A ‘monster synth’ may be defined as one so large the player is at risk of being crushed to death if it topples over. One specimen of the monster synth actually lives: it was built by Siegfried Brückner from Germany. It is, in a word, awesome to view and hear.

 

Younger Elektor readers may not know that the Elektor Formant is a Moog-ish DIY synthesizer presented in Elektor in several episodes way back in 1977 and replicated as fantastic project by an extraordinary number of people at the time, complete with many extensions. Most Elektor readers at the time struggled with just one Formant on their hands, but recently Siegfried Brueckner set a world record by paralleling a large number of Formants to the length of wall. The results of Siegfried’s exertion is unlikely to be surpassed.

 

A description of the Formant project can be found Synthmuseum.com. Following a successful installment in the Retronics series in Elektor magazine, the original Formant book can be downloaded free of charge from the Elektor website. Also, Elektor editor and musical maestro Denis Meyer can be seen and heard playing a Formant synth in the dungeon cellars of Elektor castle.