Noise from loose change: World premieres at Superbooth combat boredom
In Berlin, over 300 synth manufacturers like Buchla, Soma, Verbos, and Make Noise show how fun sound experiments can be with old keys and coins.
(Image: c’t / heise Medien)
Musicians, nerds, and tech enthusiasts will gather in Berlin from Thursday to Sunday for the Superbooth. Over 300 exhibitors will showcase their latest synthesizers and electronic modules, inviting visitors to try them out hands-on. You won't find suited businessmen and PR hostesses here, but rather developers who have, in some cases, hand-soldered their circuit boards themselves. Instead of glossy marketing, there are discussions about circuit design, filter resonances, and why a delay sounds like an underwater echo.
The Superbooth has evolved into the most important and largest meeting point for the industry. Nowhere else can you see and hear so many world premieres of prototypes. Initiator Andreas Schneider runs the famous Schneidersladen in Berlin, supplying electronics pioneers worldwide. This is precisely why the trade fair works so well: despite its growth, it still feels more like a chaotic gathering of sound tinkerers than a classic technology trade show.
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To make it easier for newcomers to get started, many manufacturers now offer small desktop boxes that invite hands-on play and can often be easily combined with a laptop and DAW software. On the first day of the fair, we walked around the grounds and tried out dozens of synthesizers and modules. Some sounded like detuned space probes from a 1960s science fiction film, while others transformed simple impulses into swirling rhythmic landscapes.
We are presenting six particularly interesting innovations from Buchla, Soma, Verbos, and Make Noise that demonstrate how unconventionally developers are building new instruments today and that the industry has overcome the slump caused by the Corona crisis.
The crisis is over
The boom was triggered by a standardization format called Eurorack, developed in the 1990s by German electrical engineer Dieter Doepfer. This format defines the dimensions and voltages of individual modules so that they can transmit their signals appropriately and fit into standardized cases. The open format allowed many small companies with only one or two developers to design new modules in small quantities, creating a colorful ecosystem.
However, Corona plunged the industry into a severe crisis: musicians who could not perform also had no money for new instruments. Many smaller manufacturers had to close down, file for insolvency, or were acquired by larger consortia. This recently affected even industry giants like Moog, Elektron, or Native Instruments.
(Image: c’t / heise Medien)
But the ranks are slowly thinning, and the surviving companies have full order books again. Dieter Doepfer, whom we met at his booth at Superbooth, confirmed this to us: “For reasons we cannot explain ourselves, we have reached the pre-Corona level again. Everything has recovered surprisingly.” Doepfer has since withdrawn from day-to-day business and advises his successors on new module ideas.
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At the trade show, Doepfer is showcasing a series of small auxiliary modules in the space-saving 1U format, which requires only one-third of the height of typical Eurorack modules. In addition to such bread-and-butter helpers, he is already working on the next generation. After many Eurorack manufacturers upgraded from mono signals to stereo just a few years ago, Doepfer wants to revive quadraphony, where artists can broadcast sound to the audience from four directions. While this has been possible before, it requires immense cabling and control effort, which is to be simplified.
