TONTO Arrives at the NMC Calgary Alberta, Canada

"National Music Centre acquires TONTO, world’s largest synthesizer. Credit: Chad Schroter-Gillespie."

This one in via Greg on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge.

The National Music Center in Calgary Alberta is the new home of TONTO

"TONTO was the first and the largest, multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer. This means that it was one of the first synthesizers capable of producing many tone colours with different voices simultaneously.

TONTO was created by Malcom Cecil and Robert Margouleff in 1968 and marked the first attempt at creating a universal language for different synthesizers to communicate with each other, which was revolutionary. TONTO remains the largest analog synthesizer in the world."

Check out the full post at the NMC site here.

Is it the world's largest synthesizer considering modular systems can be endless in size?  It depends on how you look at it.  It is interesting to think of it as a single massive synthesizer. As for possible contenders, my first thought was Benge's studio, the old Aliens Project SynxsS studio (interview here) as well has Hans Zimmer's bookshelves of modulars, but their modular systems are effectively separate.  Are there others?  If you focus on sheer number of modules in one exclusive system there's Billy Corgan's Ichabod which consists of all Mattson modules and the recent Siggi's Super Formant Synthesizer.

"Malcom Cecil, co-creator of TONTO. Credit: Chad Schroter-Gillespie."

The following is a track featuring Tonto by Malcom Cecil & Margouleff from 1971.