Steve Turnidge of the MMTA & Synthwerks on the Rise of Modular Synths

via Steve Turnidge on Facebook:

"Here is a response I wrote in the Mostly Modular Trade Association forum regarding why Modular Synthesizers may not be a niche market for long:

My vision is that Modular Synthesizers are the new Records. When we were kids, we distinguished ourselves from our peers by our record collections (at least my peer group did). The driving factor behind this is kids spending their parents money on materials designed to drive said parents batty.

The advent of Napster removed the record collection glamour - You have all Frank Zappa? Ok, now I do too...

I think the next stop on that story was videogames - until the decks and games became ubiquitous.

Now, I'm happy to believe, we are at the dawning of the age of moduars. It meets the requirements of a reasonable beginning investment, repeat but differentiated sales, and it drives parents crazy. Mix and match - when you go to a friends house with a new module, oh what noise you can make...

The MMTA is founded on the idea that this aggregated output from a community of hermits can find a marketplace in disaffected (and effected) youth - who grow up to be the equivalent of computer geeks.

An additional benefit is the subliminal educational affect modular has on impressionable minds. By making a patch, you are learning signal flow and what works (which is a broad variable) together. Harness SoundCloud and YouTube, and you have the bragging content distribution outlet. No need to monetize the content (even though we have something in the wings for that) when you are monetizing the hardware. Although 'software eats everything' - modulars have already been eaten, digested, and excreted quite a while ago. We are at the time for the pendulum to swing from aggregated software toward dis-aggregated hardware, and I'm excited to be here now...

...Steve>>>

http://www.mostlymodular.com/"

Steve is also part of Synthwerks and he recently published Desktop Mastering currently available on Amazon.

Related posts:
Why You Should Consider Getting a Modular - "I'll try to keep this short: a modular doesn't have to be a full blown synth. It doesn't have to be a synth at all. It can be an extension to your existing setup; it can be a simple way to process your synths, guitar, drums, etc."

Grant Richter on Cutting Down Modular Costs - ""If the public could change their perception of how a synthesizer module must be constructed, we could have a renaisance unlike anything in the past."