Get to Know: Synth Library

0:00WNYC Studios is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the cost's at up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at odo.com. That's odo.com. No, that's not the Brian Laershow theme. It's a little electronic or synth music. As now we conclude our Pledge Drive mini-series and some of the lesser known music worlds of New York City, not those top of the charts types of music, but some of the music scenes and genres that could maybe only be found in a city like ours that's such a magnet for artists of all types.

1:01We've been hearing about some of these niche music communities and how you can get involved as an artist or listener and how they make it work in this expensive city when you're not making pop charts kind of art. Our guess for today to wrap it up is Heidi Sabertooth and New York City-based singer, multi-instrumentalist, DJ producer and co-founder of synth library New York. An organization dedicated to giving what they call equal access to the means of production. Heidi, welcome to the Brian Laershow. Oh, what an honor to be on your show. Thank you so much. And an honor to have you. And I'll say electronic music is such a broad term. It can be synth versions of Bach like that old hit album from the 1960s. It can be EDM electronic dance music of recent years. It can be the evolution of keyboards from regular pianos to the electronic keyboards that can sound like any instrument. It can be more heady, experimental music. What's your synth library about?

2:02Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, you know, synths are really everywhere and synths is sort of the keyword term that we use. But our library is really one where we focus on everything electronic, right? Everything that from even the simple microphone to a standard synth that you think about with the keyboard as well as the fancier modulars and really breaking down the components. And we try to have a broad tent to meet all the broad interests of that we know exists within the synth community. As you say on your website, equal access to the means of production is the key to making our music community more diverse and welcoming, unquote. So is that because equipment tends to be prohibitively expensive? Absolutely. You know, some of these synthesizers are $1,000 plus dollars and I know for my own personal experience when I was getting into this, you know, I would meet a lot of stupid, I would scrimp and save to get my first synthesizer and then find out it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

3:03And so, you know, when we were looking at a library and the library concept and gear sharing, it's really about, you know, the rethinking who has access to electronic music production. And this is like the first of its kind in New York City and instrument lending library, you actually get to take a synthesizer home into your home for a month at a time for free. And it really does remove one of the biggest barriers to entry, which is the high cost of the equipment. Let's hear another sample of music. So this is what people might have thought of as synthesizer music. And I don't know, 1970 or something, what is that? Well, you know, I thought it would be cool to showcase a live clip from one of our recent workshops where our artist and resident led library members

4:04in an exercise to create like a new landscape with sounds from synthesizers. And I think what they kind of thought was maybe it was birds or wind. But yeah, it's like another part of what we do. Besides just having people take the synth home, which is a huge part, we also have opportunities for people to come together and skill share and create and discover. Because, you know, when you're learning an isolation, you could, you know, we have YouTube. You can watch it tutorial. You can learn at home. But there's something different that happens when you have a collective and you have a social opportunity to learn together. And that's also a huge part of our library, especially in this day when everyone's isolated. And, you know, we need those kind of things to bring us together, right? Yeah. And you said the name of that track after we faded it, bird and wind. Let's hear a little again. So you can hear the birds and the wind implied there.

5:12How do you deal with the issue of synthesizers' ability to put human musicians out of work? This has been an issue in Broadway musicians' labor negotiations, for example. Well, I think that's why the synth library is so key right now. I think there's been a real resurgence in getting down to the basics. How is this sound being generated by electricity? Yeah, right now, I could probably ask AI to make a music track for me. Like, is that going to help me in any way? I think people are very interested in the tactile experience, like learning an instrument as a discipline. What kind of things do I gain from that experience? You know, confidence, self-discovery, mathematics even. You know, like I said, we have a broad tent. You have people who come to synths with just the pure artistic they want to find a voice. Then you have the people who are on the technical side, the programming, the sequencing, like the engineering side. And then you have the builders who just want to mess with electric current and get the soldering iron out there.

6:13So synths are really a space that can bring together such a diverse group of learners and really make us better, I think. So how can people access synth library in New York and then we'll go out with one more track? Thanks. So right now you can go to synthlibrarynyc.org and you can click get involved, join. And we have about 900 members. We do have 500 people on the waiting list. We are 100% volunteer run if you can imagine still. So, but we are growing all the time. And so if also we're, you know, just like you are looking for donations. So if you find yourself on the website and you want to click the donate button, we always like that too. Heidi Sabertooth, co-founder of synthlibrary. And as we co-up this last track, is this by you? I think it is, yes. The same, the same one that we came in with.

7:14What's it called? It is called, actually, I forgot which track I submit. I believe it was at you. And it does feature a synthesizer from 1982, the SH-101, very classic synth. Here we go. Thanks, Heidi. Thanks. And coming up on all of it, here about the New York Public Library, is new exhibit about the golden age of magicians like Harry Houdini. They have the stars of the new play, The Monsters and more. Coming up with Allison Stewart and all of it, right after the latest news. And thanks for listening to The Brain Lair Show today. Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs.

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