Hainbach - Syn-Ket Studien (Full Album)

video upload by HAINBACH

"My album "SYN-KET STUDIEN" as it was recorded at the Museo Del Synth Marchegiano. Pre-order one of the limited run vinyl now or buy the digital: https://hainbach.bandcamp.com/album/s..."

"Syn-Ket Studien (German for „study“) is as much an exploration as its a love letter. When I tried to coax music from this wonderful but not always perfectly working instrument, I was under the spell of the beautiful Marche region and the hospitality I encountered at the Museo. The album cover by Zé Burnay reflects that - the countryside and culture frames the session.

Having only a few days with the Syn-Ket, I needed to work effectively. I decided it would be the tempo that would guide my interaction with the instrument. By setting the speeds of the modulators first I learned quickly what the instrument could do and what I could do with it. Every piece is the result of a learning curve, the struggle of playing an undocumented instrument and the joy of its incredible rich and powerful sound.

At home in my Berlin studio I left the sound as raw and unedited as made sense musically, adding only a touch ambience with an old stereo spring reverb."

Hainbach, Berlin, 2022

A Short History of The Syn-Ket

"The Syn-Ket is a truly exceptional instrument: developed in Italy at the same time that Robert Moog and Don Buchla set out to write instrument history, Paolo Ketoff created what is probably the first portable synthesizer.
Born from the experience of making the huge Fonosynth and inspired by the works of Harald Bode, Ketoff worked closely with musicians and composers of the American Academy of Rome (John Eaton, Bill Smith) to create an electronic instrument that would allow live performances without tape playback.
Shunning mass production, the Syn-Ket was only produced in nine custom pieces, starting in 1963, all tailored to the musician that ordered it. And those lucky few got a lot, despite the compact size: three voices with tube oscillators, two filters and an LFO, an octave filter bank and three output modulators (a mixture of LFO/Envelope/VCA). All is controlled by a very expressive three row pressure sensitive keyboard.
It found widespread use in Italian movies of the times. Little wonder, as one Syn-Ket was famously owned by Ennio Morricone"

- Riccardo Pietroni, Museo Del Synth Marchigiano, 2022

released August 23, 2022

See the Synket label below for more.

A Visit the Italian Synth Museum

video upload by Alex Ball

You can find additional posts featuring the museum here.

"Whilst taking a holiday in Italy we stopped off at Museo del Synth Marchigiano for a couple of days and this is the account of what I experienced there.

Enormous thanks to everyone at the museum, particularly Riccardo and Paolo.

https://www.museodelsynth.org/

0:00 Intro
1:19 Synket
4:40 EKO Computerhythm
8:01 Chilton Talentmaker
12:07 Crumar Compac Synth
13:41 Crumar DP-50
15:07 Elkatwin 61
16:29 Elka Synthex
19:38 CRB Oberon
21:29 CRB Voco Strings
22:53 CRB Uranus 2.0
24:34 Farfisa Polychrome
25:24 Logan Piano Strings Synthesizer
27:10 Welson Syntex
28:28 Keytek CTS-2000
29:47 Baleani Solista"

Syn-Ket: Portable and Powerful In 1963

video upload by HAINBACH

See the Synket label for more.

"In 1963, when synthesizers were wall-sized, Paolo Ketoff designed a portable yet sonically rich electronic instrument, the Syn-Ket. Created for film scoring and experimental musicians, the Syn-Ket became a classic of Italian film scoring, with Ennio Morricone being one of the early adopters. Only 8 or 9 where made, and I got to play the only one that is known to work @Museo del Synth Marchigiano .

GET THE ALBUM 'SYN-KET STUDIEN': http://hainbach.bandcamp.com

Soundpacks, Music and Love: http://patreon.com/hainbach"

Playing around with the Synket an incredible tube synthesizer made in Italy by Paolo Ketoff in 1964.

video upload by Riccardo Pietroni

See the Synket label for more.

"This is the unit build for Bill Smith by Paolo Ketoff and is completely original.

