Synths, Sounds & Sights of Superbooth 2019

Superbooth, one of the biggest and best Synth events in the World has come to a close for another year.

To just call Superbooth an ‘event’ seems understated; it’s a lot more than that and means a lot more to those that have come to attend every year. Superbooth is an annual Berlin-based reunion for a global synth community; three days of passion, education and innovation. An opportunity for developers, designers and innovators alike to showcase their latest craft (and graft) and the ultimate space of inspiration for creators and musicians. Superbooth defines industry collaboration, albeit sometimes a very noisy one, with over 200 exhibitors showcasing their product across the 13,000 square metres of venue FEZ - with many sharing table space with friends in the industry. On that note, you could find Novation product on over 30 stands this year.

For one attendee that we spoke to, and probably a lot more, Superbooth has become an annual vacation/pilgrimage - the near 4000-mile trip from New York to Berlin is a given now, with Superbooth the place they go to build their “Dream Gear Shopping list”. The experience of sampling a product and often speaking directly to its creator is one like no other and definitely not one achievable or replicable via the Internet.

This year, after launching it on the first day of the show, we took along the latest Novation product, Summit - our 61-key 16-voice flagship synth - as well as three of the brains behind its creation; Chris Huggett, Danny Nugent and Nick Bookman. All three worked directly on the build, design and function of Summit and all three chatted and demonstrated it to the hundreds of attendees.

Aside from showcasing our collection, Superbooth is as much about all of the above for us as it is anyone else - when not at one of our two stands, we walked what felt like miles of racked corridors and halls and attended multiple concerts and demonstrations, exploring the latest instruments and boutique brands, met old friends and made some new ones.

For those that missed Superbooth this year, we’ve pulled together a list of some of our favourite sights and sounds:

• AN ON BAST

We knew we were looking forward to this set and it absolutely did not disappoint. An On Bast, a Polish electronic music producer, took to the central Seaside stage on Friday afternoon and built an audience up to get ready for a Friday night in Berlin. Using our Peak alongside her modular setup, the set was high energy but eclectic and really demonstrated her talent as a live modular artist.

You can listen to more from her, here.

• MAKE NOISE

The latest Superbooth-announced release from Make Noise, is a (kind of) stereo delay module, but they’re calling it a Stereo Multi-Zone Color Audio Repeater. Mimeophon, in true Make Noise fashion, is both fun and creative and, as well as the normal rate and repeat functions you’d expect from a delay, Make Noise’s character additions of Color (changes the tone of the audio) and Halo (adds smears around the edges of the repeats) knobs add something really exciting.

• FUTURE SOUND SYSTEMS

Announcing a really exciting collaboration with Mute Records’ founder Daniel Miller at Superbooth, Bristol-based FSS have created two new creative Eurorack modules – MAKROW and STUMM. Both modules were designed after Daniel built his own setup at home and discovered functions that he knew would help in his system but couldn’t find. Both modules are created to give the user macro control over live modular arrangements and are available now to pre-order.

• SOMA LABORATORY

The new drum machine (although to call it just that seems like an understatement), from Soma Labs is a beast, and a very exciting one at that. The newly announced Pulsar-23, although currently still just a prototype, has the ability to be used as a standalone instrument or as part of a larger modular setup. We went along to the packed presentation from Vlad Kreimer, who talked us through their latest creation, and told the audience that you can use your body to create patches for the machine (he went on to say that you could also use forks, a piece of cheese or a cucumber). The first question from the audience in the Q&A was “when can we buy it?” – look out for more on the Pulsar-23 later this year.

• DANIEL MILLER

There were a lot of incredible performances across the weekend at Superbooth and another of our highly anticipated concerts (and another that definitely didn’t disappoint) came from the founder of one of the most important labels in electronic music - Mute Records’ Daniel Miller. Daniel performed a very rare modular set at the Seaside stage on Friday afternoon. The audience was one of the biggest of the entire event and all were completely captivated, with the set seeming both effortless and experimental.

• NOVATION CLUBNIGHT

We threw our annual Superbooth Clubnight at OHM this year and this time around were lucky enough to be joined by Dataline and Cuckoo with A/Fin to warm us up. There were also performances from our very own Novation specialists -CALC-, Alex Jann and Danny Nugent. Every performance was completely different: -CALC- performed live for the first time with Summit, demonstrating the synth’s studio-to-stage ability and Dataline did his set amongst the crowd with his Elekton-dominated setup, whilst Cuckoo represented Teenage Engineering, using the smallest setup imaginable. Thanks to everyone that came down and joined us for this one, it felt SUPER special.

You can watch a collection of our Superbooth 19 highlights via our Instagram, HERE.

Hat tip, high five and huge congratulations to founder Andreas Schneider and the entire SchneidersLaden team – we look forward to seeing you in Berlin in 2020.