While the world of modular synthesis  can be very complex, the modular community is also well known for being one of the most supportive and helpful communities in electronic music.

In the early days of the Eurorack scene, when there was much less information to be found online, in-person workshops were a big part of spreading the knowledge and introducing people to the format.  But even today with so much content and information available online, in-person workshops continue to be an important part of the community, with a bigger variety of offerings from various events and institutions than perhaps ever before. 

One of the earliest institutions dedicating itself to modular education and workshops is Berlin's SchneidersLaden, which has been giving workshops in various forms since the 2000s. With such a storied history, we reached out to SchneidersLaden's Timm Stobbe - one of the main people behind the store's workshop programming - to talk about workshops at SchneidersLaden, what an in-person workshop can offer today, approaches teaching the concepts of modular, as well as the strange relationship between manufacturers and their instruments.

You can find dates for SchneidersLaden current upcoming Berlin workshops here, and if you are in the UK, you can find the workshop dates of London's SchneidersKeller here.

Stromkult: Where did the initital idea to host modular beginner’s workshops at SchneidersLaden come from?

Timm Stobbe: I think the original germ for the workshops – as well as [SchneidersLaden and SuperBooth founder] Andreas Schneider’s strong involvement with trade fairs, culminating in the creation of the SuperBooth – really came from the early days of the Eurorack scene, when the whole concept of modular synthesis was still quite new and unfamiliar to most people. It wasn’t like it is today, where most people with some involvement in electronic music will be familiar with at least the basic idea of modular synthesis.

Back then, it was still very much a hyper-niche thing, and you really had to go out of your way to explain to people what this technology is and what it can do – which I think was also because in the early days, it was very difficult to actually get your hands on a system without just buying one blindly. So the idea was to find a way to bring people in contact with the products and the whole concept of modular synthesis in real life in a very direct and tangible way. 

I think a big part of that was also just that it was a very different landscape in terms of what kind of information was available online back then. From what people have told me, you had the information on the Doepfer website and maybe a few early blogs, but it really wasn’t like now where you can just find the answer to any question you might have online. Speaking of that, how do you think in-person workshops fit into today's landscape where there is so much information to learn from online?

I think they’re complementary, in that people now definitely come in with more prior knowledge due to the internet. But I think it’s also extremely easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information and content online, and things like YouTube tutorials are by definition a solitary, one-way style of learning. With an in-person workshop, you are in a group with other people that might have similar questions, or have questions you hadn’t considered yet, and you can help each other and learn mutually – and of course you also ask questions back to the person giving the workshop.

That’s why I always write in the workshops announcements that people can bring their own questions, because I think that’s a really important part of it. But then of course, the internet is also a resource that we can refer people to after a workshop, and things like VCV Rack now make it possible to start patching at home with an extremely low barrier of entry. 

Another important thing is that as a store, we also have our actual showroom, of course, so people can come to a workshop and get inspired, and then can come back later and spend more time exploring things hands-on and asking additional questions to our staff.

That’s something you can’t get from watching videos over the internet, and just talking to someone about what you’d like to do and them being like “I’d start by looking at these five modules” really helps cut through this sometimes very overwhelming landscape of options and products. I think that’s really what a physical specialty store like SchneidersLaden can bring to the table today that can’t be replicated via online shopping.

What kind of people usually come to the workshops?

In terms of people’s musical backgrounds and prior experience, it’s definitely a very colorful mix of people. Like I said, with the internet there’s definitely a lot of people now that have some prior knowledge and are just looking to get a better overview.

But we also still do get people that just show up with absolutely zero prior knowledge because they heard about this free music workshop – it’s always been important to us to keep the workshops free, which is quite unusual when compared to most music schools and so on – somewhere, and having those people is always really interesting because you get this very pure and unbiased perspective on the whole thing.

In terms of the gender balance of participants, as you might expect, it used to be mostly men, but it’s definitely improved a lot in recent years. Our FLINTA* workshops for women, transgender people and nonbinary people are very important in that respect, because it allows participants to network with other people like them in the industry.

We also are getting more and more women at our general beginner’s workshop – and interestingly, the in-person gender balance tends to be much better than what our Instagram analytics might suggest, maybe because a “nerdy” topic like this can be quite intimidating within the context of online social dynamics, but is much more approachable when you can ask questions to another human being on a face-to-face level.

When it comes to teaching the basic concepts of modular synthesis, do you think there are concepts that are easier or more difficult to explain and communicate?

