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History of Synthesizers.com by Roger Arrick

I'll add more information as memories pop up so watch the date at the top of this page. Some of this is pre-history but I think that builds a good foundation for the story. Warning: This is the longest single web page I've written in 25 years of web publishing. It will print on 17 sheets double-sided.

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I was Born Synthesizerless - the '60s

I was born in 1961 in Alaska, my father was a helicopter pilot up there. In 1964 the 9.2 earthquake hit and we returned to Texas where my parents are from.

It's interesting to think of what was going on during that era relating to music and instruments. Of course there were no mainstream synthesizers as we know them today, that didn't happen till a few years later. Home organs were the big expensive entertainment items in many homes, along with console record players. Bob Moog was in his 20's building theremins. A big hit of that time was "The Twist" and we have family movies of them trying to get me to do it as a toddler.

Somehow I became really interested in technology - mainly chemistry and electronics - maybe from sci-fi movies and the general vibe of rocket ships and nuclear war that permeated the time. I remember studying Lafayette electronics catalogs page by page as my older brother soldered speaker wires for his guitar amp using a giant Weller gun.

The '60s ended in a wonderful experience - my older brother brought home the Switched-on-Bach album by Carlos. I played it over and over on the living room console. That album created a fascination in me that has lasted a lifetime.

The '70s and Bedspread Fires

After age 10 I constantly tinkered with electronics. People would bring me their old appliances and I could fix most of them. I'm not sure why, it just came completely natural. The things I couldn't fix got disassembled and the parts put in plastic bins and labeled with a Dymo to satisfy the OCD overlords. I'd ask for parts bins and shelves for Christmas, what a weirdo.

Here's a funny personal story. After taking apart many radios and TVs and walkie-talkies and studying the circuit boards I concluded that this complexity was beyond human capacity and that engineers must just put various parts together at random, plug them in, and watched what happened. After several tests of this hypothesis the usually boring but sometimes dramatic results lead me to abandon it.

In 1974 a second album doubled my fascination with electronic music and that was Emerson Lake and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery where Keith used a giant Moog Modular. I still have the hot pink cassette. Genesis, Yes, the Who, Gino Vannelli and lots of jazz fusion bands like Weather Report were very influential also.

Around age 13 I remember telling dad that I had decided to go to MIT. The look on his face was horror but he said nothing. I had no idea of the expense involved.

In 1976, age 15, I saved up $120 from working at Mauldin's machine shop and bought my first oscilloscope from a pawn shop on 28th street in Fort Worth. Like everything else, the very first thing I did was open it up. After verifying that all the tube filaments were glowing I noticed a smell. My furry red bedspread, which doubled as my workbench, was smoldering. I really wonder how I survived some of this stuff.

The '70s were a great time of learning many things but I leaned towards digital electronics and built a CPU with TTL chips. Around 1978 I built a CP/M computer with 8" drives and connected it to pieces of a PAIA synthesizer kit. Parts of it still exist. Stuff was so expensive back then - memory was $100 per K! I was doing terrible in school due to being focused on computer hardware and software. In English class I wrote a music interpreter in 8080 ASM and the first song was one from the Switched-On-Bach album. At this time analog design was still a mystery. A couple of us would skip school after lunch and drive all the way to Arnold and Morgan music in Garland to venture to the small room in the back to play the Oberheims, ARPS and Mellotrons. Of course, all of these machines were financially completely out of reach.

The '80s -- Computers and Robots

The '80s was mostly getting my career started which was computer-centric, getting married, picket fence, kids, etc. As most computer products got off-shored it became almost impossible to to make a living so I did a complete career reset and tackled Robotics. My early synth and computer tinkerings hung out in the attic for more than a decade. The modular synthesizer era had been taken over by digital FM synths and the glory days were gone, it seemed. I still tinkered with various things, just not with synths.

The '90s -- Robots and Internets and Maybe Synthesizers

The '90s was the decade of the internet and I dabbled in online publishing for the embedded computing industry as a side-line to my main business of robotics. The success of this gave me freedom to think about new projects that I wouldn't have otherwise due to fund constraints.

Somewhere around 1996 I started getting a hankering to build synths again. It didn't take much time to get re-acquainted since a VCO was still a VCO. Quickly it seemed like there could be an unfilled need in the market. I was in a good position to build modular synthesizers because I had an electronics manufacturing business, and it was a small market that the big boys didn't want to play in. Also, this new era of inexpensive internet marketing eliminated the need for expensive magazine ads. Basically, a perfect storm.

The Synthesizer Business Plan

Driven by my pitiful experience with the unreachable nature of expensive modular synthesizers, my primary goal immediately became clear - create a modular synthesizer in the majestic style of vintage Moog systems but economically accessible to as many people as possible, including ME! Even at that time I had still never seen a Moog modular system in person. I was certain this could be done with my experience in electronics manufacturing accumulated over the prior 20 years. I remember telling Margo: "I'm going to build synthesizers and sell them" -- blank stare.

To survive this venture I had to create a set of guidelines and boundaries because I had way too much going on already - robotics, Maketeck, publishing, family. One of the most important elements was to try and do ALL communication, technical support, sales questions, everything, via email instead of the phone. Phone calls happen at random times and interrupt tasks, and they tend to go longer than needed. Doing this was very weird for 2000 and a lot of customers were skeptical, but it worked great for both me and for the customers because it gave them direct access to the owner. I answered virtually all tech and sales questions for almost 20 years, and kept my response time on 95% of emails to less than 12 hours.

Unlike most projects in my career I didn't want to kill myself over this one, so I set no deadline. There had been some ethics issues in this industry so I decided to wait until I had a full product line ready to ship before launching it. Little did I know this would lead to some initial fake outrage on the webs. I spent '97-'99 designing circuits, laying out circuit boards, designing panels, cabinets, user guides, web pages, everything just as I would want.

None of this was public. I didn't spend any time asking or thinking about what musicians wanted, I didn't even know any keyboard players, this was another gamble but I knew what was needed in a basic system. Most of the process was driven by the goal of creating a full set of products that could be manufactured at an affordable price while looking and sounding great.

This venture wasn't full time, I was still running my other businesses, plus the usual personal stuff including a family illness. During this process I spent a lot of time studying analog circuit theory, mostly op-amps, current mirrors, OTAs and such, it was a great learning experience. The digital stuff was easy for me but I only used that in the Q119 Sequencer and the Q104 MIDI interface, both of which used 8051-type microcontrollers and were programmed in assembly language.

There were several important elements of my plan and many of them had to do with cost containment. The project would have been a failure if everything was great but nobody could afford it. It's one thing to design a working product, it's quite another to make it affordable.

For example, the internet allowed me do a direct sales model. There were no dealers with dealer markups or double shipping costs. This was a great cost savings and I passed that through to the products. Many of our modules stayed less than $100 for many years.

Another thing that allowed me to keep product costs under control was advertising. There was none. I relied on customer satisfaction for publicity. This was a long slow process but had the effect of preventing a giant sales bubble on the front end and it created sustainable growth long term.

Another thing I didn't spend money on was trade-shows. Sure they are fun, but they are expensive, and time-consuming, and all of that cost goes straight to the product price. The vast majority of customers don't attend trade shows.

Packaging was yet another thing I didn't overdo. Not only is it costly, in almost all cases it's immediately thrown away and that's just a waste. Not having dealers allowed me to use basic boxes and packaging material without fancy printed boxes and foam inserts, they weren't needed. Ask any customer and they'll tell you that Synthesizers.com packaging was top notch. I can count the number of times we had a damaged shipment on 1/2 of a hand. There was one time that a UPS driver left a system on the tailgate, which promptly fell off, then got backed over - the box had tire tracks on it. The customer got a new system.

Anyway, the primary goal was affordability of a great modular and that's how we did it. Now for some other business principles:

For starters, I wanted all products to be in stock for quick shipment. This was different than most synthesizer products because it's pretty hard to do. A lot of time and effort was put into planning and managing production but we did it and customers were very appreciative to get their order in a few days instead of a few months like other makers. I lived through the "allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery" era and it was brutal :)

Next, I wanted to offer a complete product line with modules and cabinets and cables and controllers so the customer didn't have to go elsewhere for those things. This made things simpler for everyone and I love the completeness of the idea.

