MESS Introductory Workshop

Want to know more about MESS? In this workshop, you’ll take a tour of the synthesisers in their collection and discover their stories. You’ll also get a jump start in using electronic musical instruments. This is a combined tour/workshop for absolute beginners and those who are curious to get started in electronic sound and music.

Come down and see what MESS are all about and satisfy your curiosity about the wonderfully weird world of electronic sound.

Aim

To introduce you to:

• MESS as an organisation, facility and resource.
• Some of the histories embodied by machines in the MESS collection
• An overview of the basic technical concepts underlying subtractive synthesis, which is the method of sound creation employed by the majority of the instruments in the MESS collection.

Prerequisites

None. This course is aimed at people with no or minimal prior knowledge/experience of sound synthesis and/or electronic music/sound production.

Equipment

There is no requirement to bring your own equipment to this workshop. You are welcome to bring your own laptop and soundcard or portable sound recorder to this workshop to capture the sounds you create. MESS has all other equipment needed such as headphones, cables, etc.

Outcome

After this workshop, you will have an overview of the aims and objectives of MESS. You will understand some of the histories and cultural context for machines in the collection. You will be introduced to the basic concepts of how sound is created on most of the machines in the studio. You will be able to play, experiment, and interact with some of the instruments in the collection.