Welcome to ExperimentalSynth. In this website I curate the videos from my YouTube channel, and mix in a bit more from my other creative outlets. Although some of them are instructional, I don’t consider the videos to be tutorials but rather “inspirationals”.

There are many YouTube channels out there whose videos will teach you synthesizer basics or show you exactly how to get a certain sound or effect. I’ve found my niche in exploring more advanced or esoteric patching, programming and performance techniques. I would encourage you not to try to do things exactly like I do here, but rather use these videos as a jumping off point for exploring further down the road.

– Chris Stack

Sequential Prophet 5 rev4

What’s new? A recent project involved beta testing the new Prophet 5 rev4!

I had a blast putting it through its paces,and of course I shot a few videos while I had it in the studio. [learn more]

Ambient After Midnight :: Facebook Live Streams

Since the current COVID situation started I’ve been exploring Facebook live-streaming as a new medium. I’ve been having a lot of fun and hopefully the listeners have been enjoying my music. Have a listen and see what you think.

DISAMBIGUATION

the newest album from Chris Stack

“Learn what is true in order to do what is right.”
-Thomas Henry Huxley

“Things are more beautiful when they’re obscure.”
-Veda Hille

Disambiguation is an album that lives in the space between these two quotes; between a path informed by clarity and the gauzy beauty of misperceptions, illusions and mistakes. It started out to be an ambient album and still is, but a few less-ambient elements crept in. They seemed to fit, so they stayed. Think of them as palate-cleansers.

It is also an album of hazy borders and full of sounds from a particular environment, somewhere over the hills. It seemed like it was time to stop and gather them all together, so here we are. Enjoy – Chris

RECENT VIDEO

Exploring some of the possibilities on the Sequential Pro 3

FEATURED VIDEOS

Many more videos are available on the ExperimentalSynth YouTube Channel.
Take a look. Currently over 3,600 subscribers and over 1,200,000 total views [go there]

INDUSTRY PROFILES

The Krell Suite on Synth Expert

My album The Krell Suite was inspired by one of Make Noise’s Patch of the Week videos, a demo of their 0-Coast version of that abstract electronic music staple, The Krell Patch.

Based on Louis and Bebe Barron’s ground-breaking soundtrack for the movie Forbidden Planet, a krell patch (usually) uses a modular analog synthesizer to create a self generating soundscape. I used only this patch and Eventide Anthology plug-ins to create the album.
[more on SynthExpert]

IN THE PRESS

Art + Music + Technology Podcast

I was recently interviewed for Darwin Grosse’s podcast series. He has some great interviews in his collection. I’m very proud to be in such good company. [listen here]

Synthtopia

Experimental Synth’s littleBits + Koushion + Ableton Demo – [article here]

The Alesis Andromeda A6 Synthesizer – [article here]

More articles on Synthtopia – [here]

Create Digital Music

Pushing the Guitar, Sound Further, with Moog Minifooger, Eventide H9 Stompboxes – [article here]

Watch iConnectAUDIO4+ Connect Absolutely Everything – [article here]

MatrixSynth

Koushion MIDI Step Sequencer New Features – [article here]

Introducing Jambé Drum Controller & Synthesis – [article here]

More articles on MatrixSynth – [here]

SYNTH AND SOFTWARE

I’ve recently begun creating videos for the new online magazine Synth And Software.

My first video for them explores CV applications on the Korg Minilogue XD. The second shows tips and applications for processing external audio with synthesizers.

Check out the videos and the new magazine. Both will make you smarter.

One From The Vault

Many years before going to work for Moog Music as marketing manager I was a printed circuit board designer. I met Bob Moog in Asheville and wound up doing the PCB design work on his Multi-Touch Keyboard project. Around this time, Bob hosted a presentation called “New Vistas 91”, a look at some then current happenings in avant garde electronic music.

Bob was gracious enough to let me record the presentation on my then new Video 8 camera. The tape was lost for decades, but recently found and digitized. Unfortunately the audio and video quality is not great, but I feel this is very interesting from a historical perspective, and I offer it as such.

A big synthesizer deserves a big video…

These are your tools. They’ll teach you things. They’ll teach you things you don’t even know you want to know. Laurie Anderson

“This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air. Thence I have followed it,
Or it hath drawn me rather. But ’tis gone.
No, it begins again.”

Shakespeare – The Tempest

“We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have, together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet.

We represent small sounds as great and deep; likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly.

“We have also divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it: and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller, and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.”

– Francis Bacon. (1561–1626). The New Atlantis.