Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “London Synth & Pedal Expo 2024 Review”.
Hello, I’m Robin and welcome to molter music technology over the weekend 16th and 17th of March was the London synth and pedal Expo. It was held in hackneywick, studio 9294, a fantastic location next to the canal, the river long boats kind of like the Hackney Riviera. I think it’s known as it was in a nice big Studio space with all sorts of different corridors and bits and pieces to it. It was larger and more Airy than last year last year was a bit intense to be fair. It was squashed and busy, and a little bit kind of I can only stay here for 5 minutes before I really need to leave this year was far far better, and I just want to take a few moments just to express why.
I think that this particular show is really important. Now you may know that I run my own show. I run synth East up here in Norwich and, of course, that particular show is, is just the most perfect combination of synthesizers modular performance, Artistry, Community creativity and everything that you could possibly dream of in one show, so I’m not remotely bias when it comes to looking At other people’s attempts to do some kind of show not in the slightest. However, I came down rode down on my motorcycle to the show in London on Saturday, and it was was really very interesting, and I think I’ve had a little bit of an epiphany perhaps as to why a show like this is is important and why it’s different And why these all of these sorts of things, whether it’s it’s synthes, synth, Fest, super booth and the London pedal and synth Expo these things all need to exist and they can and they complement each other and they do different things and allow for different things and Encourage different groups of people – and I think that’s something that I realized after being there uh this Saturday – is that these things are different and need to be. What am I talking about? Well, I mean take synth East right. Synth East.
Is it’s a festival? It’S a celebration of synthesizers. The sort of people who come are largely the converted, they’re, largely the people who are already in that world who are already fiddling with synthesizers love, talking about synthesizers love spending their time with synthesizers and getting their hands into modular stuff, and they love to talk about It and to share in this in this Collective uh, Joy of electronics and music, and it’s all about getting creative, it’s all about performance, it’s all about enjoying everything there is to squeeze out of this sort of synthesizer existence. It’S it’s awesome. It’S great! What’S different about the Lon synthon pedal Expo is that it’s largely talking to the non-believers to the people who haven’t yet Perhaps been caught up in this world who haven’t yet started on their own Journeys into synthesis or into modular, and are there because they’re interested there? Because it’s it’s something to do on a Saturday or a Sunday, and that is quite an important distinction, because something like synth East isn’t necessarily dragging in new people off the street, whereas the London syon Expo absolutely is – and I guess the difference really is because the London, one is free, synth East, you have to buy a ticket, and that really got me thinking, because I mean I’ve always assumed that if it’s free, ah well, people aren’t really going to care they’re just going to turn up and not really mind about it and They’Re not going to be people who really really want to engage with the hardware and actually that’s complete nonsense. What a free event does is it allows people to it allows people to come in and go.
Oh, I wonder what this is about. I’M just going to go and check that out. That could be an interesting time and it’s through those sorts of interactions that we actually get new people coming in to this awesome space of synthesizers and modular cuz. We need these people now very much. The synth Community as a whole supports the manufacturers who make the stuff we buy their stuff.
We love their stuff, we talk about it, we share things about it, we make videos on it and that’s all great, and that is a large chunk of what keeps the business of synthesizers and modular alive uh it’s vital and important, but we also need new people Coming through, and that’s just as important, if not more important, and something like a free event like the London Pand synth show is, is what does that and it’s in the heart of Hackney, I mean it’s packed full of gorgeous beautiful cool and awesome people, creative people, People who are not necessarily watching my channel on YouTube they’re, not necessarily thinking of themselves as synthesizer, nerds or modular Engineers, they’re seeing themselves as creative engaged, interesting people who are out to have a look to see. What’S cool and what’s interesting and modular and synthesis. Definitely is, and this sort of show pulls those people in and those are going to be the market that takes us forward. Those are going to be the people who will support in larger numbers, more development and more possibilities down the line because us synth nerds.
You know we’re relatively small Bunch really and we need to be the manufacturers, the makers of this stuff. They know full well that there’s a limitation on how many modules we are prepared to buy and how much support we can ultimately offer it has to grow. It has to get bigger, we have to pull more people into this exciting world of synthesizers, and the only way to do that is to get eyeballs and fingers on your gear.
Charging for entry isn’t necessarily going to do that, because it requires quite a commitment. It requires someone to decide that that’s something they’re prepared to pay a little bit of money to go along to they may do that later. But to start with with a free event, you know there’s nothing to lose it’s just an hour or two out of your time having a fiddle having a look and it’s those sorts of seeds that are sewn in into that people’s into those people’s psyche.
About this gear and how fascinating and interesting it is, and that’s the massive difference and it’s I I find that a really interesting one and it’s not something that I’ve thought about before, and that is absolutely why that events like this need to exist and that’s not To say that there isn’t Community here that there isn’t music and performance, but there were no. There were no live performances on The Day. The the synth and pedal Expo is very much focused on providing access to the gear for as many people as possible. Coming through the doors I mean there are pros and cons to to the approach you on the one hand it because it’s a free event.
