Synthesizers
Tom Steuckert is a veteran of the music industry having served as store manager at Union Grove Music in Santa Cruz, a road rep and sales manager. His career began when he helped assemble synthesizers for Dave Smith at Sequential Circuits in the early 1980s. Tom later owned his own store in Half...
Pauline Oliveros pioneered composing music using electronic instruments. She recorded both with the Moog and Buchla synthesizers as well as the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing unit she designed. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the...
Malcolm Cecil was the engineer and product designer behind the famous synthesizer known as TONTO! TONTO is the acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra," the first, and still the largest, multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world, designed and constructed over several years....
Roger Kraft was a pioneer in the retailing of electronic musical instruments such as keyboards and synthesizers in the 1980s. Many may recall the days of keyboard stores throughout the United States in the early days of MIDI, when innovative keyboards were the craze. With a background in...
Stevie Wonder has earned the title of the "Mayor of the NAMM Show" for his countless visits to the show floor over the years. He has become an important part of the music products industry not only in promoting new technologies, but in working with companies to design and improve instruments. ...
Jason Miles is the musician and composer who took advantage of the developing synthesizer technology in the 1970s and 80s to create unique sounds for such artists as Chaka Khan, Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin. In the 1980s, Jason played an important role within New York recording studios by...
Casey Young has designed synthesizers and programed electronic instruments for a string of albums and movies over his long career. As a keyboardist in the late 60s, Casey found it easy and natural to explore the exciting new developments in electronic musical instruments. As a result he began...
Greg Phillinganes reminds one of a chameleon with his innate ability to perfectly blend into any musical situation or setting. While still a teenager, Greg had the opportunity to join Steve Wonder’s Wonderlove band. This opportunity would help shape Greg’s musicality, giving him exposure to and the...
Patrice Rushen has forged many in roads in the music industry. While Patrice got her start recording as an accomplished jazz pianist, she soon branched out into many other genres including pop and R&B. Along the way, Patrice took her passion for composing and arranging into the TV and Film...
Suzanne Ciani played a key role in the early awareness and usage of electronic musical instruments into pop music, film and even the stage. She was experimenting with electronic musical instruments long before many other performers, male or female. When she began composing on the Buchla...