Presenters at the Feb. PNW meeting on modular synthesizer - left to right: Sebastian Jaeger, The Harvestman Stephen Jones, member of Red Martian Scott Rise, Division 6 Kevin O'Neill, Flight Of Harmony George Mattson, Mattson Modular James Husted, Synthwerks Steve Turnidge, AES PNW Chair/ Synthwerks
Our February meeting featured some of the rising stars of the new wave of Modular Synthesis giving demonstrations of some innovative new products - as well as showing off some of the more tried and trusted, but never completely predictable, modular delights.
The meeting began, as usual, with AES committee chair Steve Turnidge calling the meeting to order and begin self-introductions of the audience. He then introduced James Husted of Synthwerks.
Mr. Husted presented a history of modular synthesizers and an introduction to electronic music. He then created sample patches on his modular workstation and presented a demonstration of the new Synthwerks Force Sensing Resistor product line.
Introduced next was Kevin O'Neill of Flight of Harmony, who said a few words about upcoming product.
Sebastian Jaeger (The Harvestman), was up next, demonstrating his custom modular synth setup featuring products such as "Hertz Donut," "Piston Honda" and "Malgorythm". A fine selection of peculiar noises was generated and appreciated by the audience.
Intermission and door prizes.
After the break, we were fortunate to have a performance by Stephan Jones of Synthwood/Red Martian, showing off the awesomeness that is the Syntar (one of the first keyboard strapped-on performance synthesizers from the late 70s). Stephen used a large Mattson Modular system to augment his Syntar for the pleasure of all.
Then George Mattson, developer of both the Syntar and the Mattson Modular synth systems addressed the audience about his systems and their flexibility to be modified into the different flavors of modular synthesis available today.
This was followed up by Scott Rise, of Division 6, introducing his soon to be released product line of useful utilitarian modules.
A time of questions and answers was followed by close to an hour of hands on and personal demonstrations of the several modular synth systems at hand.
