Open Mic: For the holidays, my wish is that you have family, health and peace. And, yes, since it’s Synthtopia, maybe a little gear under the tree, that new app that you’ve been wanting or some great new music…. So, let us know if ‘Santa’ brought you something nice! Image: rthakrar
Open Mic: Was 2011 a good year for electronic music? I’ve been reviewing some of our posts from 2011, and it seems like 2011 was a pretty good year on the hardware side: There were major new synths from the big three keyboard manufacturers; Dave Smith Instruments released the Tempest, a really deep analog drum… Read More Open Mic: Was 2011 A Good Year For Electronic Music?
Open Mic: We recently posted the question “What Electronic Music Track Changed Your Life?“, and were amazed by the variety of responses we received – and by how many readers felt that their lives have been changed by a single piece of music. Hearing music that you love performed live, though, can be even more… Read More Open Mic: What’s The Best Electronic Music Concert You’ve Ever Seen?
Open Mic: Own and perform with synths and other electronic gear for any length of time and you’ll eventually run into a synth disaster. Maybe you shipped a carefully packed keyboard and it came back smashed. Maybe you stored too many keyboards on a gorgeous glass table….until the glass broke. Or maybe you were onstage,… Read More Open Mic: What’s Your Worst Synth Disaster?
Open Mic: Get any group of synthesists together, and discussion eventually turns to the classic synths of past. Synths like the original Moog modular synthesizer, the Minimoog, the Korg MS-20, the Yamaha CS-80, the Roland Jupiter 8 and many others. While it’s easy to recognize classic synths of the past, we sometimes take for granted the great… Read More Open Mic: Which Synthesizers Are The New Classics?
Open Mic: Every time we’ve got news about a major new synthesizer at Synthtopia, there are always some readers that respond to the news with “Cool, but if only they had re-released the __________” Korg, Yamaha, Roland and others have so many great vintage synths in their history that it’s hard for new introductions to… Read More Open Mic: If One Vintage Synthesizer Could Be Put Back Into Production, Which One Would You Pick?
Open Mic: What’s your favorite piece of electronic music making gear? If you had to sell your gear to pay the bills, what would be the last thing to go? Maybe your favorite gear is the first real synth you got. Or maybe your favorite piece of gear is something you had to wait and save… Read More Open Mic: What’s Your Favorite Piece Of Gear?
Open Mic: Last week, I asked Synthtopia readers “What electronic music track changed your life?” – and got hundreds of responses, on the post and via Facebook. They were thoughtful responses – from readers whose lives had been changed by electronic music classics by Wendy Carlos, Delia Derbyshire, Roger Powell, John Foxx, Gary Numan, Kraftwerk,… Read More Open Mic: What’s Your Guilty Pleasure?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE2A59zjuNk Open Mic: Readers Mark Mosher and Bob Tarmac responded to a recent post about the sound design of Forbidden Planet, noting that they had been obsessed and inspired by the soundtrack. And since the 50’s, there’s been a growing body of interesting and exciting electronic music that, for whatever reason, flips a switch in… Read More Open Mic: What Electronic Music Track Changed Your Life?