One of the things I did was in response to a problem that had festered in the industry - that of making promises that couldn't be kept. It's amazing how bad the instrument industry had gotten, customers had been abused for quite a while apparently. In fact, it's one of the first accusations I heard when the complete product line launched all at once - this is a hoax! So, I developed virtually all products in secret, began production, then launched them fully ready to ship. There are exceptions including the Q960 Sequencer introduction in 2005.

And here's a pet peeve of mine that turned into a business principle - Product prices don't end in .99. I just think that's an insult. All of my prices were round numbers based on a formula, and the result could be $14 or $2,514 and that's what we used.

To Moog or Not to Moog

One of the first big decisions was whether to make a clone of the Moog Modular or do my own thing.

The Moog modular 5U form factor was a wonderful looking design, with the double-dot knobs and the wooden cabinetry, but there were many things that bothered me including the non-symmetrical power system and half-height modules which went against my ideal of pure modularity, and switch-triggers which limited patching options. There was also the issue of parts which weren't available anymore and of design issues like oscillator pitch drift. Yet another issue was, a person needs to have access to a product to clone it, and that seemed out of the question. I find it much more difficult to clone something than to start from scratch - a blank slate is a wonderful design freedom - so that feed into the decision matrix too.

This question didn't last long and I decided to do my own thing. Even though I wasn't a keyboard player, I had an idea of what I would want as a sound-creator - logical function blocks to build sound - and that's what I did. Modularity solved the issue of which specific functions were needed and in what quantity, and patchability solved the issue of how function blocks needed to be put together - this was all up to the user.

So that made it easier, just do what I thought would be good and see where that would take me - people might love it or hate it, I didn't know.

I guess I'm lucky I didn't have the opportunity to buy a Moog because that might have satisfied me and Synthesizers.com might not of happened.

Synthesizers.com name and Q prefix

My experience with internet publishing gave me a lot of confidence about the power of domain names and internet marketing so I decided to name the company a domain name, with '.COM' tacked on to the end. It was a crazy gamble but sounded like a fun marketing experiment. This was somewhere around 1995 or 1996. My first choice was SYNTHESIZER (singular) Dot COM. It was taken so I called up the small company who had it and tried to buy it - he wanted $50k. So I settled on the plural SYNTHESIZERS.COM which was available. According to WhoIs the Synthesizers.com domain name was registered 1997-01-22.

A lot of technology components use a single-letter prefix to identify the manufacturer and I like that. Having a unifying prefix for part numbers gives coherence to the product line and makes them easy to differentiate from other companies. "Q" has a special meaning in synthesizerdom indicating the quality factor of a filter, relating to resonance and feedback. So "Q" is the prefix for all the manufactured products. We also sold some replacement parts like screws and individual knobs and those usually used our internal part numbers which were simple 3 or 4 digit numbers. Part number philosophy is another topic all-together but I won't bore you with it here.

Product Design Principles

The funnest parts of doing this whole project was the initial design rules. There was complete freedom. I started out with a few idealistic goals along with some rules to avoid the pot holes I'd learned over my years of manufacturing. Here are some in no particular order -

▮ I wanted the general look and feel of a Moog modular - panels, the dual-dot knobs, 1/4" jacks, cabinets. One exception to this was the lamps, I used LEDs instead of incandescents, and the push buttons - Moog used SwitchCraft which were prohibitively expensive.

▮ I wanted hyper-modularity, and by this I mean any module can go anywhere, even power modules. This speed up the process a bit because I didn't have to pre-decide where things needed to go in a system having fixed locations, those decisions are better decided by customers later. Hyper-modularity meant doing away with the short half-height (not exactly half) modules on the bottom row of Moog systems. I always thought that was a tragedy. I wrote an essay about half-height modules but apparently it didn't get transferred to the new shopify website in 2021, so here's a copy from the wayback machine in 2019, and the PDF.

▮ I wanted the panel layout to be as intuitive as possible so I put jacks and their attenuators together. Other designers chose to group jacks at the bottom and controls at the top but then the user has to look back and forth between the sections to patch and make adjustments. This was a good decision.

▮ Cost was a big issue in design because I would have considered it a failure to make an expensive system that few could afford. So each part was selected for cost.

▮ Longevity was another big issue. I wanted to select parts that would be around in 10,20,30+ years. I only selected components that had already been around for a while and that I thought would be around for many years - pots, chips, jacks, LED bezels, push buttons, etc. I standardized on TL074 quad Op-Amps for most signal processing, CA3080 for OTAs, 2N3904/2N3906 for signal transistors, 1N4148 for signal diodes, etc. There were no newfangled state-of-the art parts used - those scared me because of experience I'd had with fancy parts that quickly became unavailable requiring a product redesign. This decision worked out great as I watched other makers have to abandon designs when parts became unavailable or discontinued.

▮ Repair-ability - I wanted it to be easy to repair these products so I standardized pot assemblies with .1" MTA connectors and 6" wires, same with jacks and toggles and buttons and LEDs. A customer could pull a board off a panel with 4 screws, pull off a jack and replace it very quickly. All ICs were in sockets and easily replaceable. All of my boards were old-school through-hole, no surface-mount.

Ultimately, repair-ability wasn't the issue I thought it might be. Most modules remain in service for 10 or 20 years and never need anything. Even the open frame pots worked out great and there were rarely any corrosion issues.

▮ Pitch stability - this was always an issue with older gear and modern circuitry can solve that. I guessed that nobody craved vintage pitch instability, that turned out to be true.

▮ Symmetrical power supply rails. Moog power was -6V and +12V. I chose +15 and -15 for maximum headroom and better signal-to-noise ratio. I also put a +5V rail in the power system to handle digital circuits and LEDs.

▮ Don't hide fasteners. I'm not scared of fasteners being shown on front panels. It costs a lot to press flush studs into a panel and it comes with all sorts of problems during production. So, the circuit board and other things that need to be mounted behind the panel have screw heads showing on the front. I like the look and accessibility, and have never had a complaint.

▮ Outputs are full-strength, inputs have attenuators. There's this issue of patching signals between modules - if an output has an attenuator and the inputs don't, then you can't control the effect the signal has on each module individually. On Moog systems there usually weren't attenuators so you had to patch through an separate attenuator module just to adjust a signal level. That seemed non-intuitive to me. If a user wants to control a filter with an envelope generator then it should just patch directly. Also, attenuators on outputs AND inputs leads to confusion. So I settled on having outputs at full-strength (10VPP usually) and inputs having attenuators, reversable where needed.

▮ There are many other details such as impedance of inputs/outputs (1K out, 100K in, except on pitch CV), 5V positive gate levels, 1V/octave pitch tracking and other things I won't bore you with here. Most of this addressed on the Synthesizers.com technical page.

Circuit Design

As a kid I studied every schematic I could find to try and learn from them. A lot of my understanding came from Forrest Mim's writings that were sold through Radio-Shack. Data books and electronic magazines were great too. I never had access to classes in electronics and skipped college.

In my teens I studied digital logic and computers and that carried me through my computer career. When I switched to robotics in the late '80s I had to do more analog work - mostly sensor signal conditioning, but also some audio processing, and a lot of power electronics driving large loads.

With synths I restarted with a focus on analog design, mostly op-amps and current mirrors and that sort of thing. I collected every schematic I could find to learn from, and I bought most of the Electronote series written in the '70s. There were also many DIY electronics books in the '70s and also the wonderful Art Of Electronics book by Horowitz & Hill.

One great source of learning I found was component manufacturer data books. They usually show example circuits. And some manufacturers write wonderful guides and application handbooks which are brain candy for me.

My basic procedure to designing a product is to sketch it out in a notebook, then break up the circuit into logical pieces. Those circuits get built and tested on a solderless breadboard. In later years, a lot of modules ended up being pieces of other modules I already designed and tested, but there were still connection details to resolve.

Test equipment I use includes a couple of scopes, power supplies, signal generators, and a good voltage calibrator. I never had a decent audio spectrum analyzer though. Most of my gear was once very expensive HP and Tek that I was able to buy used for a fraction of the cost.

