Synthfest UK - Linux-audio-user

5 Oct 2016

Somewhat off-topic, but I thought people here might be interested in what the
'other' lot are up to.

Last Saturday I was at this event from 11am to about 5:30pm. This is a new
event organised by the Sound On Sound magazine. As I've got to know a good
number of the people there over the years, I was keen to see them as much as
all the gear that was on show. The whole event was heavily analogue orientated.

The hardware covered a *huge* range, from a couple of refurbished original
1960s modulars, to the new mini-moog and the latest thing from the likes of
Yamaha, Korg, Presonus. One that was especially interesting (to me) was a
Eurorack synth, with interchangeable modules, that due to a well thought out
back-plane, could be run in a variety of parallel or series configurations
without patch cords.

There was also quite a lot of novel bespoke kit, especially in the realm of
sequencers and trackers. Something I've not come across before was an OSC->CV
unit. Combined with the greater stability of modern modulars that promises to
be very interesting.

There were some very interesting talks. One in particular was on how synths
came about... *before* Bob Moog! There were a few names I recognised, but just
as many unsung heroes I was totally unaware of.

Of the commercial synths I noticed a disappointing trend. While there was a
jaw-dropping range of sounds, I found it harder to select these than I do with
my old SY35, and I was hitting information overload quite a bit. For me, this
was also a problem with the multi-rack modulars. Probably with more time and
familiarity I would have managed better, but very little was switch-on-and-play.

Another thing was the black theme that seems to be almost universal these days.
I think it's fairly well known I don't much like this. However, it dawned on me
that on a real item there are subtle position, depth and especially parallax
cues that you simply don't get when trying to do the same with a GUI.

There didn't seem to be much there by way of software (but then it was a
hardware orientated show). What I saw was all Apple based. Interestingly I
didn't see *any* tablets. If they were there, they were well hidden!

I was pleased to get a few enquires from those that know me as to how I was
getting on with Yoshimi, and a couple were very complimentary about Lorenzo's
recent demo.

-- 
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.