Synth Gems - Mike Metlay

Hello and welcome to the Sound On Sound podcast channel about electronic music and all things synth. I'm Rob Puricelli. Synth Gems 1 is the first Bukes publication to be authored by their editor in chief Dr. Mike Metlay and sets out to document both visually and in words you. Some of the most incredible keyboard synthesizers ever made using strict selection criteria, Mike and his team have curated a collection of instruments that are pioneering and rare influential and impactful and above all gorgeous to look at in this podcast. I wanted to dig into that selection process, find out what it took to document these instruments, and ask how this book came into existence. So I began by asking Mike where the inspiration for this book came from. Well, uh, the inspiration and the original concept and design, uh, actually came from Kim Bjorn, uh, the publisher, uh, at Bukes, who does all of our, uh, Conceptual design and graphic art and that sort of thing. But it's really funny. The original concept was Well, to say that it was rough, I think, is probably a little bit of an understatement. Uh, as should not be surprising to people, Bukes has a fairly extensive publishing schedule. And while people only see one or two of our titles a year, we actually have, you know, many more in the pipeline. And one of the ones that, Uh, Kim and I had been discussing and I'm, I'm very fortunate and honored to be the person that Kim's bounces these ideas off of. And we go back and forth on these. Um, he had said that he wanted, and this was the complete pressy of the book. He wanted quote, a synthesizer drool book and quote, um, he, and I said, okay, well, fine. What's a synthesizer drool book? And he said, well, I've always, always had this urge to create a book full of synthesizer pictures for people to drool over. I said, okay. And, and he was synthesizer. Drool synthesizer drool. And, uh, eventually we had. a good discussion, uh, that went back and forth for weeks about what this book was actually going to be like. And the definition of the book changed even as we were doing production. Um, I really sort of made it my own. Uh, Kim had a lot of input to get me started, but the basic idea of the book Came from that initial beginning and I sort of took it in a direction that I thought would be worthwhile, not just for the photography, but also for all the book's content. And I'm, I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out. You've got 47, uh, kind of synthesizer chapters, but there's actually more Synthesizers in there because you've kind of taken a little liberty in putting a few together So there's a there's a total of about 60 tell me about the process of whittling down What must have been a really extensive list of instruments to start with to these? 60 that appear in the book. Okay well the first thing that people need to realize and this is the thing they're having the hardest time wrapping their heads around is And I say this in the first line of my preface And, uh, I wanted it to be on the front as piece of the book, but this is a book about beauty and that's the essential idea we're trying to get across. The basic concept of this book is we're looking at synthesizers, not only as, uh, something which can create beauty, but something which is beautiful in and of itself. And so the guiding principle for starting to build this list. Was to eliminate anything that was bland or boring or ugly and uh, kim Weighed in on some of this stuff. Um, i'd say probably Out of the 47 pieces, he dictated probably three or four of them. And in exchange for those, he gave me three or four of mine that he wasn't too happy with. But what was interesting about the process was as he looked at the pieces that I wanted, he saw what I saw and he was able to direct the photography teams to do a really good job because once he had those instruments in front of him, he recognized the beauty. And on his side, when I started researching these and talking to the people involved with them, I saw what he saw. I saw the beauty. So I think people would have a very hard time picking out which ones I chose from what he chose. That brought us to a list of probably about 115 synthesizers. And what happened then is we whittled the list down to about 75. We had some concepts that came and went. The book went through a lot of revisions. The hardest part was deciding what to go into it. And, um, the ending process, we had about 75 synthesizers. And of those, the ones that we ended up putting in the book primarily were ones that fit our other criteria, which was we would be able to get access to one of these synths that was worth photographing because all of the synthesizers in this book are an absolutely immaculate sound. Condition. Um, the, uh, the, the places we went to get them, some of them have different criteria. So we had to be selective. There were some that we simply had to move off. One of the early decisions was to put the number one in the title because there was just no way. We were going to fit everything into one book. So we already have, I've got about 20 percent of synth gems to already written. And I don't know how many more we're going to do. Um, that's something that Kim and I are discussing. But, uh, so when you put all those criteria together, we had 47 photo essays about 60 synthesizers. And the other criterion, which I should mention is that we limited ourselves to a particular era in synthesizer development, which was 1970 to 2000. Um, other things, you