Synth Renaissance: Why did modular synths dominate in 2024?
Ever since Dr Robert Moog unveiled his first commercially available namesake synthesiser in 1964, the mystical box of knobs, keys, and wires has had a funny habit of falling in and out of vogue.
Associated with prog excess not long after its release from the likes of Rick Wakeman or Keith Emerson’s bloviated wizardry or cheapened 30 years later as a novel toy during the indie twee of the late 2000s, when synths appear to lose their magic in come a Kraftwerk paving the foundations for the synthpop explosion of the early 1980s, or the wave of minimal-synth revivalists that congregated at Brooklyn’s Wierd Records parties that flourished into the 2010s.
The modular synth resurgence is currently seizing the electronic music world, but it looks set to stay this time around. After the initial intriguing developments in production software such as Cubase, Reason, or Albeton, the alluring mystique of the synthesiser immediately beckoned a generation of hardware hobbyists and artists eager to explore the sonic possibilities wrought from the over 16,000 Eurorack modules available to configure at will.
“Loads of people came into making electronic music via the computer,” southwest synth festival Machina Bristronica co-founder Ben Chilton told The Guardian earlier this year. “People sold their synths when computers were exciting, and after a few years they’ve been yearning for something they can touch… The ability to shape sounds on the fly in a performance, rather than feeling like you’re programming a machine, is behind the resurgence of synth hardware.”
Fuelled as much by synthesists kicking themselves for selling their old analogue gear during their foolhardy embrace of digital as much as budding musicians entering the world of electronic music for the first time, the reverence for synths as an instrument to be learnt and wielded has appeal over the unglamorous practice of laptop beat making.
With a pop climate still yet to shake off the EDM and dance-pop residue of point-and-click supersets. Soft Cell‘s Dave Ball welcomed the return of synth’s magic: “I think it’s great that people are rediscovering what synthesisers are actually about. A lot of people get music software, think ‘that’s easy’, and end up making something that sounds like Calvin Harris. Which is nothing to be proud of.”
There’s also greater accessibility to the parts required. While supply-chain issues threatened by Chinese tariffs in Trump’s upcoming administration are precariously awaited by major synth manufacturers, currently, for specific module components has never been easier. “The barriers are much lower,” former Mixmag editor and Music Thing Modular owner Tom Whitwell told The Guardian. “I can design something, send a couple of files to Shenzhen, then three weeks later these magic circuit boards will turn up for £25. It means you can try weirder and weirder things for very little risk.”
Ultimately, synths are fun. Computers will always be cheaper, easier, more intuitive, and infinitely more portable, but the tactility and hands-on generation of electronic tonalities will always inspire over the uniform layout of music software. Legend has it that Brian Eno refused to repair a broken EMS VCS because he simply liked the weird, happy accident noises it made. It’s hard to envisage the same level of affection for a bust-up laptop.