The Syn-ket comprised of three sound modules or 'sound-combiner' as Ketoff called them – essentially three separate synthesisers built using a mix of solid state and vacuum technology. Each module was independently controllable and interconnectable and mixable into a single output.

Each 'sound-combiner' module consisted of:

1 square wave frequency-controllable oscillator.
A button controlled series of frequency dividers which allowed division of the incoming pitch by factors of 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8 to produce differing harmonics
3 complex filters with a frequency range of 40 Hz – 20 kHz.
1 amplitude control.
3 modulators each controlled by a low frequency oscillator: The first allowed control of the square wave oscillator’s frequency, The second controlled the frequency of the filter and the third controlled audio amplitude.

The Syn–ket was not conceived as a commercial product – Ketoff built only about a dozen variations on the Syn-ket theme between 1963 and 1977 – and notwithstanding it’s innovative and unique features remained a one-off custom made instrument. Despite this, the Syn-ket was widely used by composers other than Eaton and found itself almost ubiquitous on Cinecittà soundtracks for Spaghetti westerns (Ennio Morricone used the Syn-ket on many of his soundtrack scores ), Italian horror and science fiction films."

SOUNDMIT 2021 - SPECIALE SYNKET - Il Sintetizzatore italiano più raro! - UNBOXING

video uploads by SOUNDMIT

Googlish translation (original Italian below):

"Topical event of SOUNDMIT 2021 was the discovery, by Francesco Mulassano of Soundmit, of one of the rarest electronic musical instruments in the world and certainly the rarest of those designed and built in Italy.

Found in the United States almost by chance, the SYNKET designed and built by PAOLO KETOFF in 1964 was acquired by the Marche and Italian Synthesizer Museum and is currently undergoing restoration before being exhibited at the next edition of the Museum in 2022.

With this video series, we retrace the history of this tool with interviews, unboxing and passionate chat!

Soundmit 2021 was created in collaboration with the Marchigiano and Italian Synthesizer Museum in Macerata

Due to a technical problem during the second day of the "Soundmit & Museum of Synth 2021" some videos may be of lower quality. We apologize for the inconvenience.

►WEB: https://www.museodelsynth.org

SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER
► https://sndmt.link/newsletter " OUR LINKS ► SOUNDMIT - https://sndmt.link/soundmit "

Italian:

CLICK FOR MORE »

How Don Buchla Pioneered Synthesizers | Red Bull Music Academy

Published on Apr 17, 2019 Red Bull Music Academy

"In the 1960s musician and designer Don Buchla was among the first wave of enthusiasts to imagine and invent the modern synthesizer as we know it today. In their RBMA lectures Buchla and his acolyte Morton Subotnick, alongside fellow designers Bob Moog, Dave Smith and Tom Oberheim, recall these early days while Suzanne Ciani and Joan La Barbara reflect on the futurism of Buchla's unique approach."

Update: it looks like today is Don Buchla's birthday.

Pic with Bob Moog via @moogmusicinc

"Today we celebrate the birthday of west-coast synth maverick Don Buchla, whose distinctive design perspective has helped to build the foundation for modern experimental synthesis and continues to inspire new sounds ⚡️."

Moving this one on top for a little bit considering. This post originally went up at 12:15.

Electronic Music Review No. 4 October 1967. 48 Pages. Distribution by R.A. Moog

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

Note, Tristram Cary's EMScope and Kurt Stone, Joel Chadabe's The Synket are featured.

Anyone know more about the EMScope? It doesn't appear to have been mentioned on the site before now.

CLICK FOR MORE »

RIP Dr. John Eaton

Videos by The Snapshots Foundation

Dr. John Eaton passed away yesterday on Dec 2 at the age of 80. For those not familiar with him he was a composer who worked closely with Bob Moog in the 1960s, influencing the development of the first synthesizers as we have come to know them today. The first synthesizer to feature a keyboard, the Synket by Paul Ketoff, was made for John Eaton. Above is a collection of interviews by The Snapshots Foundation starting with the Synket [see the Synket channel for previous post including images].