know, we're not doing modulars. We're, um, not looking at prototype one offs. Uh, these were synthesizers that were in some quantity or another commercially available. And so, so when you put all those criteria together, we, we ended up with a very nice book, and that was one of the first things that struck me about this was there were no modulars and you're not getting any complaints from me because I'm really not a modular guy. I'm more about keyboards. I. And that's what, you know, my first love was and still remains to this day. So are there plans for like a modular synth gems, or is that something that you don't think kind of fits the bill? Well, here's, here's the thing, Rob, what would a modular synth gems look like? If you want a book of beautiful and inspiring modules, we've done a book called patch and tweak, which is not only beautiful, but it's informative. It's actually instructive. Kim did that a few years ago with Chris Meyer, who acted as editor on this book. He's, of course, the guy who runs learning modular dot com. Um, and it's great book for that. But the fact is. Everybody thinks of their own modular as being their own particular recipe. And there are going to be people who think that, you know, one is better than the other. But again, that gets us back to the technical aspects of creating the sound. Um, we could put in a picture of, of, you know, an original Moog modular or an original emu, but frankly, They're big boxes of modules that all look the same, that have patch cords plugged into them. When you focus on the visual aspect, uh, you focus on the keyboards. And so that's, that's where we're coming from. I, I was a modular guy back when modulars were all there were. Uh, I cut my teeth on a Buchholz 100 and on a Moog System 35. I did work on the EMS VCS3, which, even though it uses a pin matrix, is basically a modular. And, um, frankly, uh, when somebody invented a synthesizer that A, could remember what I programmed, and B, could play chords, I was done. You know, and, and I, I, understand why people do modular. I understand what they get out of it. It's, it's a beautiful process, but it's not my process. And my only regret about that decision is because my stance on modular is fairly well known in the community. Um, I was not really in a position to edit, patch and tweak. And that is a mistake I'm always going to regret because Chris is amazing and it's an amazing book and I would have liked to have gotten my grubby fingers in it. So you've, you've established this list of since you've bartered with Kim and you've, you've whittled it down to the group that we find in the, in the, between the covers of this one, were there any synthesizers that you picked that you couldn't include because there were no examples that were good enough to fit your photographic criteria? And if so, what were they? Well, the one that comes to mind the most is the polymog. Um, we came, we found a place that had actually some beautiful polymogs, but we came to it a little too late in the photographic process. And so that was one that is almost certainly going to be in volume two. The other thing, though, that we allowed was, we allowed for the possibility of synthesizers that we didn't know were there. Uh, to get put in and there were a couple of real beauts, uh, that we, that we got into the, that we got into the book that, uh, we had never anticipated. And what were they? Well, again, the one that leaps to mind is the, uh, the Lord Synthesizer Skywave. Um, there are only, only 10 were ever built, we think. And we only know of three or four of them. And one of them is in the hands of Simon Lord, the, the, the son of Jeremy Lord, the designer. Um, and that's a beautiful synth and weird, so weird. Um, And, and, you know, a lot of my taste sort of tends toward the weird and wonderful, as I say on the book, you know, the, the, the good, the bad and the odd or whatever it was I said on the, on the cover, but, um, it's, uh, uh, I, I like stuff that stands out and, and the sky wave has, is just such an amazing story and, uh, and it's a beautiful, beautiful instrument. So we were, we were very lucky to have found one in, in great condition and, uh, get, get photographs. And it's a fantastic name, isn't it? Lord Synthesizer Skywave. Sounds like an English nobleman, doesn't it? Yeah, well, you know, the guy's, the guy's name was Lord. Uh, Jeremy Lord and he created a company called Lord Synthesizers and then the first instrument was the Skywave. But the funny thing is, it's right across the top of the panel in big letters. So it's its own billboard, which I find really just sort of, sort of adds to the gooniness of the whole thing. You have. outlined in the publisher's note at the beginning here, uh, which I think was, uh, written by Kim, your, the, the kind of the criteria that you follow in terms of the information that's contained in this book, because one of the great things About synthesizer research is we have this tool called the internet but also one of the worst things we have when it comes to synthesizer research is we have this tool called the internet and so there's so much good information there's also so much bad information out there so can you just tell us a little bit about the stringent processes that you Went through to ensure that everything you've got in here is as accurate as it can possibly be the thing that you said about the Internet as being a two edged sword is very, very true. Um, there is a lot of information out there that is just plain