#small synth

The shrinking of technology is actually quite an incredible thing.  Just take a look at an old cassette player or an old VCR and compare those internals to that of something real simple, like the inside of a calculator or portable CD players.  They both make use of printed circuit boards and they both have chips and other sorts of devices soldered to them.  The only difference is that in one of them those little soldier points are extremely tiny and closer together.  If you take a look at an older mixer like the Tascam XS-8 series and compare it to the internals of a Rane 62 you’ll see the same phenomenon going on here too.  They basically use the same parts, only smaller and more compact. Synthesizers have been doing the same thing and to the same effect; they can cram more information into one little device, making it more portable and easier to carry around as well.  The USB drive is another good example.  Remember when the most these could carry was sixteen megabytes?  Now, a drive even smaller than that, about the size of a dime, can carry up to thirty two gigabytes.  That’s amazing when you consider how small they were to begin with. http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2013/04/15/pi-l-squared-synth/

The world seems to rotate back and forth from both big and small items.  Think of the era when super baggy pants were in fashion.  Kids went to school with pants that had leggings that were the size of their torso.  They even dragged on the ground whenever you walked, making it hard to keep them from getting destroyed.  The internet went through a period of time when font sizes were incredible small.  Perhaps this was because computer monitors had horrible resolutions at that time.  Now, we are beginning to see oversized fonts and large banners across every home page.  The same trend is also happening with music instruments. The whole tablet and smartphone revolution has cemented the idea that small gadgets DO work, and in some cases they are preferable to the larger alternative.  MIDI controllers have shrunk down in size which makes them portable and accessible.  Even synthesizers have felt the boom of smaller devices taking the public by storm.  Korg, like many other companies, has introduced smaller sized versions of their once large synthesizers.  They are cheaper, portable, and they give reason for an average tinkerer to go out and try something new.  Even the low-tech synths have their fans as well. http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/why-are-mini-synths-so-popular-579449