Author: Marc Weidenbaum

As I joked last week, while there is a movie about synthesizers titled I Dream of Wires, the truth of the matter is closer to the notion that I can’t sleep because I can’t stop thinking about wires. This is true such that I need to cut off using my synthesizers by the time dinner starts. If I go much later, then ideas start forming in my head — cue the Time Bandits memes — that are hard to shut off, much harder to shut off than is a synthesizer itself. The many little lights and screens on my synth fade and go dark, but the ideas linger.

What if I limit signal W such that signal X fluctuates at a slower pace? What if I route sound Y into my laptop, so I can process it before sending it back out to my synth to become sound Z? Should I take the time to remove module A from my synth so I can tweak the jumper settings, thus altering the underlying sonic physics of what it is capable of? Wow, what if I split signal B into signals C and D and do slightly different things to them and then recombine them? Why isn’t module E connecting to module F the way I expected it to?

This last one is a very recent and real example. I have a module E that I have set up to process inputs from my guitar, which we’ll call instrument G. It turns out that module E has only four inputs, and I need six, which is where module F comes in. I checked in on two different forums, and people were both certain but not entirely certain about the answer. I subsequently read a heap of posts on various other forums, none of which precisely answered my quite precise question.

I should pause here and say that if this sounds draining, if it sounds like exactly why you don’t want to use synthesizers, then please don’t; however, to be clear, I find it fascinating and educational and enjoyable.

This time around, I went so far as to email the creator of both module E and F to get a sense of how they are intended to connect. I promised the creator of those modules that I would eventually write a blog post about my employment of the modules, so that a specific answer to my question — by no means an esoteric question, not within the confines of the esoteric-ish realm in which I was asking it, a realm that once you’re in it no longer feels esoteric — would eventually likely become searchable on the internet. I received a helpful response. I now understand how modules E and F connect.

How synthesizer thinking keeps me up at night isn’t how playing guitar is for me. I can practice right up until I put my head down on my pillow, and I sleep fine. This isn’t how writing is for me. I can write until late — though I generally don’t, though I will jot down ideas quite close to bedtime, and do so almost nightly — and I can still sleep fine. The ideas I jot down are just that, possibilities I want to explore, much as the wiring of my synthesizers are manifestations of ideas. But writing out ideas doesn’t impact my ability to sleep — writing this very post won’t impact my ability to sleep — whereas with synthesizers there is a direct correlation between fiddling with them too late, and not being able to sleep. I don’t understand the distinction. I’m not sure I ever will.