wrong. Um, and it's usually innocent. People usually hear a rumor or pass something along, and thanks to the wonders of search engines, these things pop up. And then you, you just see them propagate. And I've, I found one reference that literally took me around in a circle. It referred to one website, which referred to another, which referred to another, which referred to another. And I eventually got back to where I started, which I found rather amusing. Um, so whenever possible, we went to primary sources. A lot of the guys. Who built these instruments are still alive and are willing to talk to us, which was really nice. Um, when possible, we talked to the actual engineers to the inventors when we couldn't get them, we talked to other people at the company. Who were connected to the engineering process, even if they weren't directly involved in it. Uh, from there, uh, we sometimes were able to get archival information from family members that turned out to be important in several cases and in places where the synthesizers were extremely rare and we simply couldn't get to anybody. We relied on, uh, hands on information from people who owned them, particularly people who Um, who were good, who had opened them up and knew how to repair them and keep them running. There are a few cases where we have had to rely on secondary sources. Um, we've sourced those and verified them as best we can. There are a couple of places where we, we did the best we can. We'd like to do better. And I am sure that somebody will come up with something that they feel is wrong. And if they want to talk to me about it, my email address is Mike at bukes. com. Write me a letter. And, uh, we'll go over it together, but it was, it was quite an intimidating process to begin with. I'm I've been in the business for a long time. And as a journalist, I've had a chance to meet a fair number of these people, but there are a lot of others who are really my heroes that I had a chance to chat with, uh, for the first time. And I'll tell you something for a guy who's, who's geeked out about synthesizers for as long as I have, there's really nothing quite like the experience. Of a three hour phone call with the guy who headed up the design team for the mini Moog arguing with him about his own schematics. So that that that will stay with me to the grave. It's funny, though, because I've done research for various things centering around certain instruments, and I've spoken to people that worked in the same room together. And their version of events is different and there's nothing malicious about it. It's just, you know, human nature doing its thing and the perceptions get warped over time and influenced by other things. And you have these two people that were working in the same room on the same thing. And their experience or their recalled experience is markedly different and then you have to kind of extract the truth from both. Is that something you found you had to do with a lot of these? Um, the one that comes to mind immediately was the Feralight. Um, uh, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie. Are still with us. Thank heavens. And I communicated with both of them with Peter. It was a really cordial and informative set of emails. But Kim, I spent I spent an hour chatting with Kim. He's he's an amazing guy. Very sweet, very forthcoming. And, um, There were places where they disagreed on a couple of technical matters where, um, I tended to go with what Peter remembered versus with what Kim remembered because Peter had his hands in the electronics a little more. There were some anecdotes that were different between the two of them. In one case, it was one person said one thing. One person said another. They both agreed That both things happened and they agreed on the order in which they happened, but how they defined that event was different. The question was, what was the first sample ever? And Peter Vogel says, it's one thing. And Kim Reilly says, it's another. And depending on how you define what was the first sample, They're both right. And whenever possible, we've tried to bring in those, um, those opinions in some of the larger companies. It's been tricky. Um, because, uh, especially in Japan, the, the tendency for the collective To take credit for these things, it's only in very recent years that the people who have been involved in designing some of these iconic synthesizers have felt that they were comfortable to come forward and speak on their own. And we were, we were very lucky to have a chance to, uh, exchange, uh, information, uh, with Fumio Mieda, the guy who invented them, the, the MiniKorg, and a number of other machines. So that was, that was very exciting. Um, and, and there were a few other cases where we were able to get access to people that, that normally you wouldn't have been able to get to. Obviously, I went to the Fairlight straight away. That was the first thing that I looked at in the book. And it's a beautiful example that you've got in there. And I noticed the the paragraph about the first sample, and it was obvious that that's what had happened. And so it's done really well. Well, thank you. Thank you. And the Fairlight actually, I will say that of all of the photograph sessions we had, the Fairlight was the toughest because, um, It is very, very hard to find a Fairlight Series 2 that's in good cosmetic condition. Um, the screens fail. Uh, the, um, the, the, the, uh, plastic that the cases are made out of tends to scuff. Um, things get broken off. The, the, the, the