Vintage Synth Museum in California

From BoingBoing.net via ABC7 in San Francisco:

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EMERYVILLE, Calif. (KGO) -- In today's digital world, an East Bay man is offering up a serious dose of analog at a new museum he just opened to the public.

Some East Bay musicians and engineers have created a unique music space, one that preserves the history of synthesized and music, as well as the instruments which made those sounds in the 70s and 80s, and maybe even more recently.

The Vintage Synthesizer Museum in Emeryville is a place where music lovers can learn, play, rent, or record.

From the classic to the experimental, the museum has instruments that defined more than a decade of music.

Lance Hill is the mastermind behind the collection that acquired piece by piece for more than a decade.

 

"It's ridiculous," Hill said in regards to his collection, and obviously an addiction. An addiction he used to keep to himself until he found a space for rent.

 

"I found the studio," he said. "It looked like an old recording studio from the 80s and I just knew that this was the place to have the collection."

 

The Vintage Synthesizer Museum includes something that's been in magazines with its famous owner, an oddity made of see-through plastic.

 

"It was formerly owned by Joe Zawinul of Weather Report. It's kind of in rough condition because he took it on the road," Hill said.

 

"This clear case, there was maybe 20 of these and I have one of them," Hill said.

 

It turns out these analog instruments are more than just history. they make sounds that computer engineers still haven't quite been able to imitate. A discerning musician can always tell the difference.

"They sound warm and fuzzy and beautiful," one of Hill's friend's said.

 

"I don't know, it moves you. It's a little more inspiring," another one of Hill's friends said.

 

"You are not going to get a computer emulation of this that sounds remotely like this," Hill said.

 

Unlike digital keyboards, these actually require tuning and they can go out of tune, which some say makes the sound more real.

Pretty cool. I remember I used to fantasize about classic synths like the ARP 2600 and the old Moogs when I was fifteen.

Even attended a lecture by Dr. Moog himself in April 2005, only four months before be passed away.

pretty cool it got in local news, he has a buchla music easel. I almost considered renting his space for an hour, but his synth selection is a little more standard fare classic analog than I would prefer. If he got a few Serge modulars or a moog modular i'd jump on it

WATMM day-trip to this place for Bay Area WATMMites!

Awesome! I'm gonna make a point to check this out soon.

if you guys want to check out a digital synth museum come to my place

I am so happy I live very close to this..

Hey all, I'm strongly considering going to this and will def post in this thread if it all works out. It'd be awesome to have a meet up there and trade recordings we made there. Btw, is there any catch to the recording? Can i record with just the standard admission fee?

  On 1/16/2015 at 12:34 AM, Danny O Flannagin said:

Hey all, I'm strongly considering going to this and will def post in this thread if it all works out. It'd be awesome to have a meet up there and trade recordings we made there. Btw, is there any catch to the recording? Can i record with just the standard admission fee?

of course, the idea of it being a 'museum' i think was an afterthought, it originally opened self advertised as a 'use our synths studio'. Id be shocked if they somehow changed the policy to charge extra for recording.