Of interest to many here I suspect. (Free) viewing schedule is in the (broken looking!) link.
Released to critical acclaim in December 2015 and created to compliment the I Monster album of the same name, Bright Sparks documents the stories of eight musical instrument pioneers, - Robert Moog (Moog), Alan R Pearlman (ARP), Don Buchla (Buchla), Harry Chamberlin (Chamberlin), The Bradley Brothers (Mellotronics), Adrian Wagner (Electronic Dream Plant), Peter Zinovieff (EMS) and Ken Freeman (Freeman String Symphonizer).
February Tuesday 9th Bright Sparks – Behind The Scenes –
Moog & Arp Introduction
February Thursday 11thBright Sparks – A Side – Robert Moog (Moog),
Don Buchla (Buchla), Alan R Pearlman (ARP)
and Harry Chamberlin.
February Tuesday 16th Bright Sparks – Behind The Scenes – The Brits
February Thursday 18thBright Sparks – B Side – The Bradley Brothers (Mellotronics), Peter Zinovieff (EMS) Adrian Wagner (Electronic Dream Plant) and Ken Freeman (Freeman String Symphonizer)
The real eye opener in that part for me was the section about Harry Chamberlin and how his old window cleaner, later salesman, Bill Franson misrepresented himself to the guys who ended up making the Mellotron and claimed fees for an invention that was actually Harry’s. I love a good rogue story.
Wow, what a fantastic documentary! A must see for every lover of electronic instruments, interested in the history and people of it. Really well made, and very generous of Dave Spears to make it available for free. Go watch it folks, you’ll be inspired, I guarantee it!
This doc is very good. I’m just a few minutes in but laughed out loud at the part where Moog and Deutsch are inventing 1v/oct and Ussachevsky (a professor of electronic music at Columbia) tells Moog not to build a keyboard on his synth. Imagine if he’d taken that advice!
A similar doc focused on landmark DAW and plugin makers could be interesting, a lot of those have been around for ages too - Trackers, Pro Tools, ReBirth etc. As a software dev myself I find those creation stories seldom get told.