faders are infamous. For, uh, losing their, their fader caps and, uh, finding one that is in really good cosmetic condition and that works, that boots up is well, my impossible. So that was that we almost had to yank it. That was the one that we almost had to pull out of volume one. I'd done all the research. I'd talked to Peter and Kim and I'd assured them that it was going to happen. And then we had issues on the photography side. But. Thank heavens. Our photo crews came through and we were able to fill in some other photographic details from other sources. And it was it was all as well. It ends well. But I had I had 47 of these stories. You've got this very, very stringent process of of the research. And once you've done all that research, you've you've kind of maintained a format for each of the instruments, which is great because it's it's consistent throughout each of the instruments that you cover. And you talk about the history. You also talk about. The internals and how, you know, this works without getting into, um, too much of the weeds that would confuse, um, the lay person, but it's enough to give you a flavor of why these things sounded special. And then you've, you've married this up with the images. What was the, um, the process of, of, of coming up with that, that format of, uh, delivery of that information? We went through as with the photography, uh, several rounds of what the book's text was going to be like. And the original idea was it was going to be closer to our earlier titles. We were actually going to try to get interviews with a lot of these people. And we did. So I put forward the idea that one of the big selling points of our earlier books are that we have these multiple interviews and they're highly substantive. But for this book, we weren't going to be able to do more than get a few pithy quotes. And you can't advertise a book as having interviews in it when you don't get more than three sentences out of each person. Not only that, but talking to people, arranging for recording, getting clearances. You know, it's a very, very difficult process. We were under a time schedule. Um, when we put together this, uh, this book, it was because one of our other titles, um, for technical reasons beyond our control got delayed and it got moved out of the block of time that we set out for it. And the alternative, this, when you are in a situation like that, or you either take three months off, you twiddle your thumbs and you don't. Push the company forward, or you find something on the secondary list that's not in the schedule yet, and you make that fit. And so SynthGems 1 slotted into that place very nicely. Um, the only real issue we had was, uh, Because we spent so much time perfecting the structure of the book, the actual writing and editing process got a little compressed toward the end. I was, I was doing 12 hour days, seven days a week for about the last month. And my family really did think that I was, I was going to die before I finished it because I was sleeping whenever I could and was fairly incoherent toward the end, more so than usual. The writing is obviously complemented by the beautiful photography and you mentioned you had some, some teams. Can you just tell me a little bit about the process behind getting all of those images? Because you've not only sourced them from, uh, certain personal collections, but also from some of these big collections around the world. And so that must have been particularly In this time that we find ourselves in at the moment with travel restrictions and all that kind of stuff, that must have been tough. So can you tell me about how that all panned out? It was, it was a nightmare. Um, we got very lucky. There are three Museums that are represented in this book. Uh, there is Synthorama, which is Martin Hollinger's personal collection in Switzerland in Luderbach. I want to say about an hour and a half away from that there's SMAM, which is in Fribourg. And then on the other side of the ocean, there's EMIAP in Philadelphia, which has this enormous collection. And our primary photographer We got about 80 percent of the synths, I think, from Synthorama and SMEM, and our primary photographer was a gentleman named Peter Marr, who is not only a world class photographer, but also a synth geek, um, and I believe the way it worked is Kim, um, Drove down from, uh, from Denmark. And according to the pandemic rules, he had to get through Germany, I think in one day and, and not spend the night. So he had to blast through Germany, pick up Peter and get over the border. If I'm remembering this right, they, they go to Switzerland and they had four days. Or five days to do all of the shooting and the first day or so was just getting into a rhythm And then they, you know, they spent a few days at SMAM. They moved their equipment over to Synthorama. They took more pictures there. