Synthesist Hainbach shared this look at his visit to The Museo Del Synth Marchigiano and The Forgotten Synthesizers Of Marche Region.
The Marche Region in Italy was home to a thriving industry of music instrument production from the 1950s to the mid-90s. Tens of thousands of people made organs, accordions and unique boutique synthesizers. Like synth makers in the US, most Italian synth makers ceased production in the 90s, many people lost their jobs and many of the synthesizers were largely forgotten.
The Museo Del Synth Marchigiano aims to change that.
“I was invited to play a show at Acusmatic Festival in Ancona and visit the collection before,” explains Hainbach. “I was overwhelmed by the amazing sounds these machines made, so I captured them on tape and for use in my performance. I also just had to film every synth I could get my hand for you to enjoy. You will find instruments by Siel, Elka, Elgan, Farfisa, Crumar, CRB and more here.”
Topics:
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:56 The Beast
00:02:08 CRB Uranus 2
00:05:10 CRB Oberon
00:06:55 About The Museum
00:07:28 CRB Computer Band 2000
00:10:30 Elgam Carousel
00:12:10 Moreschi
00:13:50 CRB Voce-Strings
00:15:23 Welson Syntex
00:16:53 FBT Synther 2000
00:18:17 Crumar DS-2
00:19:48 Farfisa Polychrome
00:23:41 Elka Synthex
00:25:49 Crumar DP-50
00:26:39 Story Ends in a Bad Way
00:27:16 Elka Wilgamat 3
00:28:20 Elgam ES2000
00:29:05 Crumar Synthaphone
00:29:38 Siel Cruise
00:30:38 Milton GEMICHORD 961
00:33:03 Tape editing
00:34:04 The Show
00:37:25 Visiting the museum
00:38:05 A Synth for Sunday
ah, I love all the Crumar representation. Nicely done!
I like this kinds of discovered and strange seemingly obsolete technology.
wauw I was impressed by this Welson Syntex…
Some of the sounds are striking, whereas many others seem like generic cheese. I’d love to sample a few of the better instruments- a Synthex is always a draw- but as a snapshot of an early era, it makes you develop greater appreciation for how easy & varied it all is now.
time for some Italo disco, me thinks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OpnRuooGfw
So cool this 🙂 Some time ago I released an album as an ode to Crumar, solely created on the Crumar Compac Synth, which was in a pretty bad state at the time. Borrowed it for a week so I thought, finished the album in that same week, then called the owner and he said I can keep it and he gave me his Crumar Compac Brass as well 🙂 truly blessed! Only drums were added in Ableton + space flight recordings from NASA, ESA & Roscosmos.
https://danielenglisch.bandcamp.com/album/heading-for-planet-crumar
I loved this video. I think it’s a fascinating look into an underrepresented part of synthesizer history.
I have a crumar organizer T1, roadrunner and the GEM S2 workstation. Always thought the italians put a different emphasis on musicality and usable sound design than the american engineers. The GEM is one of the few ways to get a good synthex sound- they have six of them inside. The italians drew upon a long history of organ, street instrument equipment that generated income for a lot of buskers. Somewhere online is a very sad video of someone walking around the abandoned GEM factory with equipment just left on the tables.