By Dave Wilson, curator of the New England Synthesizer Museum.

Dave Wilson

My dad taught me how to solder when I was seven, and how to program a computer in assembly language when I was 12. Both of these skills have helped me in my synthesizer work. I compose and perform as well as maintaining the machines; I have perfect pitch, which is very useful when calibrating synthesizers. When acquiring machines for the Museum, I use a technique that is half Doctor Who and half Xena, the Warrior Princess.

I would really like to publish a CD-ROM with factual information on EVERY synthesizer that has ever exsisted, including front and rear panel layouts, and schematics. Someone is already doing something similar, so I may not have to, if they're thorough enough. Another thing I would like to do is record EVERY piece of music known to man in MIDI format and release it on several CD-ROMs. Gregorian Chant, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, all the way up to just where the copyright law would kick in. Finally, I have a dream of building a large analog modular synthesizer that was entirely digitally implemented, giving it full patching capability with patch memory, and allowing multitimberal operation as well. It would read the Sysex data of any other synthesizer and perform just like it. I would also like to find a wife. These are just my dreams right now, but some day, who knows...