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I went to a modular synthesizer meetup in Georgetown last night. It was even nerdier than you think, by a lot.
The meetup was in an auto repair shop not far from Marginal Way. It took me a while to find the open entrance because hey, it was after hours. There were a couple of dudes nail gunning something together; not my favorite sound up close.
But arguably more pleasant and certainly more interesting were the sounds coming from three or four racks full of modules, all plugged into one 16-track mixer board and one big speaker. Each rack had a few dozen modules, some bought "pre-built" and some "DIY", assembled by their owners. Some had even apparently been designed by people present.
Some modules had LEDs that lit up in a rainbow of colors; some were just a few jacks, switches, and knobs. Also rainbow were the dozens if not hundreds of patch cords that make all the racks work. I didn't mess with any of those, but I did turn some knobs, which is what playing a modular synthesizer is all about. As one of the people present said when I professed my ignorance, "More knob is better."
Speaking of people there, I was of course the only woman in a room with about ten dudes. Nerdy-lookin' dudes. Yeah, surprising as the sunrise.
I did get a couple of them to explain to me what some of the modules were and how signals flowed through. There were sequencers, controllers, oscillators, filters, voltage-controlled amplifiers, effects modules, mixers (modules in addition to the exterior board), and even one module called a Trepanator.
I had to ask what kinds of signals are going through all those patch cords. They're just audio signals at TTL-ish* voltages. No MIDI, nothing fancy.
There was a dude patiently soldering together a module among the cacophony, to underscore the point that the meetup was at least nominally for people who wanted to make modular synthesizers.
I didn't stay too late because it was... a lot of stimulation in a small room with a concrete floor and nowhere for anyone but Soldering Dude to sit. I also had to travel much of the considerable length of Seattle to get home. I gave recovery from surgery as my excuse.
Am I hooked? I don't think so, but I can understand how some people might be. The circumflatulation possibilities are limitless. And you can get bleepy goodness out of all these electronics.
*0V-5V, -2.5V-2.5V, and in some cases 0V-10V. Some modules can accommodate different voltage ranges, but sometimes you have to do "offsets", and that involves arithmetic.
The meetup was in an auto repair shop not far from Marginal Way. It took me a while to find the open entrance because hey, it was after hours. There were a couple of dudes nail gunning something together; not my favorite sound up close.
But arguably more pleasant and certainly more interesting were the sounds coming from three or four racks full of modules, all plugged into one 16-track mixer board and one big speaker. Each rack had a few dozen modules, some bought "pre-built" and some "DIY", assembled by their owners. Some had even apparently been designed by people present.
Some modules had LEDs that lit up in a rainbow of colors; some were just a few jacks, switches, and knobs. Also rainbow were the dozens if not hundreds of patch cords that make all the racks work. I didn't mess with any of those, but I did turn some knobs, which is what playing a modular synthesizer is all about. As one of the people present said when I professed my ignorance, "More knob is better."
Speaking of people there, I was of course the only woman in a room with about ten dudes. Nerdy-lookin' dudes. Yeah, surprising as the sunrise.
I did get a couple of them to explain to me what some of the modules were and how signals flowed through. There were sequencers, controllers, oscillators, filters, voltage-controlled amplifiers, effects modules, mixers (modules in addition to the exterior board), and even one module called a Trepanator.
I had to ask what kinds of signals are going through all those patch cords. They're just audio signals at TTL-ish* voltages. No MIDI, nothing fancy.
There was a dude patiently soldering together a module among the cacophony, to underscore the point that the meetup was at least nominally for people who wanted to make modular synthesizers.
I didn't stay too late because it was... a lot of stimulation in a small room with a concrete floor and nowhere for anyone but Soldering Dude to sit. I also had to travel much of the considerable length of Seattle to get home. I gave recovery from surgery as my excuse.
Am I hooked? I don't think so, but I can understand how some people might be. The circumflatulation possibilities are limitless. And you can get bleepy goodness out of all these electronics.
*0V-5V, -2.5V-2.5V, and in some cases 0V-10V. Some modules can accommodate different voltage ranges, but sometimes you have to do "offsets", and that involves arithmetic.
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Date: 2026-05-22 08:54 pm (UTC)From: