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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the invention of modular synthesizer circuits that integrate sonic and computational legacies of 1980s/1990s into their sound generation, interface, and design. Their designers embrace craft, tactility and obsolescence, and challenge linear trajectories of the analog and digital.

Paper long abstract:

Modular synthesizers first emerged in the 1960s when technological innovations made it possible to scale down the synthesizer from a room-sized instrument to smaller transistor-based systems, and they became obsolete in the 1980s with the advent of digital sound chips. The defining characteristic of a modular synthesizer is that it produces sound through connections of patch cables that are routed across the inputs and outputs of modules such as oscillators, filters, amplifiers and sequencers. Since the early 2000s, there has seen a global revival of modular synthesis among electronic musicians who ditch their laptops in favour of analog control voltages and patch cords—part of a boutique industry driven by open hardware, affordable manufacturing in East Asia, online distribution and the standardisation provided by the Eurorack format.

This paper explores the design, manufacturing and branding practices of modular synthesizer manufacturers whose electronic circuits incorporate sonic and computational legacies from 1980s and 1990s—the digital era in which modular synthesizers were nearly forgotten. It looks at the ethos of manufacturers of new synthesizer modules whose work incorporates elements widely seen as obsolete such as 8-bit analog to digital conversion, Amiga tracker interfaces, the FM chip of the Sound Blaster 16 and the circuit bending of objects such as toys, walkmans and computer components from this era. It locates these devices in an ethos that embraces circuit design as craft, tactility and obsolescence, challenging linear trajectories of the analog and the digital.