), but the modules themselves and the keys are in fundamentally good condition. It has an interesting history, having spent its life until recently either at the Institute of Sonology in The Hague, or at STEIM in Amsterdam. Whether you want to get it renovated to its original crazy design, or rationalise the modules, switching and keyboards into a more portable system, it could be a very interesting project.