An intimidating mess of wires, knobs, and blinking lights, modular synthesizers evoke disparate reactions on one’s first meeting: a sense of curiosity or maybe one of fear, a blasé disinterest or maybe the start of an absolute obsession. These polarizing instruments often come with a high price tag and a steep learning curve, adding to their often limited appeal. But at their core, the instruments and the composition, recording, and performance practices associated with them, shed light not just on the truly unique music they were used to create but the diverse cultural and historical movements that they were, and continue to be, deeply embedded within. By taking a short look at the instrument’s history and roles in musical movements, we can begin to question and consider the ways that Georgia might also make its own contributions to the rich and evolving global culture of modular synthesizers

Pre-Modular 

Technologies are never neutral; they are always embedded in and generated by a cultural context, and the most important cultural context is that of use.

Arguably, the first significant discovery in the pre-history of the synthesizer (besides the discovery of electricity) would be the first “oscillator,” made by Elisha Gray in 1876. Gray created an electromagnetic circuit that could vibrate, tuned a series of them to different frequencies, and attached them to a simple keyboard, thereby creating a “Musical Telegraph.” This discovery was followed by other significant breakthroughs, notably Léon Theremin’s 1928 patent of his now famous Theremin.

One of the first electronic instruments, the Theremin is notoriously difficult to play, as the musician must control the pitch and volume by moving their hands in the air in an electro-magnetic fielding, never actually touching the instrument itself. The Theremin has a particularly important role to play in the pre-history of modular, as many years later a 19 year old inventor Robert Moog would begin manufacturing his own Theremin kits and would found the R.A. Moog Co. Bob Moog (actually pronounced Moog as in “vogue”) would go on to be one of the most famous figures in the history of synthesis. 

The East and West Coast Divide: Modular Philosophies and Cultures 

The America of the 1960s saw the semi-simultaneous invention of two different forms of the first modular systems. On the west coast, Don Buchla, an inventor and musician heavily involved in San Francisco Tape Music Center, built his first ‘Buchla box’ prototype sometime in 1965 with the assistance of a $500 grant through the Rockefeller foundation. He went on to perform at many of the author Ken Kesey’s Acid Test events, playing electronic sounds between acts. One of his four modular boxes was even installed on Kesey’s famous bus used by his group of Merry Pranksters, the subject of Tom Wolf’s book ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.’ Buchla’s machines were intentionally constructed to serve as new instruments in the emerging experimental and psychedelic scenes happening on the west coast. Buchla’s machine did not have a keyboard and this was a purposeful decision, as these instruments were supposed to be a completely new type of instrument, not drawing on past designs and familiar forms. These were boxes of knobs and module components that operated on what is now called “West Coast” principles: simple wave forms would be processed in different ways that combine frequencies and pathways, essentially adding signals together to create a more complex whole.

Around the same time, in very different circumstances, on the east coast of the US, Bob Moog began collaborating with composers based around New York City such as Herb Deutsch and Vladimir Ussachevsky, to create a musical synthesizer in his small shop in Trumansburg, New York. The result was his Moog Synthesizer, an instrument that would eventually be marketed to studio musicians as a sort of mobile studio and in its early forms take on a much more accessible shape, with an attached keyboard that served as a familiar entry point for musicians to work with the instrument. Moog also developed a complex filter coveted to this day, which influenced the process of what would later be called “East Coast” synthesis: a process of taking complex wave forms and running them through a variety of filters and sound processors to subtract from it’s initial form until a new one was found. 

These instruments and synthesis “schools” were formed in very different environments on opposing coasts of the US in the 1960’s. In their book, Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer, the authors Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco describe the stark differences in the two synth inventor’s backgrounds:

“Buchla’s frame emerged within the artistic milieu of the San Francisco Tape Center and was shaped by the composers he met there and the sixties counterculture of which he and the Tape Center were a part. Moog’s frame, on the other hand, was shaped by conservative fifties engineering values and the lower-middle-class Protestant work ethic that predominated in his Trumansburg factory.”* 

Doepfer and Eurorack 

Cut to Germany in the 1990s, where Dieter Döpfer had been working for many years to build MIDI synth modules and other synths. At this point the modular synthesis scene had gone inactive, with companies shutting down and discontinuing many products.

In 1994 Döpfer invented a modular machine known as the Doepfer A-100 that would signal a new interest and advancement in the world of modular. Known now as a Eurorack system, this type of modular system, through its use in the emerging European club scenes of the period, would become a massive phenomenon, leading to the development of several hundred synth companies companies and the construction of over a thousand different types of modules. 

Make Noise and the 0-Coast 

Leap forward again in time to 2008, when the company Make Noise was founded in Asheville, North Carolina by Tony Rolando, a self-taught electronic musical instrument designer who had previously worked for the Moog Music. By the companies own description, they “design and build some pretty strange, but thoughtful modular synthesizers.” Rolando and Make Noise have made a great variety of revolutionary Eurorack modules and systems, as well as semi-modular called the “0-coast.” Operating and expanding on the synthesis principles associated with both Don Buchla and Bob Moog, the 0-coast combines these processes and expands on them, not devoted entirely to either but showcasing the specific qualities of both. 

Georgia’s Contributions, Present and Future 

Sound technology -- so important as a carrier of global culture -- gets reworked and appropriated in new local contexts, sometimes generating new cultural forms that in turn push global technology forward.*

In each of these cases, we see both instrument makers and musicians working together to expand on their ideas and to create something new through their work with modular. It’s important to note that in all of these examples the unique cultures that surrounded those involved had a profound effect and influence on the creation and performance context of these instruments. While the primary examples above are focused on the US and Western Europe, similar movements are simultaneously emerging in places like Indonesia, where scenes for DIY electronics and modular are growing faster every day, or Latvia, where a company like Erica Synths, founded by Girts Ozolinš, began by making DIY kits based on components from Soviet Era electronics and transitioned into making drum sequencers and filters best suited for techno and drone music. 

New movements, machines, and music emerge from different locations and cultures. It’s my belief that Georgia has it’s own culture and environment to contribute to the history of modular, just as the country has already done so in terms of club culture and for many different genres of music.

The process has already begun: starting with Tornike Margvelashvili’s Synthesis 101 course at the Creative Education Studio, where students were first given access and education on a Doepfer A-100 modular synthesizer, the movement has continued to grow. We’re now seeing small venues like Budka and Politika host modular synthesis events. Modular enthusiasts from other countries have started to visit Tbilisi and give small workshops and performances. As of this year, the company AVB became the first store in Georgia to offer Make Noise modules and the 0-Coast semi-modular for sale. And, On March 21^st, I’ll be hosting an open day for my upcoming Modular courses at Creative Education Studio, continuing the the Synthesis 101 course and adding for the first time, a course on Advanced Modular Synthesis. We have yet to see (or hear) exactly what the local contribution to the history of modular will be, but it’s surely on its way. 

*Analog Days: the Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer

Publisher Harvard University Press Pg. 310, 309, 123 

article: Ben Wheeler