These days a lot of people think of synthesizer performances as someone lurking behind a computer and just clicking away with a mouse. However, there are still musicians who favor hardware synths over soft synths, which makes for much more interesting and impressive live performances. Of course, this was much more prevalent in the early days of synthesizers when a lot of bands included these instruments for their unique sounds. Nowadays it is less common to see hardware synths as part of a live performance, but they are still out there.

If you love vintage synthesizers and have enough money to never worry about an empty wallet or bank account, then you could obviously build up quite a formidable collection. Unfortunately, for most people this isn’t feasible as synths are expensive and you can only stretch your budget so far. Of course, you could always just throw caution to the wind and buy whatever synth you want and deal with the consequences later, but this is definitely not a very smart course of action.

Suzane Ciani requires no introduction. A five-time Grammy nominee and Indie Music Awards Winner, Ciani has been one of the pioneers in the world of electronic music.  She agreed to an interview and we chat about her career, her favorite synths, her successes in the advertising industry, the film that was recently made about her life and much more.  We had so much to talk about, it was impossible to summarize it all in one article, so we will be posting the interview in parts over the next couple of weeks.

Snowy weather, cozy fireplaces, candlelit dinners and plenty of mistletoe; these are the things that we commonly associate with the festive season. It is also a time for eating too much, spending too much and being bombarded with “Christmas” music at every turn. It’s not just every pop singer trying to rake in some extra holiday cash with a Christmas single either. The tradition of releasing a Christmas related song over the holiday season stretches quite a way back.

Suzane Ciani requires no introduction. A five-time Grammy nominee and Indie Music Awards Winner, Ciani has been one of the pioneers in the world of electronic music.  She agreed to an interview and we chat about her career, her favorite synths, her successes in the advertising industry, the film that was recently made about her life and much more.  We had so much to talk about, it was impossible to summarize it all in one article, so we will be posting the interview in parts over the next couple of weeks.

To many people, synthesizers are anonymous with the science fiction genre, such as Blade Runner and more recently, Ex Machina. However, the out-of-this-world sounds that synths are capable of producing has also featured prominently in some classic horror movies. In many cases the synth sounds used in these movies are so effective that you can still feel the fear and tension even with your eyes closed.

Objectivity can be very hard for a hobby such as vintage synths due to the amount of money and passion that is involved. It also means that some people hate certain hardware simply because of its popularity while others refuse the see the downside of even the worst instrument due to the special meaning it has to them. However, it is also true that there are those who manage to make good use of synths dismissed by many others. At the end of the day, every vintage synth still available on the market  has its own quirks and owning one is not always about simply playing it.