MATRIXSYNTH Turns 21

Yes, MATRIXSYNTH is now old enough to legally have a drink in the US!

Joking aside, MATRIXSYNTH in its current form started on July 20, 2005 with this post. Since then there has been only a single day without a post, which occured back on that dreadful day of August 6, 2005. I can't link to it because there isn't a post to link to. :) Sorry for the bad humor. That said, since then, I haven't missed a single day posting on the site including holidays and vacations.

For those of you not in the know, MATRIXSYNTH is a one-man operation, run by your host, me, matrix. Every single post has gone up by hand - there is no automation and definitely no AI. Including this post, there have been at least 260,897 posts to date. There have actually been been more but some have been taken down due to either videos or audio dissapearing over the years, which brings me to a point: please don't remove your videos and audio demos off the web. You might think they are no longer relevant or you might even be embarrased by them as you think things have progressed and they no longer meet your standards, but they are relevant. They are part of history and will always be worth a look-back in context. Who you are today isn't defined by what you put up years ago. Trust me, I am often embarrased when I look back at some of my older posts. I'll likely be embarrased by this one. That said, please keep your old content up! It's a bit of synth history, and it's a look back at what you felt worth sharing back when you posted it. It doesn't define you today. It's like throwing away old family photographs because you are now older. That and there is always something interesting to find in older videos. A timbre from a given synth, an experience relevant in time.

That brings me to something I wanted to clarify for those that may be wondering: in general I prefer to keep myself out of posts for fear of influencing or even ruining the experience for others. I feel it is my job to present content w/o bias, and I prefer to post things as they are presented by the person or entity that created the content to begin with. Not influencing how others might or might not experience what goes up is a conscious decision. I realized over time it's akin to talking through music.

What I love about running MATRIXSYNTH is getting to share what's new to me on a daily basis. I have a policy of only posting specific content once. That means out of 260,897+ posts to date, nearly every single one is unique. It's also great to realize that there have been multiple things to actually feature every single day of the year, shared on the day itself, over the past 21 years!!! That's saying something, not about me or the site, but about the community.

The original MATRIXSYNTH actually started back in 1997. Click to see the monstrocity. That site will be 29 this year! The site was my personal portal into the world of synths. On the left were a list of sites I visited back then that would open in the right window frame when clicked on. Unfortunately that functionality is no longer supported in modern browsers; however you can right-click any link and open it in a new window. It's worth a look back at what synth sites were around back in 1997. Remember, YouTube didn't come out until December of 2005. MATRIXSYNTH in its current format, the blog, came out before YouTube. Think about that for a bit. This site has tracked the personal world of synthesis since before YouTube came out! Also, you might notice the old site came out well before The Matrix movies. The alias matrix, and hence MATRIXSYNTH, comes from my first synthesizer, the Oberheim MATRIX-6 which I purchased new in 1986 and still own to this day.

OK, this post is long enough. I want to end it by thanking the supporters of the site, the banner sponsors of the site, and most importantly, you, my readers. This might surprise some people, but I sometimes feel irrelevant, like why am I even doing this? I then remind myself I do it for the sake of doing it. I want to capture a bit of what's out there on a daily basis. I want the site to be a log (a weblog - blog) of synth history. I started back in 2005, and ever since that day I've had something to post, except for that solemn day on August 6, 2005. (P.S. I went on vacation that day and didn't think there would be internet access, let alone that I would be posting every single day after that - imagine not being able to say "I never missed a single day!" for the rest of your life because of one single day! "If it wasn't for that day!..") I think I will be doing this until the day I'm no longer here, and although I know I would be doing this regardless of whether I had an audience or not, knowing I do have an audience makes a world of difference. And thank you to all of you out there sharing your synth content. You are creating SYNTH HISTORY!!!

P.S. I want to give a special shout out to Amanda of CATSYNTH who not only is a supporting member of the site, but was kind enough to remember my anniversary and reach out to me today. Thank you!

P.P.S. It was CATSYNTH's 20th Anniversary yesterday. Happy Anniversary CATSYNTH! :)