About Mike's MIDI deals
Mike's MIDI deals started out of a lifelong fascination with music technology.
When I was at school I discovered a magazine in the newsagents called Sound On Sound. I was instantly hooked. The idea that people were making music with synths, drum machines and sequencers felt like discovering another world.
A friend later played me a Boss DR Synth DS330, and I remember thinking it sounded incredible. Not long after, I bought one of my own and started sequencing it on an Amiga 1200 using Music-X.
My first proper synthesizer was an Ensoniq ESQ-1, and from there the obsession really began.
Like many synth enthusiasts, I became fascinated not just with making music, but with the gear itself — discovering interesting machines, watching the second-hand market, and spotting good finds when they appeared.
At one point I wondered if other people felt the same way, so I bought the domain uk-synth-deals.com and started sharing interesting listings I found online. The idea was simple: a place where synth fans could quickly see what interesting gear had appeared on the UK second-hand market.
But doing it manually was extremely labour-intensive, and eventually I set the idea aside.
Years later I began experimenting with automation on my PC using AutoHotkey, building small tools to monitor listings and collect information. As AI tools matured, it became possible to automate much more of the process.
With those tools, I was finally able to build the kind of site I would have loved to subscribe to all those years ago: a simple way to track interesting synth listings, see price sightings, and get a daily snapshot of what has appeared.
Automation makes the project practical. The goal is still the same as it was from the beginning — helping synth enthusiasts quickly spot interesting gear.
Today the project is still very small.
I currently have one subscriber 😭.
But every time the site updates, the archive grows a little larger, and another snapshot of the UK synth market is captured.
Thanks for visiting.
— Mike
Mike's MIDI Page 🎹