When I'm confident the circuit works I start entering the schematic into Eagle. I've used Eagle PCB since the '90s and still use the ancient version 3.55. It takes a lot of work to keep that 25 year old software running.

After the schematic is entered I start laying out the circuit board. First I position the power connector and power supply components, that's critical. Then I start positioning chips for optimal trace lengths. Then I move around the other parts - resistors, capacitors, transistors, diodes and connectors. Sometimes I decide that resistors could be combined into a SIP to save space but that introduces other issues like not being able to change a value later if something goes wrong.

I spend a lot of time thinking about manufacturing and how to make stuffing the board easier. Sometimes I'll group similar components together even if it results in inefficient traces. All the diodes and caps point the same direction when possible. This helps the board builders.

Engineering is the art of trade-offs and death by a thousand decisions.

Module boards sizes are determined by the limitations of the panels but the width is also based somewhat on Radio-Shack perf-boards which I used for some of the early prototypes.

At some point I settle on component placement and start routing traces. I never use an auto-router, they never do what I want, everything is manual. Laying out a board might take a day or a week. I don't usually do it full time but sometimes I stay up late battling traces. Usually I've packed things so tight that the last few traces can take many hours, or even days.

When the board is done I make Gerber art and send it for a prototype. In the early days this process was more expensive so I had to get real confident everything was right then just order a production batch of 100.

Circuit Boards (PCB)

Double-sided PCBs allowed me to pack circuitry onto boards more densely than Moog could and this allowed me to mount circuit boards parallel to the panel. This is a huge space saver and it allows for tilted cabinets and thin cabinets. Still, not every designer picks this method and there are plenty of products made with right angle boards, I'm not sure why.

In 2000 our production volumes were low and PCBs along with their tooling were very expensive so I grouped boards together into a macro board to save money. Boards were kept together - stuffed together, soldered together and trimmed together, then snapped apart to be added to a module. Sometime after 2005 I quit doing this because PCB prices came down and our volumes increased. These macro boards were:

• SYNTH1 = Q106 VCOs, Q109 EG, Q108 VCA, Q125 signal processor, Q111 Pan/Fade - 2000
• SYNTH2 = Q107 filter, Q110 Noise, Q117 Sample&Hold, Q105 Slew Limiter, Q104 MIDI interface,
  Q112 Mixer, Q101 Power LED - 2000
• SYNTH3 = Q119 Sequencer, Q118 Instrument Interface, Q115 Reverb, Q130 Clipper/Rectifier, Q128 Switch - 2000
• SYNTH4 = Q150 Ladder filter - 2001
• SYNTH5 = Q106 Range switch adapters, Q127 filter bank, Q123 Standards, Q142 Pedal Interface,
  Q143 Preset, Q147 Distributor - 2002
• SYNTH6 = Q961 Sequencer Interface, Q962 Sequential Switch, Q963 switch board - 2005
• SYNTH7 = Q960 Sequencer - 2005

The Synthesizers.com Standard Power Connection

Part of the initial circuit design process was to come up with a power connection standard to use for all modules. I settled on a 6-pin .1" MTA connector. This connector had been produced for many years, was readily available, affordable, and it would easily handle the current of a big module. Six pins gave me enough for +15V, -15V, +5V, ground. One of the pins was used as a keyway to prevent plugging it in shifted which would almost certainly blow most circuits.

I made this power connector standard public and displayed it on a special technical info web page. My hope was that it would become a standard for the 5U module industry and IT DID!

Data Sheets

I wrote a data sheet for each module - basically a user's manual - but modeled after a typical electronic component data sheet. They were non-glitzy and very non-promotional - just the facts. Each sheet had specs and described its operation. Usually there were patch suggestions and sometimes troubleshooting information. Often there was a circuit board drawing describing power and connections to panel components like pots and jacks.

All of the data sheets were made in Microsoft Publisher which I've used since V1.0 back in Windows V3.1 days (mid-90s). Some of the files are so old they won't even open in a modern version of MSPub.

Here's the Q167 Data sheet in PDF form -

Panels

Panels are so important they get their own section. To me, the look and feel of the system is a huge part of the experience. The panel is what the user sees and it's super important. While I'm not a keyboard player, I do play drums, and I can tell you that my RotoZilla kit plays so differently than a Ludwig Vistalite kit that they are basically two completely different instruments.

Synthesizers.com panels are the same size as Moog modular panels - 5U tall (8.75") and width increments of 2.125". This width allows 8 modules to fit in a standard 19" rack. I love this format, the look, the size, everything.

Each panel is .063 aluminum and has a 1/2" flange on each side for strength. The flanges however, stop .400" from the top and bottom edge for mounting to the cabinet surface. All of this information was made public on our technical info page to encourage its adoption as a standard, and that effort was a success.

Another thing I liked about the Moog system was the gap between modules at the top and bottom mounting surface. Normally, a sheet-metal designer would put a relief notch there so the flange could be bent even with the edge but that's another operation, actually 4 operations per panel, and Moog didn't go to the effort, neither did I.

Early on I talked with Bob Moog about the etching process and he confirmed some of my concerns so I decided to paint our panels with an industrial splatter coat instead of the etched anodized process that Moog used on their modules. There is an obvious difference between these two.

One thing that's easy to underestimate the value of is the exposed metal on the left and right edges of each module. Some designers have chosen to paint their panels solid and the distinction between modules is lost resulting in a sea of knobs. Since we paint our panels, we mask off each edge before painting, then removed it after screen printing, it's a lot of labor but that edge is worth it.

Another thing that was real important to me was consistency of lettering and graphics on each panel. On Moog systems there were several different fonts and text positionings over time and that's something I wanted to avoid.

I personally screen-printed all modules for the first 5-6 years, then we had our painters do it.

After having some prototype panels made I searched for a Moog modular to test them for fit. I was fairly certain it would but not completely sure. Eventually I found J.O. in Denton who had a Moog system and visited him. This was probably around 1999. I nervously removed one of his modules and slipped in my single-wide blank panel - it fit!

Panel Artwork

Panel artwork, specifically consistency of fonts and placement, was an important goal for me. I used very specific fonts and sizes for the text, and tried to use very consistent labeling for panel components. The logo is always in the same place on each module, the module part number is at the same place and bold font, and so on. There are some failures - on one module I used "OUT" and on most others I used "OUTPUT".

I did not try to make all knobs and jacks line up between modules because that was too limiting. I'm glad because I've seen systems where they are lined up and it just doesn't look right. This is just a thing that happened right that I didn't plan.

Over the years I had at least two customers who were so put-off by the Synthesizers.com brand name that they asked me to make them a custom system without logos. I refused and they bought anyway.

I made all of the art of every module using an old version of Coreldraw. It took quite a bit of effort to keep it working through various updates of Windows over the years.

After I get the artwork to look like I want I transfer it to Autocad LT from 1995 and place the holes for the laser cutter.

Half-Height Modules

Even as a young kid I was mesmerized by the modularity of the Moog system. It was obviously modeled after the wonderful analog computers of the day. Modules could be moved around, changed, whatever - the flexibility basically allowed you to create a custom instrument. This also meant the company didn't have to make decisions about what the user wanted or needed, that was their decision.

But the Moog systems have a special row at the bottom of modules that are about half-height. This greatly troubled me. Those mixers and interfaces and power panels were fixed onto a piano hinge. What if you wanted more mixers, or wanted to move a mixer to another location? This just felt like a tragedy to me, to get so close to complete modularity but miss. Maybe there was a deep reason that would become more clear as I understood the Moog system better, if I could ever get access to one, but nope.

So, at the top of my list was to change this and create hyper-modularity where every, and I mean every, module could be moved into any location, even power controls. If you want a system with nothing but oscillators, you can do that.

When you see a picture of a big modular synthesizer, look for the bottom row, if all the rows have the same height modules then it's probably Synthesizers.com or what we call 5U now, if there are smaller modules on the bottom row then it's probably a Moog or a clone.

I wrote an essay for the Synthesizers.com website called "The Case Against Half-Height Modules" but apparently it didn't fully survive the latest website redesign.

Cabinets

Like panels, cabinets are SO much work, but they are so critical to user experience. A Coke is just better from a glass bottle and a Ding Dong is just better when it's wrapped in aluminum foil :)

It was important to me to offer both studio cabinets with nice wood for that traditional studio look and also portable cabinets covered in vinyl to have a complete product line.

