the people behind tropical fish
Tropical Fish started from a love of great instruments. Paulina and Jon had been collecting keyboards, guitars and amplifiers to make and record their own music for years. They even owned a Wurlitzer electronic piano, and loved how it made their music sound. When their rare amplifiers and keyboards needed repair, they realized that they had the skills to do it—and do it really well. Paulina made the tube circuits sound better than they had ever sounded, and Jon made the keyboards play smoother (and often vice versa).
Jon Borducci
Jon grew up learning to play piano on a Baldwin acoustic piano and a Wurlitzer electronic piano. When his middle school didn’t have a jazz band, he asked his teachers if they could start one. And when his high school didn’t have a Music Theory class, he convinced the school to start one. He went on to study at Berklee College of Music.
After graduating, Jon had a practice space that, with the help of Paulina, he turned into a recording studio. Being in a professional studio setting, it became increasingly important for all the gear (including the keyboards) to be as functional as possible. Because of Jon’s passion for inspirational instruments, he wanted to ensure that all of the gear (including the Wurlitzer) had a high level of playability, and started making the repairs himself—and these repairs turned into Tropical Fish.
Paulina Salmas
Paulina grew up in California and moved to the east coast to attend Northeastern and Columbia University. In her free time, she reads a lot of books, including a lot of vintage electronic textbooks.
Paulina helped make Jon’s recording studio significantly cooler by selecting most of the vintage keyboards (including their first Wurlitzer) and amplifiers (including the Music Man 410).
As a critical part of Tropical Fish, Paulina takes the lead in analyzing vintage circuits for repair and improvement. She also designs the original circuits for the Tropical Fish tube preamps and amplifiers.
How did we get the name ‘Tropical Fish’?
Good question! We love the name, and like many great names, it started as a quick space filler and gradually held more and more meaning for us. In vintage circuits (like the wurlitzer 200 electronic piano amp) there were capacitors that had cool, rich, striped colors. These colorful capacitors were called tropical fish capacitors because when looking at the circuit board they resembled tropical fish hanging out in a coral reef.
While the name refers to the vintage capacitors, we also think it describes the uniqueness and individuality of the people and the instruments we work with on a daily basis.