Playlist:
Dr. John Eaton: Synket & Moog History
Dr. John Eaton Interview pt.1
Dr. John Eaton Interview pt.2
Bob Moog Remembered pt2.

On the Synket via Wikipedia: "A working group at Roman Electronic Music Center, composer Gino Marinuzzi, Jr., designer Giuliano Strini, MSEE, and sound engineer and technician Paolo Ketoff in Italy; their vacuum-tube modular 'FonoSynth' slightly predated (1957–58) Moog and Buchla's work. Later the group created a solid-state version, the 'Synket'. Both devices remained prototypes (except a model made for John Eaton who wrote a 'Concert Piece for Synket and Orchestra'), owned and used only by Marinuzzi, notably in the original soundtrack of Mario Bava's sci-fi film 'Terrore nello spazio"'(a.k.a. Planet of the Vampires, 1965), and a RAI-TV mini-series, "Jeckyll".[30][31][32]"

Image and quote from John Eaton via The Bob Moog Foundation.

"I think of all of the people that I've known in my life, Bob Moog was the most generous. He was the most interested in other people's ideas. He was just and extraordinary human being." -- John Eaton (March 30, 1935 - December 2, 2015)"

An Interview with John Eaton on Astronauta Pinguim

"It was also in Rome that John Eaton met the electronic engineer Paul Ketoff, inventor of the famous and legendary Syn-Ket [pictured below], in 1964. With the Syn-Ket, John Eaton has conducted more than a thousand presentations around the world and was at one of these presentations, in 1966 at Columbia University, where he met Robert Moog, who fixed the Syn-Ket, damaged during a flight, and also built a synthesizer Moog especially for Eaton! The partnership of John Eaton and Robert Moog also created the Eaton-Moog Multiple-Touch Sensitive Keyboard [left] (which John briefly explained in the interview below)."

You'll find the interview on Austronauta Pinguim in English here and Portuguese here.

Update: I added a Moog-Eaton label below for all posts mentioning John Eaton. Do check it out. You'll find a number of posts including this post with a link to an old video of John Eaton and the Eaton-Moog Multiple-Touch Sensitive Keyboard. You'll find a newer demo towards the bottom of this Animoog post. The virtual keyboard in Animoog is based on the Eaton-Moog Multiple-Touch Sensitive Keyboard.

Timeline of Patchable Synths

via O'Reilly

Richard Lainhart caught the Synket, pictured below, was missing.

from the EMF Institute:
"The Synket (for 'Syn' thesizer 'Ket' off) was designed and built by Paul Ketoff in Rome, Italy, in 1964. Commissioned by the American Academy in Rome for its electronic music studio, it was a small, portable, keyboard-based performance-oriented synthesizer.

Its principal performer was John Eaton, who used it to compose and perform his Songs for RPB, for soprano, piano, and Synket, first performed at the American Academy in Rome in April 1965.

[below]: John Eaton seated behind the Synket in 1964."


See this post for one possibly shown at the 'Musee de la musique' in Paris.

Reopening of Musee de la musique

via Yves of yusynth
"The "Musee de la musique" in Paris has reopened yesterday after a long closure and among the good surprises is that the section "Musique du XX siecle," which did disappear from permanent display some ten years ago, has now been reintroduced.

Therefore for those coming to Paris, they can now admire some beautiful pieces of synthesizers (Ondes martenot, Moog modular, EMU modular, Eric Siday's Moog drum modular, Frank Zappa 's E-Mu modular, and many other rare pieces such as prototypes from... this link (it is in French, unfortunately I couldn't find the same in the english version of the site) and click on the following sentence (highlighted in orange); "Voir le diaporama des nouveaux espaces du Musée de la musique" There it will play a short diaporama and the fun really starts at image 10!

Thanks to jbfairloght for pointing this to me...

Cheers

Yves yusynth"

Update via micke in the comments: "The big E-mu modular seen on the right is most likely Frank Zappa's old one. He never used an ARP 2500 afaik.

The boxy thing sitting beside the VCS-3 looks like it could be a Synket. It sure would be great to see some high-res photos of that rarity."