Comments on: Synthesizers with Fancy Footwork: 1978 Hagstrom Patch 2000 Swede

By: Allan Forsyth

Allan Forsyth — Sun, 21 Jul 2019 23:08:35 +0000

Hmmm. I have a ~1978 Hagstrom Swede Patch 2000 Bass. The bass itself is a real player…great low side. I’ve also got two of the necessary pedals that are necessary to connect with Moog/Oberheim synths.
Ran it once through mini moog and the thing worked as billed. Notes above from Bill Nelson are accurate. Tuning needs to be dialed in.

Guess I’ll hang on to the old girl…

By: Bill Nelson

Bill Nelson — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 12:04:41 +0000

I had a Patch 2000 guitar in 1977 and used it with my band Be Bop Deluxe on the album ‘Drastic Plastic.’ I interfaced it with a Mini-Moog synth and it was very effective in the studio. Live performance, however, was a different story. It was essential to keep the elements of the system in tune, guitar pitch, pedal interface pitch and the pitches of the three oscillators on the Mini-Moog synth. The Moog’s three oscillators were notorious for drifting out of tune depending on varying local voltage, but when you added in the guitar’s tuning instability under hot stage lighting and the pedal interfaces separate tuning problems, things could rapidly become somewhat dissonant. But it worked ok in the studio where time could be spent getting the guitar, pedal and synth in tune. You can hear the Patch 2000 on the songs ‘Electrical Language’ and ‘Futurist Manifesto’ from Be Bop Deluxe’s ‘Drastic Plastic’ album.

By: Paul Reed

Paul Reed — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 12:49:58 +0000

Great article. These guitars are so little known amongst the guitar player community, yet they offer something interesting as a non mainstream type of guitar.