I made the first portable cabinets out of 5/8" MDF from Home Depot and covered them in a vinyl that I found at a local fabric store. I didn't know about Tolex at that time. The product I used had a fabric on the back and was thick. It was important to me to keep the product the same 'forever' so that's what I continued to use and people seemed to like it.

At some point, maybe around 2010, the vinyl pattern I used for portable cabinets was discontinued and we had to switch to something similar. You can tell the difference if they are sitting next to each other.

I personally built most of the portable cabinets in my garage in Colleyville until 2004, and at the Tyler building until about 2005 or so, then we sub'ed them out to a local cabinet maker. And I personally vinyl wrapped most of the portable cabinets for about 10 years, maybe 15.

Now for Studio cabinets. I didn't know that the Moog cabinets were plywood covered with a vernier so I designed mine out of solid wood. This was not woodwork I wanted to do in my garage, it needed to be made by a furniture maker with equipment and skills I didn't have. So I went hunting for cabinet maker and found one nearby working in the turkey farm in Colleyville over by where the Target is now. He built the first prototype out of mahogany, which I thought was probably close to what Moog was, I was wrong. The production cabinets were solid walnut and that's what was used from then on, and it matches Moog cabinets pretty well.

The original Mahogany cabinet set, which included a 44-space tilted cabinet, a 22-space top cabinet, a keyboard garage, and possibly a keyboard controller enclosure were sold to Paul S. before 2004 and I believe he resold them so they are out there somewhere.

Initial Products - 2000

The initial product line was fairly complete including a full line of basic modules, portable and studio cabinets, power systems, cables, keyboard controller, and replacement parts. There were also pre-configured systems in both studio and portable cabinets.

I also offered 19" rack frames which had 8 spaces of 5U panels. We tried to cut them ourselves with our CNC plasma cutter which we built in-house, including software, but I was never happy with the cut edge. I'm not sure if any of those actually shipped. The replacement was a beefy frame made from machined bar stock. There's a picture somewhere of me standing on it to prove its strength.

At this point I wasn't sure if I'd ever add another product because the goal of building a complete synthesizer system was finished. There were a million module possibilities but that decision had to wait to see if there were enough sales. It turned out there were enough sales that I kept designing modules for another 20+ years.

Initial Products - 2000

Systems: 
Studio 22-space QSS22
Studio 44-space QSS44
Portable 22-space QSP22
Portable 44-space QSP44
Rack 8-space QSR8
Rack 24-space QSR24

Controllers:
QKB15S keyboard controller
QFCS Foot switch
QFCV Variable foot controller

Cabinets:
44 space tilted walnut cabinet
22 space walnut cabinet
22 space portable cabinet
8 space rack mount frame

Power:
QPS1 power supply
QDH20 cable harness for 20 modules
QDH40 cable harness for 40 modules

Modules:
Q101 Power control
Q102 AC power interface
Q103 DC power interface 
Q137 Power control and interface
Q104 Keyboard Interface
Q105 Slew Limiter
Q106 Oscillator
Q107 Filter
Q108 Amplifier
Q109 Envelope Generator
Q110 Noise Source
Q111 Pan/Fade
Q112 Mixer
Q115 Reverb
Q116 Ring Modulator
Q117 Sample & Hold
Q118 Instrument Interface
Q119 Sequencer
Q120 Connector Interface
Q124 Multiples
Q125 Signal Processor
Q128 Switch
Q130 Clipper & Rectifier
Q138 Logo Panel
Q141 Oscillator Aid
Q142 Pedal Interface

Starting Production

Production started several months before the website launch. The goal was to have every module in stock for immediate shipment and that was mostly accomplished. We also had cabinets and controllers and patch cables all in stock. Systems were put together as ordered which would take a couple of weeks.

I didn't know how many of these things were going to be sold so there were a lot of tricks used to limit inventory. One of those tricks had to do with panels. I bought only blank panels in various sizes and had them painted. Then based on orders I would screen print them, then either me or one of my workers would drill them on the drill press. Ten at a time was a typical batch size. This was a lot of work but it didn't take long to build my confidence that the volumes were going to be high enough to have panels punched. We still printed them in-house for many years, and I did that part myself because I'm real picky about it. We used epoxy ink because it's tough but it's very hard to work with and will dry fast in the screen, especially in the summer heat.

I could fit about 5 different single-wide module images on a single screen frame. 8-space modules like the Q119 sequencer had its own screen because it was so big. Ultimately there were probably 30 or 40 screens in our inventory.

Another thing we did due to low volumes is have several modules made onto one circuit board. I describe that elsewhere on this page.

Sales and Advertising and Dealers

This will be a short section because there was none. We never had a full-time salesperson, we just processed online orders that came in based on what people could see on our website and read on various internet groups. Happy customers were our sales force.

Hardly any advertising was done. That would have increased the price of products somewhere around 20% and it was just not something I wanted to do. Industry magazines didn't like this strategy and I don't blame them. Sometimes it was obvious they were passing me up for free publicity and news releases. I stuck with my strategy of relying on the domain name and public support on the online venues.

There were a very few small ads taken out in various places over the years, even on Facebook for a while. It was difficult to prove they were worth it.

There were no dealers, my pricing structure was built for direct-sales. Dealers need a profit, plus display packaging, plus brochures, plus shipping charges. This would have probably increased the retail price of my products by 40% or more - not gonna do it.

Accounting Software

Since 1981 I've written my own business software to do invoicing and keep track of inventory and do purchasing. I did this mainly because I couldn't get what I wanted in a commercial package. They didn't handle orders the way I wanted and they didn't have things like mult-level sub-assemblies and bill-of-materials handling required for a manufacturer.

As a side-gig I customized this software for several companies in the area who ran their business on it for several years.

The first version was written in CBASIC which had keyed files and was wonderful to work with. The OS was CP/M on a Z80 CPU with 64K RAM and 10MB hard disk. That system lasted until the late '80s.

Then I graduated to a real database called Paradox by Borland. I rewrote everything from scratch because it's a completely different language. This ran on DOS and Windows on a PC and lasted until 2008 when Windows became increasingly difficult for Paradox to operate in. Plus we needed payroll and stuff I didn't have.

So we switched to QuickBooks. This was difficult because I couldn't do the technical support myself and that process is painful if there's ever any problem. Plus they nickle-and-dime you to death and you're at the mercy of mandatory upgrades. Quickbooks didn't give us things we needed like an easy way to find where a part is used and simple stuff like that unless we bought the really expensive manufacturer's version. Even that one wouldn't do everything we needed. So I found a database driver for QuickBooks and wrote an add-on system in MS Access we called QBX. QBX handles multi-level bill-of-materials, buy-a-kit, and utilities like finding where a part or sub-assemblies are used. I considered selling QBX as a product, that's how I think, but there's only one of me. To my knowledge QBX is still being used.

Website

I coded all the website by hand from the very beginning using a simple text editor. I'd test it locally then FTP to the server.

In the beginning I had a computer running the webserver software hanging off of a T1 line in Dallas. Later I switched to Godaddy.

All of the initial pictures were taken with a Sony Mavica FD92 camera that had a built-in floppy disk drive. It cost $1000.

I made a fixture so each module could be scanned directly on an HP 4C flatbed scanner. It also cost $1000. This is why the images all look pretty square on the website. For larger modules including the Q119 Sequencer I had to do multiple scans and stitch them together in Corel Photopaint. This imperfect stitching was considered evidence that my product line was a hoax when launched in 2000.

The first web page was a single 'Coming Soon' page in late 1999. Then in February of 2000 I launched the full website. This design had the menu on the left that looked like a module with plugs going in and out. You can see that on the wayback machine.

There was a huge website rebuild in 2014 that I also coded by hand. It took more than 6 months. This one was a 3-panel design with a block at the top including an image, logo and QFind, then a narrow product menu on the left, and a bigger content menu on the right. No Popups, I can't stand those! The 3-panel design lasted until the post-sale redesign in late 2021 which incorporated shopify, I wasn't involved with that. Some of the pages and articles didn't survive the 2021 rebuild.