That’S great anyone can come in, but it also makes it quite expensive for the manufacturers CU. They have to pay a lot more for their table because the event ultimately has to break even at the very least, and if not make a little bit of money, whereas if you’re charging entry, then some of that is balanced out by the people paying to come. In so so, in some respects for some manufacturers, it kind of puts it a little bit Out Of Reach, but there is plenty of table sharing and ways around the cost of what it is to to exhibit your stuff. At that event, the other the other factor is the headphones. Only factor I mean that’s, that’s an interesting idea because it definitely keeps the ambient noise down you haven’t, got all these tables competing each other. With these great big and larger speakers is like one of the things that super Booth suffers from is the immense noise, the huge amount of noise going through those corridors when you got modular on either side all kicking out through enormous speakers and you’re trying to have A conversation with somebody, those things are difficult and that’s dealt with by having it being a headphone, only show the flip side.
Of that. You know talking to a few of the manufacturers. There is that they found it difficult to explain their gear, because someone will come along to their table and put their headphones on and and look at things and is anything actually happening? How do you make it happen if it’s a piece of modular, the last person who is there, probably turn a loads of knobs to make it do something completely unhelpful? And so it’s very difficult for you, as a manufacturer, to demo your gear to someone when it’s on headphones. So you know, there’s the sound and the noise on one hand, but then there’s also the explanation on the other and actually, when you’ve got a lot of new people coming in who are seeing this stuff for the first time. Explanation is actually one of the things that you need, so you know it works.
It doesn’t work, it’s good, it’s bad. All of these things are uh are interesting to think about and interesting to talk about, and it’s certainly something that I reflect upon with my own show as to whether headphones are good or bad. Whether we should I mean we have thought about that, because the noise is ultimately is ultimately a thing.
It was really great to see DIY workshops that was running. You know right alongside it was a nicely chilled area where Erica S, I believe, were running the uh uh, the DIY workshops, when I was there and it looked like a really great little setup, a really good way of doing it. What they didn’t have was any any musical performances at all, so the actual making of music was not in evidence, I suppose, but then it was all happening within its own little context on the headphones around each sort of thing, but one thing that I believe synth East does really really well is Peppers the day with performances which gives you this it breaks it up. So it’s not all intense focus on this gear on this table. You have a time of that and then you can sit back and enjoy somebody actually performing and making music with the gear that we’re talking about, and that’s that’s an awesome thing and that’s something that uh the synth and pedal show does not have. But who knows it may be something that they’ll open up to in the future.
So, ultimately, I think the impression that I got from this show is that it was so much better this year it felt much uh, much more calm, it felt less intense and it felt like it was a really great opportunity for people who don’t necessarily brush up Against modular and synthesizers to have a look and to have a go, I mean that connection with the pedals that are in another room. You got synth in one place, pedals in another. That’S a really interesting connection, because both of those things are are kind of. They have their own group of community nerds. You have people who are massively into different pedals and have huge range of pedals and people into their SS and have huge range of synths, and there is a little bit of cross fertilization between between the two uh there’s. A lot more pedals turning up into synthesizer land, and I wonder whether that’s also going the other way.
I spoke to one manufacturer actually who talked about how difficult it is to get eurorack sort of based pedals into the pedal Market, because I guess music shops are not really that interested in having to explain complicated pedals to guitarists. And now I think that does guitarists a disservice, because you know guitarists have always done bizarrely intense and complicated things I think, but in terms of Music shots which are predominantly guitar based. I imagine, having worked in a music shop myself, that they would much rather just sell a boss pedal to someone. That’S uh, you know a one button, one one thing it does its thing: that’s so much more of an easy cell than it is trying to explain and unravel a complex modulating compression based multi- effecting analog, connecting uh pedal to somebody. So I I think, that’s I think, that’s difficult, but hopefully through a show like this, those sorts of boundaries will be broken down so that guitarists will flow easier into combining modular with their stuff, and modular people will flow easier into combining pedals.
I did find the pedal side of the show, far more busy, far busier, far more intense and you know lots of people carrying their guitars because obviously they need to carry that instrument in order to try these things out. So that was pretty pretty chaotic in the pedal side. Synthesizer side was a bit more chilled in comparison, but the guitar Market is so much bigger than the synth market and I think that the synthesizer side of it benefits greatly from people pouring out of the guitar bit. Checking out what the synthesizer stuff is all about, and hopefully getting hooked into it a little bit more so there you go, there’s some rambling thoughts about the London synth and pedal Expo, which it was a good time. It was a good one if you went along.
Do let us know in the comments what you thought of it, how how well you thought it went. What was good, what was bad, you know be honest about it, because it’s it’s really helpful to us. People who run shows to know what it is. That’S working and what it is that, doesn’t I mean po who runs the synth and pedal Expo he’s actually in the in the states and runs it all from there, which I think must be one heck of a job. But I think he responded really really well to the comments from last year in how it was a bit too busy. There was lots of queing outside people waiting hours to get in, which is you know, one of those downsides of having something which is a bit more free and a bit more open, but this year it seemed to work much better. I mean when I got there. I got there in the middle of the day on the Saturday and there was no queue in.
I could walk straight in whereas actually later on, when I was leaving, there was a bit of queuing going on, so they were letting people in as people were coming out. But there was none of the long cues that they had the first year and the venue was was just brilliant far far better than the previous year, and things like this, ultimately, hopefully will just improve year in year out. So I hope that was helpful. I think it’s really good to have all of these shows we need all of them. We need every every side in every shape. We need Community Based ones, we need performance-based ones.
We need ones that are just full of gear that invite new people in to try things out for the first time. We need those new people so long may this sort of thing continue and in the meantime go and make some tunes. .