NICK'S WORLD OF SYNTHESIZERS

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THE BEAST	THE HARMONICON	OSCILLOSCOPE
THE SPRINGOTRON 3000	THE STRING RESONATOR	THE INTUITIVE SEQUENCER
VALVE FILTER	PLATE REVERB	THE MACHINE
MY FIRST SYNTHESIZER	THE SQUARE For sale	CHAOS ENGINE For sale

I have been making electronic musical instruments for about 10 years. With all my inventions I am trying to make something special that I couldn't find anywhere. Some people spend thousands of pounds on rare analogue stuff. I spend hundreds of hours making my own and end up with something that is not just rare, but unique.

I start with an idea that comes to me in an instant and then design it roughly on paper. If it is a good idea then I become so obsessed with owning it for real that I spend months slaving away in my bedroom and actually make it.

I mainly use analogue electronics to build my instruments. I think that the analogue sound is timeless because of its infinite depth and character. I believe that analogue synthesizers should be progressive and not seen as retro.

I was originally inspired by the very early synthesizers like the Trautonium or the Ondes Martenot, they were created at a time before the idea of the synthesizer became too fixed. I am not interested in recreating classic synths from past.

My future work

In recent years we have become aware that there is something special about analogue sound. Perhaps it is because we can now hear it in contrast to digital sound. I am interested in widening this gap by increasing 'analogueness' - I prefer to think of it as an intangible, life-like quality. I have realised that progression with analogue circuits is to find similarities with natural chaotic systems. It is to design circuits that nurture complex behaviour, rather than the traditional approach which is to suppress imperfections to get the circuit to behave like some mathematical ideal.

The way I want to do this is to make circuits that behave in a holistic way, each part of the system is influencing everything else. Think of a violin and how interconnected every element is. Is it a coincidence that the sound of the violin is so rich and complex despite being so simple in it's construction. For an opposite example think of a church organ, physically complex but each element is isolated, and the sound is comparatively boring. My older, more naive designs were created more in the spirit of the church organ. They relied on the brute force of complexity and were over engineered. I am now going to use fewer elements, but with more interaction between the elements. Circuits using discrete transistors, or even better valves, tend to have this holistic behaviour.

For future work I see the violin as my inspiration, not literally however, I am not planning to make some kine of violin synthesizer, I just want to come close to it's complex life like qualities using electronics.

Contact me crazylegsnick@gmail.com