I think in general, the audio side of things is definitely more approachable and easier for people to grasp, because you can immediately hear it. Understanding control voltage and modulation – e.g. that an LFO or envelope affects only another parameter but does not produce sound itself – can take a bit of time until it really clicks for people. But I think when you teach those two sides simultaneously as part of a complete package, it becomes much more intuitive. 

So the way I usually structure the workshops is that I build a simple subtractive voice from scratch and look at what both the audio and CV sides are doing to arrive at a playable patch. I will usually have both a sequencer module and something like the Mutable Instruments Ears module that I can use as a one-finger keyboard, because the concept of a sequencer isn’t necessarily obvious to people without a background in electronic music, and being able to show how a sequencer is basically doing the same thing automatically helps with getting the point across. Once the basic voice is set up, I then usually also add some basic FX modules with things like reverb and delay, and then if there is time left you can get into things like FM and wavetable synthesis.

Are there certain kinds of modules that you tend to gravitate to as educational modules in a workshop context?

I think in general, manufacturers with single-function modules without too many added bells and whistles work best, Doepfer is a really good example there. I always try to minimize any possible distractions when it comes to explaining a module. If a module has ten extra jacks that I’m not explaining because it’d be too much, that’s not ideal. But I also think you don’t want to totally avoid getting into more complex modules like a Make Noise MATHS – because those things are also what makes Eurorack special.

And with something like a function generator, it can then actually help to reinforce some of the basic concepts, because you can show how a function generator like the MATHS can be used to perform many of the basic synthesis functions we have already discussed, and it provides a good opportunity to introduce concepts like “West Coast” synthesis. I think it’s also important to show how many more complex concepts just boil down to the same basic elements. So for example when it comes to the concept of tempo and clocking, I can show a clock signal on an oscilloscope to illustrate how it’s basically just a square wave signal and basically the same thing you find on an oscillator, just at a different speed.

What are some things you have learned in your time giving workshops?

One thing that is really important is that you have to learn to step away from your own level of knowledge as much as possible and to not assume anything that might be obvious to you. So I always keep information as small and simple as possible and will constantly repeat things. It’s not about putting on a fancy demonstration, but about conveying things in a way that will click with people.

I’ve also learned to not keep things too structured and to leave room for questions and open-ended experimentation, like when someone asks “can you do x with Y”? Sometimes, I even get surprised by such questions, like “huh, I’ve never thought about that”, and then have to think about possible answers, which is always a nice experience, because it goes into these directions you might have not considered yourself.

So for example, through the experience of giving workshops, I’ve learned a lot about what you can do with clock dividers as modulation sources – they’re just outputting gates of course, but you get a lot of them and if you send that into, say, an effects module like the Noise Engineering Desmodus Versio things become very lively and interesting. That’s something I really only did in the context of the workshops.

Sometimes, you also just make a straight up mistake while patching, like you plug a cable into the wrong place and only realize a few minutes later, but I always enjoy it when unexpected things like that happen and I get caught off guard. It’s a very human thing and an inevitable of doing it live in front of people, and I think when it happens, it also shows the audience that nobody is perfect and that even the “experts” make mistakes, which I think can really help to reduce some of these expectations like “if I don’t get everything right immediately, I’ll never get it” that people might have.

Can you say a bit about the special manufacturer and artist workshops you are doing?

When it comes to artists, it’s usually people we have been in contact with for a while, and then we might get an idea for a specific workshop, and just ask them like “would you be interested in talking about this or that technique”. It’s really about these personal relationships, which also goes for the manufacturer side. Bringing a manufacturer into it helps us deepen those relationships, and it also allows brands and manufacturers to develop relationships with the users of their products, just like at SuperBooth. 

Since brands in this industry often are quite small in the grand scheme of things and might live in places without a huge electronic music scene, many of them don’t often get the opportunity to talk with the users of their products in person, which is a completely different thing from just getting feedback via comments or email on the internet.

And so, while we do publish video recordings of our brand workshops on YouTube, it’s really more for documentation, and the primary point is to get people into the same room, and to allow for follow-up questions and conversations after the workshop. I think it’s also generally a lot easier for someone to showcase the idea and philosophy behind a device in person than in a video or webpage. 

I think for the users, it’s also really interesting to actually meet the people who made some of the instruments they use in person – I think it creates an additional connection to the gear, because these devices also always carry a bit of their creator’s personality with them.

That’s true! I hadn’t thought about it in that way before, but I guess you really can often draw certain conclusions about people just from having used the instruments they have made (laughs).

It’s like how when you see someone walking their dog, and look at the dog, and then look at the owner, you almost always end up thinking “yeah, that makes sense” (laughs).

For more information and dates on upcoming workshops, visit the SchneidersLaden Blog.