Paul Schreiber at CONTROL in 2018
It has come to my attention that Paul Schreiber has passed away.
Pictured: Paul Schreiber at the 2006 NAMM show. Top from this previous post (pic by fr1zz), and bottom from this post (pic by Synthtopia) - this is the first image of Paul on the site. There is one comment in that post: "He's a good guy." Indeed.
Readers of the site should be familiar with his work. He was the man behind MOTM and Synthesis Technology.
To say Paul was one of the greats to influence the synth community would be an understatement. He was pivitol to the rebirth of modular synthesizers. He started when modular as we know it today was in its infancy, as one of a very small group of large format modular manufacturers along with Blacet, Modcan, Cynthia, Wiard, MacBeth, Oakley, STG, Catgirl/CGS, Tellun/Lower West Side Studio YuSynth, Jurgen Haible, and of course DIY staples like Thomas Henry/ MFOS, Ray Wilson and PAiA (see this post for some modular formats back in 2007). P.S. If I missed anyone in the early days, leave a comment. This post is about Paul, but I think it's important to relect on some of the large format modular manufactures he was amongst at the time.
Paul created the MOTM format of 5U modules in 1998. From Wikipedia: "MOTM was created by Paul Schreiber in 1998. The system was created in part due to the renewed interest in large-format analog modular systems that occurred in the late 1990s. Between 1998 and 2021, over 8000 modules were sold. The company, Synthesis Technology, also offered a limited number of modules in Eurorack[2] and Frac[3] format."
He later joined the eurorack scene with Synthesis Technology branded modules. FYI, his site for MOTM was always http://www.synthtech.com/, short for Synthesis Technology. The first post to mention Paul and MOTM was posted just under twenty years ago here on MATRIXSYNTH back on August 26, 2005. If you click through you will see it was a post announcing the MOTM/synthtech.com site was going down for the weekend. He announced he was retiring from the synthesizer business in August of 2023.
I beleive the first synthtech eurorack post went up on December 2, 2012 for the E102 Digital CV Processor. The first post to mention Synthesis Technology was an Epic Son track by John L Rice in August of 2011. Since then there has been approximately 845 posts to feature MOTM, and at least 398 Synthtech.
You can find a number of interviews with Paul in previous posts here.
It's worth repeating, Paul Schreiber was one of the key figures that brought modular back to the masses. He was both respected and loved by the synth community. It's impossible to overstate his influence. He will be missed.
The following are the first the last videos with Paul to be featured on the site:
The SynthSummitShow Episode 2: Paul Schreiber (Synthesis Technology) and A.Dapt (music producer) ...
Streamed live on Oct 2, 2015 Flux302 of Fluxwithit.com
Details previously posted here.
SysEx Dumpster - Episode 44 - a conversation with Paul Schreiber
video upload by Sysex Dumpster
Details previously posted here.