'Coming Soon' Website launched - 1999

Late in 1999 I parked a 'coming soon' page on the Synthesizers.com domain name. It just had a synthesizer picture, the company logo, and some text. The picture was of my real prototype system, not a fake photoshop creation as some accused.

Full Product and Website Launch - Feb 2000

My business plan was to design, build and have stock of a complete product line and launch the whole thing at once. This is completely different than what most companies do, especially in this industry which had developed a bad reputation. Many people thought it was a hoax when the website appeared out of nowhere with a complete product line and ready to take prepaid orders.

In Feb 2000 I launched the website showing the a complete initial product line. We were already in production and ready to take orders. I didn't announce this anywhere because I was afraid of an avalanche. Several years of work had gone into this venture and I wanted things to go smoothly. The website simmered as I watched the server logs. There was some random traffic and it only showed slow growth.

Then in early May I decided to go the next step and post to a few online groups. The traffic increased a little but nothing scary.

Later in May I posted on SynthZone and Sonic State which were pretty big sites. There I was, right on the front page of these big fancy websites but traffic only increased moderately, and almost no emails.

Then, all of a sudden, on June 3rd, 2000 the logs went crazy. I didn't know where it was coming from. Emails started appearing asking about ordering but some of them were not nice and very accusing. Many people thought this was fake, they just couldn't believe it.

Within the day it all turned into a very unsettling situation. I read on the forums and via emails how my pictures were faked, specifically the Q119 which was 8-spaces wide and wouldn't fit on my scanner requiring a rough stitch. That was proof they claimed. Other's scrutinized each pixel of pictures I took of real products with my camera and said they were sure it was fake.

Oh it gets worse - from there some people scoured the web to figure out who owned the domain name and discovered it was somehow related to Arrick Robotics, my primary company. If they had looked closer that info was right on my web page in plain sight.

With that info they traced down my various business ventures. Along with this they found my personal web page where I describe my many interest including such terrible and offensive topics as ancient history and archaeology including links to intelligent design, an alternative to evolution. That was the final straw for some, "he couldn't possibly be a scientist!". Some of the public forum postings were very hateful and the dominant vibe was that all of this was a hoax from a terrible person.

This was all quite a slap in the face for 3+ years of careful planning and working until midnight. What I realize now in hind-sight is that I was experiencing a cancellation - a modern social media form of a lynching. We see it all the time now but back then it was fairly new. At the time, and still now, I consider that day one of the worst days of my life. Absolutely terrible. I didn't sleep for half a week.

Anyway, after a couple of days the 'outrage' from the noisy people subsided and customers started to send emails with words of support, amazement, and even thanks. Some of it was very encouraging for me. There were even some apologies.

I documented some of this at the time in a web page named "ah.html" at Synthesizers.com which you can see on the way-back machine. That page includes some email feedback too if you're interested.

See if this link will work for you: https://web.archive.org/web/20210619161601/https://www.synthesizers.com/ah.html

The first order was from Zon for a blank panel to cover an opening in his Moog system -- $7 :) We had it in stock. It didn't take long for customers to get products and report back publicly - it was all good.

In the very beginning I didn't know what sales were going to be so we did many things in very low volume. The panels were all blank and I silkscreen printed them myself, then one of my employees drilled them by hand on our drill press. It was only a few months to realize the volumes were going to be big enough to have them punched. I still did the silkscreen printing myself for many years.

All of this production took place at my 3000sf shop at 2107 W. Euless Blvd in Euless, Texas along with my robotics product line until we moved to Tyler in 2004.

Here's the price list in 2000.

My plan was to create a complete the synthesizer product line with all the basics covered then return focus to my robotics business. It soon became clear there were many more fun products to design, and it seemed like my situation was so perfect for this market and these production volumes. I wanted to keep my company small and manageable so I could do all the engineering myself, and that's what I did. The robotics products tapered off over time.

Employees

A lot of our employees over the years have been students, but not all. I don't know how many people worked for us in total it's probably somewhere around 300, that's a guess. The first picture here is the Arrick Robotics crew in 2001 which was the beginning of synthesizers. The second picture is 2009, then 2011, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017.

Buildings

All of the initial products were designed at my home office in Colleyville Texas where I lived for 20 years. I don't design at work because there are people there and I'm easily distracted, so I work at home late at night after everyone has gone to bed. The first two pictures are my home office in 2003. While living there the company had a space on Highway 10 in Euless Texas where all the manufacturing and shipping and purchasing and everything else happened. That's the first picture.

In 2004 we moved to Tyler and I did another garage conversion for a home office. That's where the remainder of the products were designed. The company had a building on the east side of Tyler where all the manufacturing was done. That last picture is my home workbench in 2005 in Tyler.

My schedule typically was to do thinking work late at night in my office, then in the morning answer emails and maintain the website, also at home, then go to the office after lunch and battle manufacturing and purchasing and general company things. I even mowed :)

Keybeds

To offer a complete system I needed to offer my own matching keyboard controller, and to do that I needed a source for keybeds which is the mechanism itself with all the keys. Keybeds are difficult for a manufacturer and there are very few vendors. It makes me vulnerable when I don't have a 2nd source or can't make something in-house.

So I started calling vendors of keyboard instruments and ran across a gal named Thanh at the Yamaha repair department in California. She could sell me keybeds for one of their products because they had an overstock. These were good quality 5-octave keyboards with dual contacts per key which allows velocity sensing.

This Yamaha keyboard used a weird 23-pin flat cable connector from Molex, the part number is 52045-2310. We hand-wired a few of these on the initial QKB15S keyboards then later I made a paddle board to simplify manufacturing. Side note: these yamaha keybeds were 160mm per octave instead of 165mm as many others are.

At first the price was $90/each, then over the years the price kept dropping because they needed to get rid of them. Eventually I bought their entire stock, it came on several pallets.

The velocity didn't work on these keyboard but we never figured out if it was the keybed's fault or our software. This is the only software in the product line I didn't write.

Then in 2013 as the Yamaha keybeds were running low I developed the QSCAN circuit to scan Fatar keybeds and introduced a completely new line of modular controllers.

Circuit Board Revisions

Almost all boards went through a single revision to 'REV A' but they were all very minor changes, sometimes just to make manufacturing a little easier or make tiny improvements in functionality. I always worried that customers would say "PUT IT BACK" but they never did over 20 years of production. The REV is normally right on the top edge of the circuit board next to the logo.

The Q105 Slew Limiter probably had the most revisions because it went to REV B in order to improve the unwanted oscillation at low slew settings. Some modules had this problem, some didn't. Ultimately the module ended up needing a selected op-amp (TL074) to fix the problem, I never completely understood what was happening, some sort of tiny mismatch of op-amps within the package or something. All questions in life don't get answered :)

QMAC Circuit

In 2009 I had some ideas for modules that required a microcontroller and decided to design a general purpose board that could be used in various places. It's very typical of my designs to have various ways to use them, I try to think ahead and broader than just the project at hand.

This project resulted in the QMAC board - 'Multi-Able-Controller'. QMAC uses an AVR through-hole microprocessor programmed in C. The board has a pair of MIDI I/O ports, 4 channels of DAC, 8 channels of ADC, multiple digital I/O pins, and 7 configurable op-amp cells capable of amplification and offsetting. QMAC can be populated with just the components needed for a specific design, and each module has unique programming code. The modules using the QMAC board are the Q17x series - QMAC is not for processing audio, just control signals, MIDI, reading pots, and producing slow control voltages.

The Q174 MIDI Interface was the first module to use QMAC and that replaced the Q104 MIDI Interface module which was retired. Here are the modules that used the QMAC board:

• Q170 MIDI Gates
• Q171 Quantizer
• Q173 Gate Math
• Q174 MIDI Interface
• Q179 Envelope++

QFUN Circuit

Most modules have their own PCB (Printed Circuit Board) specific to that product, but some boards I designed to be general purpose so they can be used for many different products.

FUN = Functions

The QFUN board used on the Q167 LFO++ is the first example - 2015. This board contains a temperature-compensated triangle core VCO with linear and exponential control and sync, a VC Inverter, comparator, VC Switch, a unipolar and bipolar curve-converter, a clipper/clamper, a JFET-based VCA, slew limiter, reversable attenuator, an ASR/AR enevelope generator, LFO, and a mixer-fader.

