Going Outside: Pacific Northwest Synth Meet 2009

So here’s my yearly post on the Pacific Northwest Synth Meet. One of my first posts actually was on getting out to the PNW Synth Meet last year. Safe to say the whole thing was waaay over my head, but it was kind of cool. I was there hanging out with Flight of Harmony as he demonstrated his first product the Plague Bearer.

This year I went back with Flight, but this year he was demonstrating 3 new modules along with the Plague Bearer (Sound of Shadows, V’amp, Choices). Not only that but there were two other Plague Bearers there! One of them was a barebones kit that had a new faceplate to match a great big modular synth system which was pretty cool to see.

This year though, I took a chance and got to play in the case pictured above. Harvestman, another module manufacturer let Flight borrow some space in his case to demo the new modules. Well I hadn’t really had much of a chance to actually get in and play with these things yet. So I finally got up the guts to ask if was ok to make some noise and to see how to patch the modules the right modules so I could make some sounds.   0.o  dude!!! So much fun.

Ok now here’s where things get game related. The Harvestman modules sound a lot (if not just like) the old gaming systems. I’m not just talking NES here, I’m talking Atari, the big stand up arcade games, the old racing games, you know the good old 8 or 16 bit sounds that would eminate from the living room for hours on end Christmas morning after the house finally got a Nintendo. Squeeeeeeee!!!  Takes you back doesn’t it?

Now with those sounds in mind, imagine getting to bend, warp, repeat and just destroy those sounds. So fun! One minute I’d have something that sounds like a racing game the next minute the speaker was having a hard time trying to make the noise the case was putting out! I promise I was careful I didn’t want to blow any speakers.

Just imagine an entire album made from Nintendo 64 sounds!!!! Squeeeee!

And those weren’t the only toys there. Folks had everything ranging from funky 60′s electronic organs, huge modular synth set ups, even an OLPC (one laptop for every child) set up to make noises!

Sad part is that now I’m hooked. After getting a chance to actually play with the toys I’d been mousing over in Cubase and FL Studio (which I’ll always call fruity loops because I like that name better) I’m getting the notion that it’s time to build a case of my own to start dinking with. I really really liked the fact that I could dig right into the equipment without the operating system getting in my way. That and there’s just something to getting to tweak dials and buttons to make all kinds of nifty computery sounds. Yes I am that much of a geek, come on is that NOT blatently obvious by now?

I’m sorry I didn’t record any audio and no one’s posted anything that I can link up yet. I’ll try to link those up when I find them. Hopefully next year I’ll be waaaaay more prepared based on what I wanna do and I might even get to go to some other stuff as Flight starts to branch out.