Rare Interview With Modular Synthesizer Designer Serge Tcherepnin

Waveshaper Media – creators of the modular synth documentary I Dream Of Wires – shared this rare interview with Serge Tcherepnin, creator of the Serge modular synthesizer.

Serge Triple VCO

Here’s what they have to say about the video:

Interviews with Serge are few and far between – in fact we’re only aware of one print interview, from the early ’80s. As far as we know, this is the only filmed interview with Serge in existence.

Serge was a friend and colleague of Morton Subotnick’s; Mort is the one who hired Serge onto the staff at CalArts, where he developed his synthesizer system for students to build and use.

We met Serge in Paris to film with Mort for our upcoming Subotnick documentary, and after much convincing, Serge finally agreed to also give us a solo interview for Waveshaper TV!

10 thoughts on “Rare Interview With Modular Synthesizer Designer Serge Tcherepnin

      1. Thanks, that’s good to note. The 10min version is surely great, but I’m not sure if an extended 22min version is worth $5USD. . . maybe for a viewer with a fatter bank account. 😉

        1. Fair enough, but it doesn’t only get you access to the extended version of this video – but to all of our videos, including for example, a 1-hour interview with Laurie Spiegel. It’s also about giving us the financial means to continue producing videos like this

  1. Still making us think differently about synths with a very egalitarian attitude. I really hope his new ideas remain analogue and creative. There s a lot in modular that is now about dsp work…….

  2. Please note that Michael Erdman deserves credit for the photo shown from 8:24 to 8:33 with the headline “Serge Modular Systems: Maximum Analog Horsepower.” The modular synth shown there is Kevin Braheny Fortune’s Mighty Serge. The photo appeared with an article I wrote for the September 1994 edition of Keyboard magazine.

    1. Hi Mark – thanks for the note. Sorry – these photos were supplied by Serge and he did not provide any additional photo credits. Unfortunately YouTube doesn’t allow videos to be modified once they’re posted, but we can add the credit to the video description.

  3. Very nice to hear his thoughts, thanks for this!

    He’s calling out Buchla quite hard – would have made for a great beef battle if the man was around to shoot back 😉

    (perhaps part of not doing interviews? – he knows if he speaks his mind people get upset…?)

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