Each of these functions are separate and can be connected together as needed. All of this is on a single-wide 6.4" x 1.9" densely populated board which can be seen in the Q167 LFO++ datasheet. The final revision was REV A in March of 2017.

There is a QFUN2 board also - 2019. It includes dual VCAs, a slope detector that can be configured as a comparator, curve converter, mixer, VC inverter, 2 reversible attenuators, an LFO and 2 LED drivers. The QFUN2 board was used on the Q155 Curver/Inverter/Slope/VCA, the Q158 VCA++, and the Q156 Comparator/Mixer/LFO/VCA.

There is also a QFUN3 board which I finished in 2021 as the foundation of the Q169 VCO++ module. This design took almost a year to complete, but not full time. There were lots of crazy happenings that year with Covid and the weather and riots and stuff.

I worked to generalize the function blocks on QFUN3 so it could be used for future designs. QFUN3 is a dual-wide board with a Sine/Square LFO, an ADSR envelope generator, a VC switch, 2 full-featured triangle core VCOs with temperature compensated exponential converters and sync and wave shapers, 2 13700 VCAs, a noise source, mixer, sample&hold, VC inverter, a bipolar-to-unipolar converter, a 2v reference for transposing and a general purpose amp. These function blocks can be populated and connected as needed.

Q112 Mixer Trivia

The VERY first batch of Q112 4-channel mixers had only 2 knobs and the circuit was built with the Q111 Ring Modulator board and a daughter board. Here's a picture, and here, and here. This craziness was due to the price of circuit boards at the time. After that I made mixers with a dedicated mixer PCB but the panel still had only 2 knobs. This went on for a short time then I went to 3 knobs.

++ Series Modules

Starting around 2009 with the QMAC board I started allowing myself to design modules with more functional density. This is different from the earlier modules where the goal was to cover the basic functions in a reasonable panel area, and not to combine functions. I adopted the '++' suffix to indicate that I packed a lot of features beyond the basics into a small space but it wasn't logical to use it on some of their names. '++' is the increment operator in many programming languages. Several of these modules use a multi-function QFUN board.

The obvious benefit from high-density modules is that you can get more functionality in a given cabinet. From a sales standpoint it's more "$ per panel space". The downside is that the panels are more cluttered.

The Q174 MIDI Interface was probably one of the first in this spirit, especially compared to the very basic Q104 MIDI interface that it replaced.

One of the most dense modules was the Q167 LFO++. It was jam packed with an LFO, VCA and an envelope generator that could control both pitch and amplitude. That module was very successful.

Others ++ modules include:

• Q155 Curver/Inverter/Slope Detector/VCA
• Q156 Comparator/Mixer/AC Coupler/LFO/VCA
• Q173 Gate Math
• Q179 Envelope++
• Q171 Quantizer
• Q170 MIDI Notes
• Q157 SH++ Sample&Hold/Divider/LFO/Noise/Decay/Slew
• Q158 VCA2++ Dual VCA/Panner/Fader and mixer
• Q148 VCA++ VCA/Panner/Tuner/Headphone Amp
• Q114 Mixer++ Mix/Invert/Multiplier/Offset
• Q169 Oscillator++ Dual VCO/Dual VCA/EG/LFO/S&H/Noise

Q167 LFO++ Explosion

Here is an exploded Q167 LFO++ module using the QFUN board. This was put in a display frame and hung in the hallway.

Modular Controllers

As we were running out of Yamaha keybeds I started designing a new keyboard scanner. That project turned into the bigger idea of offering a full line of modular controllers. Wheels, pressure blocks, ribbons, whammy bar, etc. Each controller was on a standard sized module panel and could even fit right into a synthesizer cabinet - hypermodularity.

A series of 1-space, 2-space, and 4-space module boxes were made that would bolt to a keyboard controller. The keyboard enclosure was all modular so you could stack modules on either side or in the back, and stack keyboards. The whole idea became something I'm really proud of.

Notebooks

One of my habits as a maker is that I create notebooks to collect ideas and work out problems. I'm an obsessive list maker. I have notebooks going back 50 years for various projects including software, hardware, math, construction, train sets, car restorations, computer design, etc. These are usually graph paper, sometimes bound, sometimes spiral.

Early on I started a notebook for Synthesizers.com. These are various company-related projects, mostly circuits, panel designs, catalog layouts, etc. These pages of notes tend to be sort of a thinking-outloud I do when designing something. When I get to the point of being close I move to the computer and start entering a schematic or writing, so they tend to be incomplete and not show exactly what the final result was, but they show the process.

After filling up the first, I named it SYNTH1 and started another - SYNTH2. There's a total of 4 and they're fun to look through. These notebooks are very important to me and one day I might scan them for preservation.

Calendars

I did a calendar for 2009, 2014, and 2015. They were mostly pictures from customers all over the world with a few from inside the company. These tend to be a lot of work and rarely sell well.

Catalogs

Even though one of the guiding principles of Synthesizers.com was to do away with the expense of mass mailings typically done by mail order companies, I still managed to grunt out some brochures and small catalogs. Usually these were printed in a single batch and included in customer orders until they ran out. There were only a few thousand printed so they are rare and might eventually end up being collectible. These were all built in MicroSoft Publisher which I've used since Version 1.0 in 1992 on Windows V3.1.

In 2002 I did a simple two-page brochure. These were simply put into customer order boxes.

In 2014 the local newspaper did a story on the company and I printed a few of those on gloss paper to put in shipments.

In 2015 and 2016 I did larger 12 page catalogs. Allen took the front cover picture on the 2015 one and the 2016 model has the picture we used for the puzzle. Both of these catalogs highlighted the new modular controller product line and BOX11 Cabinets. It's possible some of these were mailed to our customer list in a few mailings, mostly there were just put into order boxes.

The last one I did was a short 4-page brochure in 2018 highlighting new products. It included the new Q170 MIDI Gates module, several other ++ series modules, and the portable Thought-Box TB22++ system.

Puzzle

In 2015 I setup the big system we use for videos and took a picture to send to a puzzle-making company. The results were great but not many people bought them and there were a lot left over. The patch in this picture has an easter egg that I've never revealed.

Patcher Jack

Patcher Jack is a mascot I designed in the early days but didn't implement until Alex did the artwork in 2013. It's a face with keyboard teeth, patch cable hair, and knobs for eyes. We used Patcher Jack on T-shirts and labels and even a blank panel.

T-Shirts, Merchandise and SynthThings

The first T-Shirt was made in 2001 and had a picture of a Q106 VCO module and the text "So many knobs so little time". It was teal in color. I remember once waiting in line at a Wendy's and the guy behind me said "Oh man that's so true" thinking it was a general comment on complex modern life. :)

The second T-Shirt design was 'Eat Sleep Modulate'. 2012. It was a jungle green color. Under the Modulate graphic you'll see a series of dots which represent the jacks and LEDs pattern on a Box11 cabinet.

The third T-Shirt was Patcher Jack. 2014. Patcher Jack is a mascot I designed in the early days but didn't implement until Alex did the artwork in 2013.

We made some T-Shirts with a dual-dot knob graphic too but maybe just printed a small quantity in-house, somewhere around 2020.

We had various labels printed with Patcher Jack and the dual-dot Knob graphic. Here's one on my H3.

We offered various synth-related trinkets at random times including a knob fridge magnet, Christmas tree ornaments, and even an iPhone case.

There are also a few things I made just one of and never produced as a product. One of these was a pencil holder made from module panels and circuit boards. Another was the Q198 Keith Emerson dagger module.

Fantasy Modules

There were many fantasy modules and fantasy products created for use on the website and social media and often on April's fool day.

The Emerson Dagger Distributor module was one that I actually built. The inspiration is Keith Emerson's stabbing of daggers into his Hammond Organ during stage performances. There's just one.

The double-wide Bat Meter is another one that we actually built. When I used it in a video tutorial several people asked to buy one so we built a small batch. The inspiration for this was the 1960's Batman series where their underground lab had a lot of computers and equipment with bold labeling, everything was Bat-this or Bat-that. After 2018 James built a newer single-wide version.