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, um, the, uh, Drew Rezon and his team at EMIAP were trying to photograph the dozen or so synths that they didn't have. In Switzerland, and I have to give a gold star to every one of those guys. And when I do get out to Philadelphia, they've invited me to give a seminar or two. Uh, I'm going to buy them all a banquet because, uh, they didn't have Kim right there with a computer running Photoshop to say, we need to change the lighting. We need to change the angle. We need to, to redo this shot or that shot. They They probably did 90 percent of the work for 20 percent of the photos, and they never once complained. Kim came back to them for three or four rounds on some of these, and they just, they said, okay, what do we change? Okay, what do we change? And they basically taught themselves to be great photographers. And um, we can't thank them enough because the book is, we didn't want the book to just be one, one museum. We wanted the book to have representation. We wanted to choose by the instruments, not by where they were. And in most cases we were able to do that. And we all, all of that to Peter, who's just incredible. And to the guys at Emmy app, Drew's team, I can't thank them enough. You mentioned about thanking them. I think the fact that you have given space in the book to each of those organizations outside of the, the collection that you've put together to tell us a little bit more about them and show us, uh, the, the bigger picture shows, you know, quite literally of, you know, places like SMEM, which is just mind blowing. Um, I think that's, that's a really useful touch. These people really, all of them did amazing things for us. They, Martin opened his doors to us, gave us access to things that aren't normally on display. Um, the folks at SMEM were very kind. Uh, in, in what they brought to us, Emmy app, as I've said, was enormously helpful. The least we could do would be to give them photo essays and let people know about what these amazing collections are like just in order to drum up business. When people can start traveling again, all these places are really worthwhile to visit and they all have slightly different, um, missions. Uh, in particular, SMEM was interesting. Uh, one of the ways in which we cut down a lot of those original 115 or so synthesizers was they were available in the SMEM archive. We knew they were there because SMEM keeps a database, but the database is constantly being updated. And for a lot of these instruments, there isn't current photography. And so we would be interested in an instrument. We would have to ask them if there was no photography, they would send us a picture and we would realize that the instrument wasn't in photographable condition because SMAM, their criterion is if there is an extraordinarily rare instrument, That they can get their hands on, they will preserve it no matter what. If it's not working, if it's cosmetically damaged, if it's rare, then they want it to not be lost. And that's a big deal, and it's something that very few other collections do. So they're doing really important archival work. But it did mean that if you go into the database, they've got something that maybe only 50 were made and then you look at theirs and you realize that it's badly damaged. You have to kind of say, okay, well, we'll keep looking and you thank them for having preserved it for future generations, but you don't take a picture of it. One of the things that really struck me about this book, because I was expecting cover to cover lots of big, glossy pictures, lots of great. Information wasn't disappointed in that regard. Well, I really did appreciate Even though I'm not a layman there is a bit at the beginning of the book that introduces the reader to The synthesizer and then there's a glossary at the back that takes all of those terms all of those three letter acronyms And explains exactly what they are and I remember when I was at high school So we're talking early mid 80s. There was a book, uh on on the 80s The reference bookshelf, which meant we couldn't take it home. So I basically spent every lunch break in the library going from cover to cover of this book. And I still have it. Um, I bought myself a copy afterwards, but the great thing about that book was that it told me how a synthesizer worked and then it showed me all the different types of synthesizers that were available in 1984. And why they were different and what was different about them, why they sounded different, uh, why this one had different features to that one. It was so informative and I can see this being the 2021 version of that book. And it really does need to be on, you know, school bookshelves or any kind of educational establishment because that piece at the beginning is really useful to people that are getting into this. And this is a great way of. Not only about the great synthesizers of the world, but also how they work. And I just wanted to know a little bit more about the decisions behind putting that in at the beginning and also the glossary at the end. Um, we envision, uh, several different people, uh, wanting to buy this book. Uh, there is, uh, of course, the, the, the synth enthusiast who's going to be interested in this because there will be stories in there that they will be convinced are wrong. But you know, in fact, what they know, quote unquote, uh, may not be accurate. Then we have the people who are, you know, sort of the central Bukes audience, the people who have the basic knowledge of electronic music, but who have wider interests and who love having their eyes opened to new perspectives. But the other thing that Differentiate synth gems. One from our other titles is that this book really was intended to be a coffee table book. And as a result, it's not only being marketed to the electronic music community. We have actually been written up in in art magazines and on art websites, and therefore The original idea was we need to have some way where we can have some technical information in each of these photo essays, but we don't want to lose an audience that has little or no understanding of what goes into