This is actually a musical instrument...

Believe it or not this is an instrument not the interior of a spaceship.

The price of this thing is about as much as a used car.

You may wonder, with that price, why not just buy a guitar?

You're welcome to call me Dr. Seuss, with my rhyming skills.

Anyway, it's unlikely that you can make sounds like this:

With a guitar ...

Also, the size of that guys rig is like a small country side house.

Not sure how this youngin' got that money, he probably sold a kidney though.

So you're probably wondering.

What the hell type of space alien witchcraft is going on here?

Why are people spending thousands of dollars on knobs and cables.

The older folks are probably like, back in my day, we only had a tin can...

What you've seen so far, are modular synthesizers. Also known as Euroracks.

(I call mine an afrorack, cause I am mostly african and I like the name better.)

You're probably used to synthesizer's looking like this

But some crazy motherfucker decided that they wanted full control over as many parameters as possible.

And that's essentially what a modular synthesizer give's you.

Full control over as many parameters as possible...

A modular synthesizer is made of separate modules.

Each module does a different thing.

One create's the sound, a.k.a an oscillator. One shapes the sound a.k.a an ADSR, one can modulate the sound, a.k.a an LFO

You buy each module separately, which means that essentially you get to build your own instrument that does whatever you want it to do.

You can even build a whole entire band.

The reason why there are cables everywhere is because they are being used to transfer information to one module to another in the form of Control Voltage.

Of course, this kind of set up is ideal for experimental musicians and electronic musicians, but you'll see these things everywhere! Even in jazz music!

Modular synths first started becoming more well known through science fiction movies. Of course. Considering there is no better way to make spaceship sounds then with something that looks like an actual fucking spaceship.

Before now, you may have believe that a kick drum can only be created using a drum kit.

No, no, no. That's where you're wrong. The science of how to make a "Kick" sound can be applied to a synthesizer, and become recreated.

Of course, with a more synthetic feel. Some folks ( like myself ) are into that though.

On this monster you can create hi hats, kick drums, plucky guitar type sounds, basslines, the ocean + infinite amounts of sounds that you've never even heard before.

Modular synthesis is very similar to bit coin and crypto, it's not well known, but it's probably gonna become more mainstream soon as technology becomes more prevalent.

If this blog has piqued your interest and you want to explore modular synthesis and if you're up for the challenge, there is a free online software that mimics super expensive modular synthesizers that's completely free to download, with plenty of free modules.

it's called VCV rack. It's a lot more complex than it looks though and I recommend looking at tutorials before jumping in head first!

Peace and love y'all