One of my favorite is the Multiples++ module which was an giant octal-wide panel with a grid of jacks connected in what appears to be a random fashion. But it's not random. The lines spell out Tau which is the superior circle constant of 6.2831 based on the radius instead of the diameter like pi. If you look careful enough it also spells 'SYNTH' with the 'S' sideways.

The Q191 Analog Clock module started out as a low-volume product I gave out as gifts, then we turned it into a standard product.

For a time I had an idea board in the back where employees could draw fantasy modules.

Custom Modules

As a general rule I steered away from custom things because I wanted my time to be used for as many customers as possible, but there were exceptions. One that I recall is this Matrix Switch module built for Mark G. somewhere around 2002. This module uses a Cherry matrix switch like that used on the ARP 2500 Synthesizer. I believe Mark supplied the switch. I don't recall any other custom products at the moment.

Retired Modules

Almost NEVER were products retired. Part of the reason is that I designed products with longevity in mind and made a point to use mature multi-sourced popular parts instead of newfangled parts with limited sources and uncertain futures. One of the very few exceptions to this is the Q104 MIDI Interface which was replaced by the Q174 MIDI Interface having many more features.

Eventually the QKB15S Keyboard controller was retired and replaced with the modular keyboard controllers. No other product comes to mind with the exception of some merchandise such as T-shirts.

Unproduced Modules

There are a few products that got conceived of or fully designed but didn't end up in production.

The first Q104 MIDI Interface module design had a keyboard scanner port right on the front. The idea was that a user could wire a DIY keybed directly themselves. This wasn't going to be a good idea since I was catering to musicians not electronic DIY'ers. The build was costly and most customers weren't even going to use it. There was one unit built and I kept it on my display shelf for 20 years. It had big 40-pin connector on the front.

In the earliest list of modules I included a quad-space Q114 Amplified Speaker module. It was on the website for a time as a 'future' product. It became obvious quickly that this module was not a good use of space in a modular system, plus there were power issues. The module was never produced but I built a mock-up for the picture. It's not something I kept and is probably in a box over at the office somewhere. In 2017 the Q114 number was used for the Mixer++ module.

As part of the Q960 Sequencer project I designed a patchable trigger bus module and numbered it Q964. It was never in full production but there might have been a handful built. I have one in the prototype system.

I needed a patchable comparator for an experiment in 2007 and hand-built a simple comparator on a single-wide panel. It has a paper face. This wasn't something that was going to go into production as-is, but eventually I designed the Q156 Comparator/Mixer/LFO/VCA module with that function on it. I loaned it to a few customers to tinker with.

Before launching the modular controller product line I considered offering a pitch/modulation wheel controller to match our original QKB15S keyboard. I had a walnut cabinet made and mocked-up a face plate but there was never a working prototype.

Colored Synths

Over the years I've built several colored custom systems for fun. These were panels I spray painted by hand before the normal silkscreen printing process, then put in custom cabinetry.

The first was the Purple Synth, sometimes called BarneyCom on the forums. It had a 22-space portable cabinet with grey vinyl. It was sold and has changed hands many times so I'm not sure where it is right now. See the Purple synth's web page.

Next was the blue synth with custom 10 space walnut cabinets - I have it. See the Blue synth's web page.

And lastly I built one with red modules in mostly standard portable cabinets along with some custom base cabinets. The red synth is my main system and has a lot of ++ series modules. See the Red synth's web page.

I also have a large studio system I used to test prototypes since the late '90s. See the proto synth's web page.

MOK - Meeting of the Knobs

There use to be web pages for these meetups with a lot of pictures but apparently they didn't survive the 2021 website redesign. I have the originals and will consider making a page to document and preserve them.

In 2002 I organized the first MOK in Bedford Texas at the library. It was a hit and there were lots of vintage and new systems represented along with folks from all around the country.

In 2009 there was a second MOK with equal success.

The Move to Tyler Texas 2004

In 2003 we found a house in Tyler Texas after visiting here at a bed-and-breakfast. For years I'd looked for an area with less population density and finally found everything I wanted in Tyler. About 100k people. Luckily it didn't take long to convince Margo, and the kids had no choice in the matter :).

I spent weekends remodeling a house but had trouble finding a place for the business. One day I found a metal building on the East side of town and it was about 80% of what I needed, but time was running out so I went for it. It took several months on the weekends to build walls and get the place in shape for the move. During that time I remember getting into a spider web and my eye swelling shut, it was very scary because I was alone.

In June of 2004 we moved the entire business, one trailer at a time, one UHaul at a time. There was a precision plan to keep everything running while this happened and it was a lot of work. It's been a great quality-of-life out here. Some of our employees moved with us and many didn't. Many of our employees came from UT Tyler's Engineering program and the local community college which is one of the biggest in Texas.

Q960 Sequencer Introduction 2005

In 2005 I was petitioned by customers to recreate the Moog 960 sequencer module because it had a skip feature that my Q119 didn't. Making copies of existing modules was never part of my plan, and certainly not as fun as doing my own thing. So, I setup a pre-order program for it to see how many were really willing to purchase one - there were plenty. Pre-orders are something I didn't normally do because I don't ever want to be unable to deliver like so many other companies in this industry.

The sequencer was a faithful recreation of Moog's 960 functionally and appearance-wise, including incandescent lamps and SwitchCraft push-buttons, but the circuitry was redesigned for ease-of manufacturing. A few new features were added such as a 4th hidden 'reset' mode for each step. I did it without using a microprocessor.

I used Moog original module numbers and added a 'Q' to them like our other products. Included with the Q960 sequencer was the Q962 Switch module which converts the 8-step Q960 into 24-steps, and the Q961 interface module which combined gates (Moog called them triggers). The project was a lot of work and a huge success.

Here's a picture of the Q962 Switch prototype PCB, and here's a picture of one of the first production modules signed by AA. 2005.

This project has a larger back-story so I made a page exclusively for the history of the Q960 sequencer.

SynthInvent System Creation Software 2008

Around February 2008 I launched SynthInvent which was a software tool to graphical build a synthesizer by dragging and dropping modules and cabinets. It ran on Windows, and under Mac with emulation. I wrote it in Visual Basic because I couldn't deal with the terrible 'standards' of a rich web app of that era. It took around 300 hours of coding in the evenings over 6 months. The last update I did to SynthInvent was to add some new modules, somewhere around 2019.

I tried for years to get someone else to write this and had at least 3 false starts. One iteration was code-named "Synth Mason". It's a fairly difficult app.

The Wiki 2005

In 2005 there was a Wiki which was a gathering place for synthesizer knowledge, often from customers. It would have been pretty good but it used publicly-available code and got hacked by spammers. This is why I hate to maintain products I didn't design. I needed to take something off my DoList and decided it wasn't worth the battle. It's probably out there somewhere on the web archives. Here's a shot of it in October 2005 -

Yahoo Group

Jason D. created a Yahoo group for Synthesizers.com on Apr 11, 2001 and it did well for many years. Total membership was somewhere around 2000. Traffic eventually died out as Facebook took over starting around 2010. I'm not sure if there's an archive of this forum, if you know then send me a message.

Facebook 2010

Around 2010 I started a group on Facebook called "Friends of Synthesizers.com" and it became the primary public forum. Some people didn't want to get into the Facebook matrix but most eventually did. It was very good because it was easier to add pictures unlike the Yahoo group. After the sale in 2018 I managed the group for about a year then stopped. The last time I checked it had about 8000 members. Here's a real early snapshot of it with only 40 members.

Website Redesign 2014

In late 2014 I launched a massive ground-up website redesign. It took almost a year. News on the front page, easy to navigate to products on the left column, links to social media, QFind at the top, and NO POPUPS!

The challenge was making a huge amount of complicated data approachable, it was a major undertaking. I wrote all of the html, css, php and javascript from scratch in notepad++ - that's the way I do it - get off my lawn! :) The previous web design had lasted 14 years. I'm very proud of how it turned out. Here's before and after:

QFind 2014

QFind is a smart AI-ish kinda search tool I wrote in PHP in 2014. There was a modest-looking search box in the upper right of the website to use QFind. QFind knows the domain of Synthesizers.com information an uses some pre-calculated results along with general search. QFind didn't survive the post-sale website rebuild from what I can tell.

