Keyboardist/producer Julian Colbeck reflects on this inaugural West Coast event
Place / Event > Seminar
Beautiful downtown Burbank' really hasn't changed much since the 1960s. This ironic tagline was in vogue amongst the fake TV announcers and late night TV hosts whose shows were taped in this featureless Los Angelian suburb of movie production studios and low rent apartments for the wannabes trying to break into the entertainment business. Many of the studios have moved on. Not so the apartments, built on a budget and still smelling of damp and desperation.
Don't get me wrong. The Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, setting for the inaugural Everything Synthesizer' Synthplex event, is admirably smart, new and efficient. But the locale, complete with a windblown Fry's Electronics store that looks like it hasn't been swept in twenty years, couldn't have been more appropriate given the show's juxtaposition of instruments modern, ancient and modern-ancient.'
Eurorack ( modern-ancient') dominated, but there were plenty of genuine relics from synthesizers' past. And I'm not even talking about myself. Vintage instrument rental and repair companies, EMEAPP (the Electronic Music Education And Preservation Project) showing a fascinating Moogs-through-the ages exhibit, a pop-up synth museum populated largely by Synthplex co-founder Michael Lehmann Boddicker's classic instrument collection, plus original and modern re-workings of wonders like the Ondes Martinot and Optigan.
Synthplex was divided between two bustling exhibit halls filled with vendors fluttering and stuttering with every blip and phizzz imaginable, a series of rooms for discussion panels and presentations, and a cavernous live sound stage cloaked in perma-darkness.
With everyone suitably be-synthed it's tempting to say performances ran the gamut from A to B but there was variation: from the overtly experimental such as Kurt Kurasaki, MadDaddies and Eightch, to performers who added more conventional music skills and controllers like the trumpet-playing Sarah Belle Reid and prodigiously talented keyboardist Lisa Bella Donna, to a cluster of big names' like Mark Isham and Vinnie Colaiuta. I felt the peerless Vinnie s style somewhat cramped on an electronic kit, to be honest. And unfortunately I missed the likes of Jack Hertz, Robot Nature, The Volt Per Octaves, Sinedrifter, Faraday Cage and Keytar Jeff. If I've not already left it a bit late to revive my own performing career, I'd better hurry or else the moniker Joules Juno will be taken. :-)
Lisa Bella Donna at Synthplex 2019.
On Friday Thomas Dolby gave a superb presentation in one of the smaller rooms, talking about and demonstrating techniques and tools from his past. Incredibly, there was only a handful of people in attendance; more in ignorance than indifference. Mind you, he almost missed the presentation itself. Thomas and I chatted over breakfast and I mentioned how much I was looking forward to coming to the talk in a half hour. What? he almost choked. Seems like the event time had been moved without his knowledge and off he ran, mid croissant.
Video of Thomas Dolby at Synthplex 2019
On the Saturday night Thomas drew a more expected capacity and adoring crowd for the Sponsored Dinner Banquet (thank you, Roland). But it would have been nice for more of the regular attendees to have been able to see this pioneer synth performer on one of his now rare live performances. Watching Thomas Dolby play Budapest By Blimp is always a treat and his multimedia presentation of Heroes - with slow-mo footage taken from Live Aid, when he backed up David Bowie - was extremely moving.
Synth legend Thomas Dolby in concert.
Saturday's gala evening concluded with BT's curated talk and performance, the Telephonic One's upbeat persona just the ticket at the end of an action-packed schedule. BT, along with several others at Synthplex, used early Juno synths. I wonder, is now the time to donate my Juno-60, lovingly be-scrawled by the likes of J. Anderson, R. Wakeman and S. Hackett to one of the synthesizer museums that seem to be popping up like social media-based music sites that generously distribute your music to the world free of charge? Don't get me started... :-)
Some key discoveries: Loved the look of Arturia's Microfreak with its Buchla-esque touch keyboard. Its $299 price point will satisfy one's curiosity as to what this wavetable-cum-digital oscillator/analog filter can accomplish barely putting a dent in my PayPal balance. I can already see it on my desk.
Rossum Electro-music Panharmonium.
I also liked Rossum-Electro's Panharmonium and the demonstration by its creator Bob Bliss. I wouldn't say Eurorack is running out of new ideas but it's getting harder to find modules whose schtick you can genuinely say you can see a need for. Panharmonium is both fresh and chock full of application possibilities. Essentially it analyses the spectral content of a patched-in audio signal and, in myriad ways, uses the result to drive a bank of up to 33 oscillators. Think Melodyne applied to a monster Eurorack rig!
Speaking of software, it's hard not to be tempted by Cherry Audio's Voltage Modular Virtual Synthesizer. If one of Eurorack's issues is the problem of getting to grips with so many options in terms of controls, types, and technologies, what better way to learn than on a cost-effective software modular where you don't just have access to modules at, effectively, a buck-a-piece, there's also a Module Designer on which you can create your own module complete with custom knobs and sliders. Throw in a polyphonic capability, where mono would normally reign on a hardware instrument, and this represents a serious amount of fun for seriously little o
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Keyboardist/producer Julian Colbeck reflects on this inaugural West Coast event 
