Win Kern Brantley’s Custom Gaia SH-01

The “Menacing” Black Finish

The custom synth you see here was constructed for Kern Brantley, a multi-talented music director who has spent years working with chart-topping icons. Kern’s tour schedule left no time to re-program some crucial Gaia SH-01 sounds into his Roland AX-Synth last year, and necessity bred invention, as the saying goes. His only option was to transform one of his Gaia SH-01 synths into a keytar. With the help of his keyboard tech and a stage hand, they used the handle of a paint roller to create a neck on one end, attached a guitar strap pin to the other end, and then painted it a “menacing” black color.