Review of I Dream of Wires (2014) by Jeff S — 25 Jan 2016

Good movie, but it's completely disingenuous for Trent Reznor to badmouth cheap Japanese synthesizers since he earned millions for Pretty Hate Machine using Turbosound and an Emu Emax -- a pretty minimalist, inexpensive setup.

Sure, there are nice features to modular analog equipment, but there's also new sonic territory being explored with digital synthesizers and software synths. Two examples of sonic areas that modular synthesizers can't touch:

1) Reaktor is a construction kit that allows users to make whatever device they can imagine, or for the noob, they can download thousands of musical devices that others have created.

2) IRIS works with any sound to make it playable, and expressive using a plethora of controls.

ALSO the movie ignored the major drawback to both modular and eurorack modular gear -- most of these systems are MONOPHONIC. Sorry, boys, but I play keyboards with 2 HANDS so polyphony is one of the requirements of my songwriting. As Rich Hilton (of Nile Rodgers' studio and band) says, "They're machines that go Bleep and Bloop".