RIP Ray Wilson

Hi everyone. I have some incredibly sad news in today. Ray Wilson of Music From Outer Space passed away on Thursday, July 21. As many knew, he was battling stage 4 cancer. His family's GoFundMe page is still up and has not yet reached their goal. His family will likely have bills, so if you'd like to contribute something, please do. For those that would like to donate to Ray's family directly via Paypal, I am told his Paypal address is info@musicfromouterspace.com.

Regular readers of MATRIXSYNTH will surely know who Ray Wilson is. For anyone that doesn't, Ray was the man behind the synth DIY site Music From Outer Space. The domain name was registered back in Nov 2003; I'm not sure when the site went live, but there is an archive of the site from the WayBackMachine dated Jan 15, 2004.

Ray's contributions through his website and his YouTube channel have influenced synth DIY hobbyists and budding new makers and manufacturers alike over the years. Many owe him for their start in the world of synth DIY. You can see the exhaustive list of his DIY projects on his site here. His most popular project of course was the MFOS Soundlab Mini-Synth. His work has contributed to more than 590 posts here on MATRIXSYNTH. I'm sure there will be more to come. The first time MFOS was featured on MATRIXSYNTH was back on August 30, 2005, just over a month after I launched MATRIXSYNTH.

Ray Wilson was also the author of Make: Analog Synthesizers.

Something you may not have known is that he was also an amateur standup comedian, and he shared his performances on his main YouTube channel. As you know, I started MATRIXSYNTH back in 2005, Just over a year after MFOS launched. The first time I saw one of Ray Wilson's standup shows I thought I was on the wrong channel! :) When I realized it was him, it of course brought a smile to my face. The first thought that came to my mind was, wow, this is a truly genuine human being. The following is the last standup performance shared on his channel, from August, 2014:

The Ray Wilson Show August 26th 2014

Published on Aug 26, 2014 Ray Wilson

"AMATEUR DOING STANDUP - NOT SYNTH RELATED AT ALL. This is actually sit down comedy. I don't include profanity in my bits because I'm no good at it. If you want to be the Chopped Champ don't miss this episode. If you know someone else that might get a smile out of this I definitely appreciate shares."


Quincas Moreira, who also does synth DIY work, was a friend of Ray's. Together they composed the following piece. Update via Quincas:: "That's Ray singing. It's his song, lyrics, melody and harmony. He'd done a previous version but I thought the song was so awesome it deserved to be properly produced, so I got him to send me the original session and recorded real drums, bass, piano, percussion and backing vocals."



"Quincas Moreira and Ray Wilson collaboration - Are We Waves... Physicists are still working out our true physical nature - currently confusion reigns."

"He'll finally find out if we are waves or particles. Rest in peace my friend."

The following is the last video on Ray Wilson's YouTube channel. He will be missed.

Goofing with two MFOS SL Mark IIs, Ultimate and Sequencer.

Published on Apr 26, 2016 Ray Wilson

"Having some fun with the synth. It definitely is therapeutic."
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Heartfelt thanks to Lorne Hammond & Skot Wieddman who sent the sad news my way.