Tutorial Videos 2015

Videos have always been something I wanted and NEEDED to do so in 2015 I gathered enough space, equipment and courage to try. Let me tell you, this was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Nothing felt natural about it, and the noises and interruptions were so distracting. Often I'd get set up, and psyched up, and during the first sentence the UPS truck would drive up and rattle the whole building, or a loud motorcycle would drive down the street, or the AC would come on. Sometimes my brain would just freeze when the camera came on. I think most of the problem was my inability to focus when there were potential interruptions and other people around. Some days I'd do the same take over and over and never get it right. It really took a long time to become relaxed enough and for it to feel semi-natural. Eventually we got our lighting and camera and synth setup setup well enough that I could turn on everything myself without someone in the room, that helped a lot.

My primary goal with videos was to deliver as much technical product information as possible in as little time as possible. No long introductions, just the data. Personally, I can't stand long videos with lengthy introductions and an abundance of words my brain has to filter out. :) I really didn't even care if they were fun to watch either, I just wanted to provide info quickly, then maybe in time I could get better enough to make them semi-enjoyable. So the first videos came out ok, and delivered the info, but they were very scripted and unnatural for me, and probably the viewer too. Then I started getting better at ad-lib'ing and learning that some sections could be fixed in editing. If you'll watch, you'll see that I do many videos from beginning to end without any stops, but I didn't need to do that.

Anyway, I'm very pleased with the outcome and have gotten some good feedback on it. I feel like it's a semi-major life accomplishment to become a little more natural on camera. The last video I did was probably the Q169 Oscillator++ module in 2021.

Here's the Youtube channel for Synthesizers.com
I hope it stays up but this isn't something I control.

Moog Modular Re-Introduction 2015

In January of 2015 Moog Music announced the re-introduction of the Moog Modular. I always knew this was a possibility, even a likelyhood. At the time I put my thoughts on a web page. As of 2023 that page is still there although a little miss-formatted from a website rebuild. If it becomes unavailable in the future I will reprint it here.

In summary, this ended up not being a problem for Synthesizers.com. The availability of exact recreations of the original Moog modular was exactly what some customers wanted and many new people were brought into the market. I think this also gave many potential customers a reason to explore all the options which benefited Synthesizers.com and modular synthesis in general.

Overall, 2015 was an exceptionally good year for Synthesizers.com and I suspect for Moog Music too, and for customers. This was truly a win-win-win situation.

Wall of Modules

Around 2015 I decided to use some blank wall space in our office hallway to showcase our module offering. We attached a framework of 1x3 and mounted each of the module front panels all built-up but no circuitry. We kept adding modules until about 2017.

Side Door

We had a vinyl graphic printed of the very popular Q167 LFO++ module for our side door just for random fun.

Business Cards

I'm easily bored with doing things the normal approved way and this can be seen in my business cards. The first one here can be folded into a Studio 66 system The second one is a synthesizer circuit including an envelope generator and an LFO. At one time I had a business card-shaped CD that had the entire Synthesizers.com website on it, I'll keep hunting for that.

If You Can Afford A Truck Meme

Somewhere around 2000 I made a meme from a 1978 MITS computer ad in an old computer magazine, maybe Byte. It had an interesting tag line "If your company can afford a pick-up, you can afford your own computer". So I photoshopped that with our 22-space studio synthesizer in place of the computer. If you'll look closely the side of the truck says "Roger's Synths". This meme has made the rounds on forums and social media for decades.

Christmas Tree

Sometimes we did a synthtree at the office for Christmas.

Maker Faire and the Rotating Cube Synthesizer

We attended the Tyler Texas Maker Faire in 2013 and showed some robotics along with a studio 88 system. The mayor played it and got on TV :)

In 2016 we did the Maker faire again but this time we made a cool rotating synthesizer for people to play with. Basically 4 sides of 8 module spaces each for a total of 32 spaces. It has a built-in amplifier with a speaker on top and a slip ring for the power. Lots of fun! The 3rd and 6th pictures are James Allen.

Customers

This section is going to be impossible to do justice to. There are thousands of customers and so much music created with Synthesizers.com systems over 2+ decades.

A few notable mentions include Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater, Anthony Gonzalez of M83, Joe Walsh, Steve Roach, Paca Thomas, David Crowder Band (the 6 pictures below in that order). Also Chromeo, Erik Norlander, Greg Giuffria, Angelo Metz, LCD SoundSystem, Mark Isham and so many others you would recognize. But honestly my favorite is the huge mass of people who just play these systems for fun and to make great music that you wouldn't hear on the radio. It's truly mind-boggling - here are just a few: customers     more customers.

The Snow System

Over 20 years plenty of interesting stories happen and here's one. A customer in Germany had his house broken in to and among the items stolen was his large modular synthesizer. But he found the tilted cabinet laying in the snow outside apparently because it was just too big to haul off. Other pieces such as the top cabinet were gone though.

Giant Systems

The biggest system we offered as a standard product was the Studio 110. It has a 44-space tilted cabinet on top, then a 22-space cabinet, then a 44-space tilted cabinet inverted on the top for a grand total of 110 front module spaces. BUT, the typical way a system is built is piece-meal, one cabinet and one module at a time, and over time these systems can become H-U-G-E.

So, if you have a giant system, take a picture of it, with you included preferably, and send it to me at
Roger AT Arrick DOT com so I can post it here.

Magazines and TV

We got several random appearances in print and on TV over the years.

Image 5 is an article I wrote about Gates and Triggers. I had plans to write a series but the contract was something I couldn't live with so I never signed it and never got paid.

Sale to James 2018

James Allen is a graduate of the University of Texas at Tyler's Engineering program and an employee for several years. He did everything from assembly to purchasing, built test fixtures, made drawings, fixed the AC and so much more. James is the kind of guy who can do anything including reading my mind when it's necessary, and that's every business-owner's dream. We talked about the sale for around a year and after many months of hard work James worked out all the details. James was uniquely capable of running the business and my confidence was very high he could do better than other options that had been brewing. Not only is James competent, he is extremely reliable and earned my trust over many years of service.

The business sale was finalized on October 31, 2018, my 57th birthday. I drove my '68 Mustang to the closing and it was a huge change in life that I always knew would come. It was quite an adjustment to switch from having all that responsibility for so many decades. The sale was very simple and it was a single clean transaction.

After the sale James set out a plan to change the website to online-ordering and to automate some other administrative tasks, something I never had the passion to do. After the sale I continued to run the Facebook group for about a year and developed a few more products as a contractor. Products included several modules culminating in the Q169 Oscillator++ in late 2021.

Here are the products I designed after the sale:
Q155 Curver module,
Q156 Comparator module,
Q158 VCA2++ module,
Q163 Eurorack adapter,
Q165 Prototype module and board,
Q169 Oscillator++ module and Q168 Aid module

The Last Product I Designed

The last product I designed was the Q169 Oscillator++ and the Q168 aid module for it. I finished near the end of 2021.

Q169 is a pair of VCOs with VCAs that can be cross-modulated in various ways - AM, FM, PWM. There's a built-in envelope generator, LFO, Sample&Hold, Noise - lots of stuff in one package. This cross-modulated dual oscillator was an idea I'd been kicking around for years. The main challenge was making the panel layout logical and approachable for such a huge array of functions.

Q169 was the only module I designed with a triple-wide panel. The PCB is called QFUN3 because it's a collection of separate circuit functions that can be reconfigured in many different ways.

The panel, circuitry, PCB layout, data sheet, production documents and videos took about 1 year total to complete. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Before the Q169 I designed, in reverse order -
Q165 Prototype board,
Q163 Euroack Adapter,
Q156 Comparator module,
Q158 VCA2++ module,
Q155 Curver module,
Q170 MIDI Gates module,
TB22++ Thought Box system,
Q157 SH++ module,
Q114 Mixer++ module,
Q106A VCO module,
Q148 VCA++ module,
Q107A Filter module.

The Beginning

This story is a new beginning for everyone involved. Cheers to all customers, all employees, all vendors and all onlookers.

Walkthrough Video 2018

Here's a 15min walkthrough of the Synthesizers.com building in 2018.

Gallery

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