Synthesized: 2 Day Festival

US Celebrating the computer and synthesiser combo 24/05/23

Cambridge centre for computing history are running another SYNTHESIZED event in July, showcasing the crossover and connections between computers and sythesizers. They'll have a host of classic synths, and a range of esteemed guests and exhibitors. Looks like great fun, and all proceeds go to support the museum! More details here:

The two technologies have crossed paths many times since the CSIRAC mainframe played the "Colonel Bogey March" in 1951. The mighty Fairlight CMI, the PPG and the humble Dragon 32 both share the same processor - as do the Moog Source, Prophet-5 and the ZX Spectrum.

By 1990, the Atari ST found its way into almost every recording studio. Technologies from the flagship Yamaha DX7 and Roland D-50 found their way into almost every PC sound card of the 1990s. Today, modern computers can emulate almost any classic synthesiser with near perfect accuracy.

Without computers we wouldn't have FM, wavetable, additive and phase distortion synthesis - or even be able to save the sounds on our analog synthesiser.

Over the years we've were lucky enough to have a Fairlight CMI, a PPG Waveterm and a Greengate DS4 together in the same room. We even had Colin Holgate from Greengate and John Molloy from 80s band Mainframe to demonstrate it to us.

This year we hope the event will be even bigger, even better, even noisier and will have more wonderful synthesisers for everyone to see and use! While we're waiting to confirm exhibitors for this year - and to get you all in the mood - here's some pictures from the previous events.

Get tickets here: https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/70787/Synthesized-Day-1-Saturday-1st-July-2023/

About the author [midierror]: midierror makes nifty Max For Live devices, innovative music hardware, award winning sample packs and hosts a podcast speaking to people in the music world.