Southtown Vinyl Synth Meet Up

It’s always cool when you hear about an event your interested in happening at a cool space near you.

This is exactly what happened when I heard about a synth meet up at Southtown Vinyl, a local record store in downtown San Antonio. I have been a big fan of Southtown Vinyl as they have a great selection of records and cool electronics.

As a local HiFi Shop (Dreamonoid’s HiFi) owner it’s awesome to see other retail spaces hosting events that are open to the public and encouraging artistic endeavors.

I showed up right at noon as I was super excited and sure enough was greeted by Luis Faraklas of Faraklas Electrical and Tommy Newman of Southtown Vinyl. Both of whom had synths ready to demo and allow people to get hands on experience with them.

I spent a good hour and a half picking their brains and learning all about hardware analog synths. Luis showed me a breadboard designed synth hooked up to an oscilloscope he had put together. It was awesome getting some nitty gritty details about the IC’s (integrated circuits) used and how simple it can be to get started making your own synth.

Then Tommy gave me a full tour of his synth case going into awesome detail about all the various components/modules. I learned a ton. From VCO’s to VCA’s to ASDR’s I got a slew of acronyms thrown at me and am now digesting it all and hope that at the next meeting I can show up with my own home brew synth.

So yeah, it was a great event, I highly recommend checking out future synths meet ups hosted at Southtown Vinyl.

And yes, as you might have guessed, since I am a vinyl junky and supporter of local music I did find an album I couldn’t leave without, Central Texas rap trio Third Root. Having had Marco Cervantes, a member of Third Root aka Mexican Step Grandfather give presentations to my students about Mexican American studies and hip hop, it’s amazing to be able to purchase their music on vinyl. Good times for sure!