Paper Short Abstract:

Aided by accessible circuit board printing platforms and music gear promotion videos on social media, the paper shows how today's flourishing of modular synthesizer manufacturing weaves webs of emotional regulation that make audible attachments to people, places, and histories of music technology.

Paper Abstract:

The last two decades have seen a flourishing of boutique electronic musical instrument makers. Aided by accessible circuit board printing platforms and craft vendor websites such as Etsy, it is now easier than ever to start a one-person musical instrument business. This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork with modular synthesizer manufacturers in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK to explore how such instruments come to serve as key conduits in the unfolding of social and affective relations. Modular synthesizers are flexible, open machines for music composition and sound design that are played by patching patch cords across the partial objects that make up the instrument. The instruments are increasingly performed in domestic spaces from where performance videos are circulated through social media platforms such as Instagram and YouTube. Conceptualising this culture as the cybernetic music of small tech in an age of citizen manufacturing, I show how patching modular synthesizers not only connects sound modules, but also weaves webs of emotional regulation that make audible attachments to people, places, and histories of music technology. Moreover, by highlighting the role of so-called 'synthfluencers' who demonstrate these instruments on social media, I explore how modular affect is driven by lively, adaptive interrelations between gear promotion and the emotional needs of musicians.