MATRIXSYNTH

We are slowly maturing... :) Today marks the 10 year anniversary of MATRIXSYNTH! It's hard to believe 10 years have gone by since I started this format of MATRIXSYNTH. If you are curious what the original version of MATRIXSYNTH looked like, take a look here. That was a portal to all the sites I used to visit. I started the site back in October of 1997. Some people might falsely think the matrix alias and site name came from The Matrix movies, but the first movie did not come out until 1999, two years after matrixsynth.com went live. Did I have the foresight to predict the name, or were the Wachowski's a fan of the site and computer terminal green? :) The truth is the matrix alias and name of the site actually came from my first synth, the Oberheim Matrix-6. I could have gone with a blue on black theme, but my favorite color is green and I liked the retro terminal look, so green on black it is.

Every now and then I get some confusion as to what exactly is the point of this site. Is it a professional news media outlet or just some guy's blog? The truth is it's a bit of both. It started as "some guy's blog" sharing everything he came across in the world of synths and eventually it caught on and grew. It's now a mix of official press releases, demos, videos and everything else I find out there as well as what people send in, with some rules. I promised myself I did not want to fall into the trap of becoming a media outlet only. There is one reason this site exists - to share the world of synthesizers from a synthesizer's perspective. Think about what that means. Nothing else matters. A few days ago I updated the intro to the Post Guidelines. I think it sums up the spirit of the site:

"MATRIXSYNTH is a daily glimpse into the world of synthesizers with the focus on specific, individually identifiable synths. Every single post on the site is created manually, by hand. The current format of the site launched in 2005 at the birth of sharing platforms like Blogger, YouTube, Vimeo and Flickr. SoundCloud wouldn't launch until 2007. Facebook wouldn't open to the public until 2006. Prior to these platforms the only way everyday users of synths could share what they were doing was by having their own dedicated website. Sure there were forums where people could talk about synths, but to upload videos, audio demos, and hi-res pics, you needed your own website. Print publications were dedicated to professionals in the industry, rarely featuring non-professionals, and media was limited to static images. MATRIXSYNTH is meant to compliment print by showcasing what us, the fans of synthesizers, do with our gear on a daily basis. The site is a mix of what I (matrix) find out there and what readers send in. The content is balanced between press releases, official demos, and what everyday users of the site are doing with their synths, along with a glimpse of the used synth marketplace. The site evolved over time to meet both the needs of readers, and to maintain the overall spirit of the site. Imagine if we were able to capture what users of synths were doing back in its infancy. Much of that time may be lost, but we can capture synth history moving forward!"

So how many posts have gone up to date? A whopping 127,448 including this post. Every, single, post, is edited and posted by hand. The sad thing, is because of format changes over time, along with Flash going by the wayside, I have had to start the long process of updating the majority of posts in the archives. It will be slow, but MATRIXSYNTH is a labor of love and I think it will be worth it. The site has received over 46,832,215 pageviews to date. Some question why I chose Blogger as a platform. The reason is because I want the site to live on long after I'm gone. Blogger is free and is owned and hosted by Google, so that's about as safe as it will get. Someone will need to switch the the URL back to matrixsynth.blogspot.com so the site doesn't disappear when/if the matrixsynth.com domain name expires, but hopefully I'll be able to take care of that ahead of time, when I am much, much older. :)

I don't want to take too much time in this post, so I'll cut it short. I just want to say running MATRIXSYNTH has been quite the experience. As with everything there are good days and bad. I feel a sense of ownership and identity when it comes to the site, almost in a parental sense. The site has become my best friend and has been a constant companion over the last ten years. BTW, in the last ten years I have only missed a single day of posting back on August 6, 2005, the first year of running the site, when it definitely was just "some guy's blog". I had no idea there would be something to post every single day of the year moving forward. Think about that a bit. There is something to share every single day. What an wonderful world of synths we live in.

I want to end this by saying thank you for an incredible ten years. I want to thank everyone that has supported the site in their own little way. I am humbled that others love the site as much as I do. THANK YOU!!!

On to another 10 years!

Update: Thank you to everyone who has wished me a happy anniversary in the comments below, on Twitter , and Facebook (and here), email and websites - thank you Palm Sounds! Below is a screen grab of the initial post from @chris_carter_ (wikipedia) and a cool little image from Audio Hoarder made on his phone. Thank you!