User Reviews

I Dream Of Wires is an independent documentary about the history, demise and resurgence of the modular synthesizer. It features interviews with modular musicians, inventors and enthusiasts, including Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Gary Numan, Vince Clarke (Erasure), Morton Subotnick, Chris Carter (Throbbing Gristle), Daniel Miller, Carl Craig, Flood, Cevin Key (Skinny Puppy), James Holden, Factory Floor, Legowelt, Clark, John Foxx and Bernie Krause and more. I enjoyed this documentary a lot.

Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., OAKLAND, California. Not Berkeley. Why show an aerial of UC Berkeley, and then move to introducing Buchla at Mills? Pick one. But, in any case, Mills is in Oakland. If you can't get the physical location right, what else does your film get wrong?

Previous reviewer has mentioned your complete lack of the British people and instruments, so I'll only support them. You have a mention of how the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, ELP, etc., had synthesizers. How did these British musicians all find synthesizers if there were not British influences? Again, if your film makes such huge omissions, what else is missing?

Also, if not for Wendy Carlos, "Switched-On Bach," her score for, "A Clockwork Orange," and the popularization of electronic music, we may not have seen the proliferation of synthesizers and electronic music. But, you do her a disservice by only allowing critiques of, "Switched-On Bach." She continued to widen the vocabulary of electronic music throughout her life and remains a pioneer.

Granted, you are trying to tell the story of the beginning, but your basic factual errors and omissions became distracting to this viewer and put this film's veracity into question.

I stayed up late last night and finally watched this documentary on Netflix, an awesome look at the history of the modular synthesizer. I loved the focus on the academic origins of the modular, the East Coast (Moog, commercial) vs. West Coast (Buchla, artistic) philosophies, and the recent resurgence of modular thanks to EuroRack. I felt that a couple of things were lacking: 1) A mention of Bebe and Louis Barron's groundbreaking 1956 Forbidden Planet soundtrack, for which they created their own electronic circuits that completely avoided the use of oscillators, as part of their own school of thought, years before Buchla and Moog: "The circuit is a wild, living thing that should never be tamed. Oscillators tame the circuit and take the life and breath out of the sound." (I'm paraphrasing from a Keyboard interview) 2) They briefly mentioned softsynths, in a negative way, but completely failed to cover virtual analog hardware, as pioneered in the Nord Lead. The Nord was responsible for bringing KNOBS back to synthesizers, after the love affair with all-digital synths faded, but it was done using digital technology that faithfully reproduced analog components, with the added benefits of lower cost, higher polyphony and more control and modulation possibilities. The Nord Modular, especially its G2X version, is in my opinion the most programmable, playable and reliable synth ever made. Contrary to what they say about softsynths (this is a hardware-based softsynth), I frequently get lost for hours in programming and playing the G2X, it's immersive and endlessly fascinating, with a gorgeous sound and unlimited identities. It's the only instrument I play onstage.

For one involved in this endeavour from the beginning; I am surprised to say the least how one sided this film is. Sure there are a few Brits, new kids on the block giving their six penny worth... but nothing of the HUGE contribution we made. The work of the Radiophonic workshop at the BBC founded in 1958, the contributors of which are legendary, so forgive me for mentioning the more famous ones the late Daphne Oram & Delia Derbyshire, co creator of probably the first commercially successful piece of Electronica; The Dr Who theme. The Musys studio in the 60's founded by father & daughter team the Zinovieff's; who later helped form EMS. They in turn built many innovate synths, large and small for the European market and kick started German interest, but barely got a mention. These were our hero's and quite independent of the rumblings the other side of the pond.

We were aware of Moog , but more his filter, a variation of which EMS had already developed. So much so that a friend owned the Moog rights outright in the UK until recently, when Don Buchla also came into public consciousness. There was no internet then and American music was not very popular, yet they failed to mention those that were; Phillip Glass, Terry Reilly, not to mention Tontos Expanding Headband. The US analogue synth industry crashed and burned in the early Eighties with the use of digital, in part trying to overcome Moogs filter patent and stability/tuning issues.

Then there was the influx of cheap Japanese gear, only notable for FM synthesis and the work of an American inventor. Fast forward to the notion that American company reintroduced the modular synth in 98, which Doepfer and British company Analogue Systems were doing in Eurorack format from the early nineties. The truth is out there... but at least good because analogue is back!

The way the director shows us history of modular synths is awesome! People on screen are totally happy with their obsession and their happiness is contagious! So watching them telling stories and describing their gear is so much inspiring. I don't care much about historical spaces mentioned in other reviews cause in my impression the whole point of this film was to share that absolutely crazy obsession with modular sound tools and watching that happy people made me happier ;) I remember myself couldn't stop smiling while watching this film.

For anyone actively involved in synthesizers be it modular,rack mounted,keyboards,plug ins/outs new or vintage on any level will find this doc amateurish and incomplete. Hard to believe that this film was red lighted and budgeted with such an unprofessional script and production values.

There are HUGE gaping holes and flaws in the timeline of the development of synthesis.

Not one mention of The ondes martenot,Mellotron, Erkki Kurenniemi - who always forgotten in these discussions, Raymond Scott, Daphne Oram,EMS synthi, Delia Derbyshire,The BBC radiophonic workshop,Kid Baltan and Tom Dissevelt and the Dutch hardware inventions/ contributions, Tod Dockstader & James Reichert and all of the soviet synths etc.

Just shameful omissions that exemplify a hasty hack job created by someone's trust fund.

If you have no knowledge of who Bob Moog or Don Buchla are then I suppose it is a very primitive poorly constructed primer,beyond that there is not much here for the real heads AVOID!

Tedious and awful. Almost unwatchably boring. A bunch of old guys relishing the old days with very little to say. Visually it is 1.5 hours of still pictures of knobs, wires, and racks of electronic equipment cut with 70 year old men talking. The whole idea is how great synthesizers are and how they impacted modern music, but no modern music is played or featured, They did not or could not buy the rights to any music to make this doc prove its point. A dull, goofy, bleepy, blurpy interstitial series of synth sounds accompanies the entire thing, but when they talk about a use of the synth, they never play the actual popular music or any kind of example. This is one of the absolute worst documentaries I have ever seen, and I came into it with an appreciation and interest in the subject. This should have been shelved and never released for lack of purpose and lack of the proper resources to pull off the project. I was in shock at how incredibly dull this was.

Took the low hanging fruit for on camera guests. huge, HUGE swaths of women inventors and artists completely missing here. shameful, really. still, if you're 18, and trying to figure out stuff, this is a decent entry. but, if you are, this is only a tiny step. keep looking around...