New England Synthesizer Museum

[inman at interpath.com]

For those of you who haven't heard:  Up in Nashua, New 
Hampshire (USA), there is a guy named Dave Wilson who runs 
a place called the New England Synthesizer Museum.  The 
Museum is a work in progress, a two story house near downtown 
Nashua filled from bottom to top with synthesizers.  I had read 
about this in Keyboard or Electronic Musician a year or two ago, 
but thought I would never get there until... my wife's family 
decided to have their family reunion near Concord.  To make a long 
story short, I went and spent 2 1/2 of the most exciting hours 
of my life with virtually every great synthesizer ever made.  I 
just returned and can report that I have now seen the following:

Moogs from an early modular to the Minimoog to the
	Polymoog to the "White Elephant"
ARP Odyssey, 2600 (a black and a white), a prototype (#3)
	Modular with the full three or four feet of 
	matrixed switches, Solus
Oberheim OB-1
Yamaha CS-01
Emu Emulator I
Synare drum triggers
Korg MS-20, Synthebass, Mono/Poly
Crumar Performer
One of the Buchla vibraphone-like controllers (with the
	12? flat strips and two knobs for Voltage Control
	for each)
EDP Wasp
Electro Harmonix Mini Synthesizer
Rhodes Chroma
Mellotron
Paul S's Realistic MG-1

This is just a list off of the top of my head.  It does
not begin to cover what is at the museum.  And the best
part is that, after a basic tour, Dave Wilson turns to
me and says, "Now, pick out whatever you want to play."
Needless to say, my reaction was "...uhhhh, what?"  
I did not know where to begin.  I decided on a selection
of the classics and played the following:

Mellotron, ARP Odyssey, Moog Minimoog, Korg MS-20, and
Korg Mono/Poly.  The best part is that I was able to 
videotape the collection, and Wilson was kind enough to 
record my own finger-fumbling work with the synthesizers 
I played.  This, dear friends, is the real ANALOG HEAVEN.

So, what did I actually learn?  There are some things that
you have to touch and play and hear to understand.  I had 
never played with a Sample and Hold module -- WOW!  I had not 
played a lot with Noise and still don't care for it.  I have 
always thought KORG synthesizers (the Midi / Digital ones) were 
sterile, but the MS-20 was the most intense synth of those
I played.  All of this time, I have been wondering why people
on this list were working like mad to duplicate the MS-20 filter.
Now, I know.  IT IS BEAUTIFUL.  This is the synth I wish I had.
(Wilson actually bought his for $50 during the Dark Ages of
Analog).  And, being there, touching and playing, I had a 
few odd realizations.  For one, what is the Wasp keyboard 
made of anyway?  Cardboard?  I had never seen a panel from 
PAIA.  Where does PAIA get that stuff?  Spare metal from 
decommissioned battleships?  The measurements don't do justice 
to the thickness.  After someone drops the bomb, what will the 
cockroaches be doing?  Playing their PAIA modulars, that's what.
The Korg Mono/Poly?  How many players had to learn to think
Finger 1-Osc1, Finger2-Osc2, etc..?  That would take some
practice to master.  And, finally, maybe it was just because 
it was the last synthesizer I heard before I left, but I found
myself thinking, "Isn't the Electro Harmonix Mini the coolest 
little synth ever made?"  I saw one with the pitch strip all 
the way across the top of the pretend keyboard.  Too cool.

Sorry for the long post, but the museum is definitely worth
the trip for any DIY-ER in the area.  The museum is not
exactly as refined as MOMA in terms of atmosphere.  It is 
in a shall we say "less than majestic" part of Nashua.  But, 
my 2 1/2 hours there completely changed my understanding of
sound and synthesizers and electronic music.

Wittgenstein once asked, "What is the sound of a rose?" to
describe the way in which we can use language to ask questions
that make no sense, although the words obey the rules of
language.  If he had been to the New England Synthesizer
Museum, he would realize that the question is not impossible to
answer after all.  The trick is to use a filter with a 2 pole
high pass and a 2 pole low pass with separate frequency and
Q and then turn them both...

Elliot