digitalsynth.net

Preserving Digital Instruments since 2019

Welcome to DigitalSynth.net! This is a website documenting a curated selection of digital music synthesizers from the 1980s to the present day. You can find a list of the gear included in the collection from the Gear page.

The digital music instruments of yesteryear are worth preserving both as cultural artifacts and as musical instruments. Many of them have distinctive capabilities and sonic characteristics that can be difficult to reproduce with modern instruments. This website aims to provide information about these instruments, including their history, specifications, and sound characteristics.

There are also practical concerns with newer synthesizers that don't necessarily occur with older digital synthesizers. For example, many modern synthesizers are designed to be used with proprietary software and may not be compatible with other software or hardware. This can limit the creative possibilities for musicians and producers who want to use a variety of tools in their music-making process. Also, operating system updates can render older software inoperable, and if the instrument depends on the software, it may become unusable. By contrast, many older digital synthesizers are standalone instruments that can be used without the need for additional software or hardware. An old synth with MIDI and SysEx can often still be controlled by software written today, because its interface is stable and documented. A modern instrument whose essential functionality depends on a particular vendor's software ecosystem may be much harder to preserve. This idea is further explored in the Programmable From the Outside post.

A longer-term goal is to make selected instruments in the collection accessible remotely for exploring, editing, and sampling their sounds. This will require significant effort, but it would make these instruments available to a much wider audience. The hardware itself will inevitably deteriorate over time, and working examples of some instruments are already becoming increasingly difficult to find. Making them accessible remotely is one way of preserving their sounds and capabilities for future generations of musicians and producers.

Making these instruments accessible also provides a way to preserve and appreciate the work of the engineers and designers who created them. These instruments represent considerable technical and creative achievements, and their contribution to the history of electronic music deserves to remain accessible.

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