Founder Member, Maarten de Vries returned to render a talk on music synthesisers; with sound effects. i.e. with the support of eight or more (it was hard to tell) boxes of electronics and audio amplifiers.
This turned out to be not so much a talk as a full-bloodied tour de force, covering everything from the first Moog synthesisers via East versus West Synth Style (look it up) to the latest cutting edge devices.
We were all a bit stunned by the performance, not so much by the electronics (we’re used to that) but by Maarten’s incredible skill at twiddling the multitude of knobs and switches with microsecond timing. Wow! He even finished up with an electronic chanter, which supported by the synthesisers filled the room with a hundred pipers an’ aw’ an aw'(or was it awe)
Weel done Maarten. A brilliant exposition. Thank you.
As usual, Mark Dammer is ahead of the rest of us and provided backup to Maarten demonstrating the latest software synthesisers. For anyone who would like to follow up:- If you have a Raspberry Pi with the latest software you have Sonic Pi and you have a synthesiser to explore.
Maybe the image below gives you some idea of the impact the evening made on the members.