these things. Now, because we're talking about 1970 to 2000, we're talking about an era. Where a lot of it is analog and the stuff that isn't analog, by and large uses an analog paradigm. So, uh, Kim said, can we introduce this stuff? And I said, give me a minute. And I went away and I sketched a bunch of pictures, which I sent to him and he made them pretty. Uh, and, uh, I I went back and forth with him on how to present the information, the order in which we went. That part of the book is very much like, uh, the other Bukes titles in which we have these small, small bits of information with graphics to help bring them across. And um, The, uh, the basic ideas that came across, uh, you know, what is an amplifier? What is a filter? Why is one type of oscillator different than another? What is modulation, uh, for somebody who's never seen a keyboard before? What's an octave? Uh, you know, the very basic stuff. And then we get into the weeds. On a couple of things, uh, I just did a seminar recently called the search for polyphony because one of the guiding arcs through this 30 years was going from the monophonic synthesizer to what we laughingly refer to as the truly polyphonic synthesizer, which is a term I hate. And this transitional period in the middle where we were trying to strike a balance between economics and practicality and keyboard tradition to build these instruments that could give you polyphony in a way that some people, some people felt was worthwhile and other people weren't. And because that search for polyphony is so important and it comes up so much in the book, there's actually a tiny little essay. Basically talking about this and we don't take sides. You know, we don't express opinions. I have very strong opinions and one of our editors Uh, mark doty has very strong opinions about this sort of thing. Um, But we just wanted to present it as a historical process because the person who's coming at this from an art side They don't want to know Uh, that there are a bunch of poindexters out there arguing about this stuff. They just want to understand, you know, really what's going on. And so, so we attempt to, uh, to present that. And this is the point where I will give a big shout out to Mark. Um, he is an amazing educator. And his YouTube channel automatic gainsay has some truly wonderful stuff. Uh, he does have strong opinions, but he and I are our dear friends, and he is greatly honored me by saying that I'm one of the rare people in the world. That he works with on a regular basis that he feels he can really get into a good knock down drag out argument with and actually learn something. And having him weigh in on a lot of the stuff, he read the glossary. He read the synthesizer introduction. He made some really good suggestions because he knows how to educate and I do too, but not at his level. And having him look things over was, was really important to me. And, you know, it's really extraordinary. One of the things that the internet has done, um, is it has encouraged a lot of logical fallacies. The, the, I, I have a background as a scientist and I am guilty of it sometimes, but that doesn't mean I like it. I am, I don't like muddled thinking. And when people draw lines between A and B that shouldn't be there, when people. Uh, think that if they say something over and over again, it suddenly becomes correct. Um, you know, people who cite authorities that aren't really authorities, that kind of thing just, you know, really gets my back up. One of the things I'd like to do with this book, the fact that you said it should be a reference really warms my heart because that's what I wanted it to do. I want people who get into these arguments to say, well, what does synth gems one say about it? And that would be, that would be such an incredible compliment. And, um, I'm, I'm thrilled that it's coming across that way. The other thing that you've done that's kind of outside of the, the main remit of the book is at the back you've put in a huge amount of references, um, to websites, to, to even social media groups. And, um, this very magazine, uh, is mentioned in there as well. So thank you for that. Lots of, um, uh, references in there so people can get inspired and then carry on that journey beyond the book, which I think is, is really good. And that was tricky because of course the, the online stuff tends to change and, um, I'm going to give a tip of my hat to Jack Hertz. From, uh, San Francisco, he ran a website called encyclotronic. com and Jack is much more careful with his research than most of the other people who do these synth compendiums. And he was a heavy, heavy reference. And I was really pleased to be able to mention encyclotronic in the back of the book. And two days before we went to press, he closed the site down. And that's a terrible loss to the community, but I understand his reasoning and I respect it. And I wish there was somebody else who could step up. The main sites that come up are largely crowdsourced and there's a lot of misinformation in there. So, so it, my job has just become more important because being able to do this yourself has just become harder. Some 60 synthesizers that are featured in this book. And this is a difficult question because it's like choosing your favorite child, but which is the one instrument in this book that you absolutely would not have gone to press without it being in there. Well, uh, that's an interesting statement because the one that I fought hardest about was one of the ones that I used to