Organised by the Australian Music Association (AMA), who recently enjoyed success with the Melbourne Guitar Show, the Melbourne Synth Festival features live music, workshops and seminars, as well as synth equipment for sale. Chief Executive Officer, Rob Walker describes it as a giant pop-up shop.
“We’re featuring all the major suppliers of all of the big brands in making electronic music, synthesizer music, DJing, in a really good boutique exhibition,” he says. “It’s a huge pop-up shop where you can see, try and buy all the latest gear and then you’ve got live music and also an education aspect to it as well.”
After seeing how successful and how much interest there was for the Melbourne Guitar Show, the AMA set out to do something similar but for synth music. As synthesizers are a big part of music these days, they felt that there was enough of a community that would be really interested in having a show like this.
“The electronic music genre is so big now and there’s lots of people producing music in their home and a huge festival scene in this genre of music, we think it could grow for sure,” says Walker.
Synth music is special and important because it allows you to create more music and more sounds. People are creating new genres through these new sounds produced through manipulation of software. At the Melbourne Synth Festival, there will be a display of vintage gear, however what the exhibition is really aiming to do is to showcase the newest products in the synthesizer world and DJ equipment. “Anybody that’s making music electronically and is interested in it is going to get something out of this show,” Walker says. “It seems to be a young dynamic or demographic to me, and you’ve also got a lot of people who’ve spent their careers producing music in studios.”
The festival features workshops and seminars run by industry professionals giving demonstrations of the latest products and what it does. There will also be talks about performing live with electronic dance music and how a live rig is set up, as well as what software applications to use as well.
“If you’re into product, we’ll also be looking at performance-based workshops and where people go with their careers. It’s about the music industry, it’s about making music and looking at all the latest tools and how to do it.”
Punters can also experience live music performed by some of the best local synth artists. It was important to the organisers to try and present the diversity that is created with this music and to showcase a broad spectrum of the creativity that exists.
“I think the Guitar Show really created a community among performers in the music industry and I think this will do the same.”
Walker says that he can see the Melbourne Synth Festival having a second run and being an annual offering. They’ll start modestly and build it up to be a really good event for the electronic music community. But for now, Walker is just looking forward to seeing happy people at the festival, seeing some good live music and having a great day out. He encourages people to come along and check it out.
“Come down and get a really first-hand experience on how the music’s made, what the potential of the equipment is and how good our artists are,” he says. “If you like this genre of music then it’s something that’s really worth coming along to. I think it’s the first time all of the major brands have been in the one place together where people can come and experience that sort of thing too, rather than going from store to store.”
