First Norwegian synth gathering November 2007 Terje Winther Dear Roger, At last I have some time to write to you. The last 2-3 weeks have been tremendiously hectic, but also a big sucess. On Saturday, November 3rd, the first Norwegian analog synth and Synth-DIY was arranged at NoTAM by WintherStormer. We feared that only 5-10 people would come, so it was a great relief when more than 80 people attended. 65 people had told us in advance that they would be there, and only a handful of those did not show up. In contrast; many of those that did come showed up with friends, so we had to use all the available space provided. The synth meeting gathered a cross-section of all kinds of people; old, young, professionals, beginners, hip guys and freaky anoraks, musicians, builders, designers - even girls, kids and a Swede who travelled a total of 14 hours (back and forth) to attend. The programme was a mixture of try-outs (headphones all around!), dialogue and conversation, demonstrations én masse; Analogue Systems 8500 cabinet, Minimoog Voyager and moogerfoogers, the brand new Dave Smith Instruments, Prophet ´08, and of course; the synthesizers.com dual-sequencer and synth! In addition to the general demonstration, the crowd demanded Terje Winther to perform on the "dotcom", and they were given a spontanious 15-minute improvisation to great applause. Lots of people was curious about this synth, and I think everyone fiddled those knobs and grabbed a synthesizers.com flyer. The rest of the rooms were all filled with old Korgs, Rolands, Moog, Oberheim, OSCar, a Russian Synth, an ARP Axxe that we fixed on the fly, and some other more esoteric stuff. Some homemade analogs were present too, and there was a lot of interest on how to start building your own modular. We gave several lectures on how to build, depending on which path you want to take; complete DIY, or readymade modules as building blocks. Most of the attendees wanted to build modulars out of readymade modules, and we showed and explained how to get started. The feedback from everyone on the day was fantastic; we wanted this to be a starting point for an analog community in Norway - and that seems to be happening. Everybody urged us to make this an annual event, also because there was a lot of people who was unable to come, but would very much like to come next time. A lot of people thanked me for the synth meeting, because at last they understood that they were not alone in their interest, and could meet like-minded people. On a personal ground, I was very happy that Brunjulf Blix attended; a highly professional synth player in Norway, who has been in business since the 1960s, and the very guy who once upon a time dragged me into this. I hadn´t seen him in years, but he took the time to drop by, and it was great. The name probably doesn´t tell you much, but he is like the Michael Boddicker of Norway - he has worked on almost every synth you can imagine and with every professional musician you can think of. The raffle got a very good response; people made nests of cables, strange sounds, and complex patching on the different modulars. There were also spontanious "miniconcerts" that were awarded, and to some puzzling queries (like; when was the first time a synthesizer was used in Norway?), there was also some small prizes. We had T-shirts from synthesizers.com and moog (provided by ProLyd here in Norway), and some moog stickers to give out. We also sold synthesizer music CDs from SynthMusicDirect in England. The communication doesn´t stop at the synth meeting; I was also urged to start a mailing list; so I have just started a mailing list on Yahoo.com, called "norsynth" (short for "Norwegian Synth"), were there has already been discussions about different synth brands, how to make PCBs and front panels, what kinds of modules you need - all the familiar subjects. I am very pleased that my effords to build an analog cummunity seems to be rewarded. People are dragging all their old analog synths out of the closet (I already have tons of requests for service help), many half-finished projects have regained momentum (people are building minimodulars and vocoders right now!), and there is a substantial renewed interest in both the instruments and the music. But most of all; people are becoming aware of each other and able to communicate across ages and music styles, which to me is thouroughly pleasing. There was of course a lot of practical work involved in the synth meeting; both in the planning stages, and of course a lot to follow-up after the meeting. And, if that was not enough; last Friday, on November 9th, my band WintherStormer opened the 9th Oslo Synth Festival, now entitled "ElektroStat". So there was a lot of preparation for that too, but we performed a good set with all our modulars, moogs, theremin, exotic percussion, liquid lights and everything. Very good response from the crowd, who was taken in by both the instruments as well as the fact that we perform on the instruments and not just push buttons. Wow - this became quite lenghty, but all the impressions from the last 2-3 weeks have been quite profond. A bit overwhelming, actually. There are a lot of things to take in. Photos are coming in, and put up at the infosite: http://www.wintherstormer.no/synthtreff.html and also on the norsynth@yahoo.com page: http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/norsynth/ Roger - thank you very much for your support to the First Norwegian Analog Synth Meeting. It may not seem like much, but both the T-shirts and your moral support gave me mental power to go through with this. Your actions are highly appreciated. All the best, Terje Winther WintherStormer email: terjewi@notam02.no URL: http://www.wintherstormer.no/