Every year, Eric Crawley and friends organize a get together of like-minded synthesizer enthusiasts from the North East US (and beyond). Held at Nashoba Regional High School, Bolton, MA the event attracts many collectors and appreciators of analog synth stuff.
Dave Lovelace, cartoonist extraordinare (he did Weird Al’s Virus Alert video) and a mean keyboardist and collector himself, threw a camera in his with a couple of synths and recorded some footage from the event.
Sections include, a Jupiter 6 demo, Studio Electronics OMEGA, Hot Hands - demonstrated by creator Bob Chidlaw, Mini and Voyager compared, a Moog 3 modular and Bleeplabs Thingamagoop.
In Dave's Own Words
I loaded up a Honda Element with my Oberheim OBSX, Sequential Circuits
Pro One, prototype Metasonix Wretch Machine and TM-7 Scrotum Smasher,
plus a couple of digital keyboards (Korg 01/W and Roland JD-800), for
MIDI controllers and to basically "cleanse the pallette." That, my
mixing rack, speakers, a 50 pound bag of cables, a stool, and my
trusty video camera were what I decided I needed for a fun time at
Analog Heaven Northeast (AHNE) 2007, in Bolton, Massachusetts, USA.
It was May 5th, 2007, a day I called "Syntho de Mayo." The phrase
stuck for the dozen or so people in attendance. A few conflicting
schedules kept a lot of the regulars away this year, but while we
might have been light on humans, the machines were out in full force.
Eric Crawley, the event coordinator, brought an incredible assortment
this time around. He supplied a Model-D Minimoog and a Minimoog
Voyager for a side-by-side comparison. There were a couple of
Oberheim SEMs hooked up to a French Connection controller. His Buchla
200e was there too, with a vintage Music Easel standing by (albeit not
fully functioning this day, sadly).
Bob Chidlaw, ex-lead scientist of 20 years for Kurzweil, had a Yamaha
CS-30, a production model of the Metasonix Wretch (two Wretches in one
room? madness!) and his latest invention, called "Hot Hands," which I
like to think of as the Wii of analog synth controllers.
Other notable objects of electro-sexiness included an amazingly quirky
and inconic Moog Model 12 modular, a PPG 2.2, a Studio Electronics
Omega 8, and a very colorful Cynthia/Modcan modular.
These gatherings are for anybody with gear to show off, and a desire
to see in person the sorts of gear you might have never seen
otherwise. Further, you get a chance to actually play with this
stuff... to stink it up with your ignorant fingers and try to make
sense of all of it. Sometimes you'll sell something, sometimes you'll
buy something, but it's not at all a swap meet. Usually you'll just
get a few business cards, email buddies, and burned fingers if you're
not careful around a Metasonix product.
For my part, I enjoyed bringing my CDs to hand out (I actually sold
one too, to the janitor!), and also bringing my "Packrat" cartoons to
autograph. It was my only hope for self-worth in a room full of truly
ingenious scientists & engineers. I was Marty in a room full of Doc
Browns that day...