own and that I miss terribly, uh, because I think that the historical background on it was so very important. And that was the sequential profit T8 because it was the first instrument that made a concerted effort toward marrying analog synthesis and performance nuance. Um, I loved mine. I adored mine. I never should have gotten rid of it. Of the 60 synthesizers, uh, in this book, I have recorded with about half of them. I have owned about 20 of them at one time or another, and I still own two. Uh, that's my own personal journey, but, uh, the, the, the T8 simply was groundbreaking. It was extraordinary. And that was one of the ones where Ken looked at it and said, well, it looks just like a profit five only bigger. And I said, no, it's it, there's a slightly different aesthetic and you know, and I told him flat out, I said, if we have to choose between the two, we're keeping the T8 and we're getting rid of the five. And that was a, that was a pretty big argument. We ended up, we ended up having room to be able to put them both in. Uh, I actually wanted to feature the profit 10 rather than the profit five. But again, You know, we've at least got a photograph in there that was provided, I believe, by a synth refurbishing and, and sales company in Europe that has been very kind, uh, tone tweakers, I think it was, and, uh, they have been very kind in providing us with, with, you know, the photographs in the book, we took all of the big ones, but there are a couple of little inset photographs that were provided, you know, from, from external sources. The profit 10 was one. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, we do have a picture of the D X seven, which is about the size of a postage stamp. Um, and there are a few others like that. You do give a nod to those obvious pairings, whether it's, uh, you know, a different version of, I mean, the other thing was the, the mini mode, which, you know, obviously starts this book and rightly so, but rather than just focus on the model D, which most people would do, you've got, you know, the All the previous models in there as well, which is quite unique to see. And yep, the, they are the, the largest and clearest photographs of the Model A, the Model B and the Model C. And the history behind those prototypes is really quite, um, because it's now 50 years, uh, you know, some of the folks are, have gone. Some of the folks are, you know, maintaining their versions of the story. It can be quite difficult. And there were a lot of things that we were able to confirm that are in the book. There were a lot of things that we were not able to confirm that we had to leave out, but by and large, under each of the, uh, under each of the photographs, we give a little bit of a history as to where these things came from, who used them and how, and. Uh, one of the most important things, one of the most important myths that we dispel, there are actually, there are actually two of them. Uh, one of them is that the mini Moog, uh, was entirely Bob Moog's instrument and he would never have claimed that. But in the years since he's gone and I miss him terribly, uh, he and I didn't know each other well, but, but, um, he was an amazing man. Um, but in the years since he was gone, a lot of these partial facts and half truths and so forth get promulgated. And what we've tried to do in the book is to lay out very clearly exactly where and how Bob got involved in the process. So that's there. Um, we also, uh, clean up some of the, the fine details about how the Mini Moog A got built. Um, we point out differences in the design. Uh, you know, everybody is proud of the fact that they know that the Mini Moog has one of these, uh, filters, which has, you know, you set the attack, you set the decay, you set, you can set the sustain level, and there's a release switch. And it's always been like that. Well, it hasn't. The Model B had a, had a, had an ADSR. The Model B had a standard four stage envelope, and it went away for the Model C. So there were lots of, of little things like that. People think that there was only one model B prototype. There were two. Um, people think there was only one model seat prototype. There were four of which Emmy app has two of them. So there's a lot of these little things that are in there and a lot of, a lot of tiny engineering and ergonomics. Decisions that were made along the way and one of the things we show in the book is the model D Actually had its design change its external design change multiple times particularly with respect to left hand controllers You had uh, you know the clear controllers you had the black controllers You had the the tooth Uh, white controllers, which were, it's funny, they're, they're, they're iconic to the mini Moog and we don't have a picture of a mini Moog with one in the book, but we do have a Moog source, which has them. So people can go look at them there. Uh, and so there's a lot of folklore and yes, we went back and we talked to the Bob Moog foundation. We talked to Moog music themselves. And as I said, I spent a lot of time on the phone with Jim Scott. Who headed up the, the product development team was really involved since the model B. He was involved before Bob was, uh, and he was very kind to give us his time and he's got all the original research notebook. So there was a lot of good information in there about, about the mini MOG and other early MOG instruments. One question that I got asked when, when I announced on social media that my copy of the book had arrived. Somebody said, and I think they said it tongue in cheek, Does it come with an audio demonstration cassette? And so I want to ask you, was that something you ever considered about putting audio examples in? Well, don't put that in past tense. Um, we are looking at the possibility of being able to curate examples of some of these instruments and make them available on our website in the future. I have no problem with books from the era before the internet allowed publishers to provide their own curated content easily. But there's always a risk that the website will go down, the publisher will go away, the stuff, uh, is, is no longer available, but in the old ways of. Starting to provide these extra materials besides the print, you had the issue of CD ROMS with software on them that didn't work when an operating system got updated. Uh, you know, cassettes are analog technology. Cassettes also sound bad. So, we are looking at getting audio examples and being able to make them available. We don't have any concrete plans, and I don't want anybody to hold our feet to the fire about this, but we're talking to people who have them, we're talking to people who have access to them, and we're hoping that we can, that we can pull some stuff together. And it probably won't be a big announcement, but if people, you know, subscribe to our blog. And keep an eye on our Instagram channel. Then, um, as we are able to do these things, um, they'll find out about them along with everybody else. That's fantastic news. I look forward to hopefully that term materializing at some point in the future. And talking of the future, um, you've already mentioned synth gems too, and the possibility, the great possibility that that will emerge at some point, you say you've got maybe around 20 candidates so far. Um, any. Insights into what they might be or what the what the criteria for selection might be this time around because you mentioned you you went From 1970 to 2000. Will you be going beyond that time frame or will you just be concentrating? That is still uh, That is still up in the air whether we extend things a little bit some of the synthesizers we set aside because Um, they represented design aesthetics that were being um shown elsewhere here Some of them were too recent. Um, some of them, as with the polymog, we simply couldn't find one that was in good shape. And in at least one case, I was, I was a little bit upset about it, but I got over it. There was one synthesizer that we had that was an immaculate condition that I really wanted in the book, but because of the way in which it was being displayed, It was impossible to get a good photograph. So we actually are rethinking how to approach that particular keyboard in volume two, in a way of getting, getting pictures that will allow it to be displayed properly. So there are, there are a whole lot of these, and I don't want to raise any hopes by saying, we're definitely going to do this one. We're definitely going to do that one. I think the Polymo is a pretty safe bet simply because it's such a, you know, an important instrument. And there are others, you know, believe me, you can probably think of at least two machines that would make us want to stretch to 2005. But, um, you know, we're, we're, I'm preferring to keep my cards close to my vest. Keep in mind that in the entire history of Bukes, Synth Gems 2 is the only book that We've given a hint, we'll come rather than doing a Kickstarter or simply announcing when the book was available. So, you know, it, it puts a little bit of interesting pressure on us. And one of the things I'm sort of looking forward to is as I go forward and talk to people about the book, maybe on, on live streams or whatever, I'm expecting people to ask, you know, uh, will we see synthesizer X and if not, why? And I'm happy to tell people why their favorite synthesizers are ugly. I really am. Congratulations to yourself and the team who are all listed in the book with their own little entries, which is really cool to understand, you know, who else was behind, um, you know, the compilation of the content. But congratulations to you for putting together what is a beautiful thing. It ticks every box I think you set out. To tick it is like like an auction catalogue if you will it really is that's the description that I usually use Rob If you ever go to an art exhibition, you know, you see the works of Monet or you know Bauhaus furniture or you know You go to the Greenwich Observatory and see the development of timepieces to be able to navigate it See you walk through the gift shop and aside from your Monet baseball cap and your Monet pens and your Monet tea cozies. They always have an exhibition catalog, which has these beautiful images and the accompanying text so that you can take a little bit of this at home, home with you to, uh, experience it again and really be able to think about it and maybe explore a little more on your own. And so this really is, I describe it as an exhibition catalog for a non existent synthesizer exhibition that could never be in one place. And I'm hoping people get a lot out of it. Mike, thank you ever so much for your time today. It was a pleasure. Thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all the other episodes. Before you go, make sure you visit the Sound on Sound podcast page at soundonsound. com forward slash podcasts where you can explore all the other great content playing across the channels. I'm Rob Pericelli. And this has been a failed Muso production for Sound On Sound.