top of page

Bringing the Synth to the Stage?

Updated: Jul 22

I've been thinking a lot more about what I would want to do in a live show lately.

I know there is virtually no chance I can showcase my mixes in a satisfying way in a live setting- and that's okay! I think live music is a very different type of experience anyway, and it should be treated as such. In a mix, technical, intricate, and tiny details can really shine and bring a song to life- while on stage, sometimes bigger, more decisive movements are easier to get into, and more satisfying for an audience who might only hear your song once.


I've been thinking about what makes a good live show for a long time. (It's probably been percolating in my head since middle school, when I stood on "stage" with 3 other teens every weekend in the methodist church gymnasium as part of my youth group's Praise Band...) In 2021, my friend Lindsay started dragging me (willingly) to Columbus/Cleveland tour stops for various artists she likes who happened to be playing in Ohio.


I've learned a lot from those shows, and I've taken note of things that I think do/ do not work. I could spend the next four paragraphs detail interesting things I've noticed, but that's probably best left as the topic of another post, but I will outline some of the more compelling and relevant lessons I've learned from observing these shows here:


• First and foremost- a show is a show. It's a visual and performative experience as much (or more) than it is auditory. In fact, the sonic experience at a live show can often be quite poor (for both big, and small venues) and there are precious few things a musician on stage can do about it in the moment.


• A synth/keyboard/piano has all the stage presence and charisma of a brick. It simply does not move (which limits the players expressive capability/ presence quite a bit) and playing it live does not showcase the story of sound very well at all. It's sad, but it's true. Even Liberace recognized this reality, and solved the dilemma by covering his piano (and himself) in diamonds. Pianists have been playing keyboards with their toes and elbows for decades to give audiences something to look at and remember. In a band, the guitars, basses, drums, and vocals, all have a lovely and satisfying spectrum of visual articulations to play with. Each note/beat/action is anticipated by an obvious and visible build up which gets released as sound directly proportional to the way the instrument is played. This creates a very satisfying and engaging experience for the audience, even at a distance. Even the greatest, most expressive keyboard player in the world cannot possibly show you the difference between moving their finger 3/4inches very quickly VS very delicately from 50 yards away. The action (the part of the piano that hits the string) is invisible- shoved inside a wooden box. The best (and sometime only) place to appreciate/view the technical and performative aspects of a musician interfacing with a keyboard is from the piano bench, or, with the piano open- staring at it's vibrating guts.


Synthesizers, especially, can seem obscure when presented on stage- the sound they produce appears almost arbitrary and completely disconnected from the instrument. Each switch/button/knob looks almost identical from a distance, and for each parameter the %0 position looks essentially no different from the %100 position (even though the difference in sound might be massive). No one in the audience is really able to expect/ sympathize with the transformation in sound that is going to happen when you twist a knob they can't even see.



So... understanding that a show is a visual and performative experience, and a synth/keyboard does not inherently play to these strengths very well- over the last few years I've been workshopping some ways to make the synth more visible and present on stage: (Of course, I could also simply play guitar, but that's not nearly as exciting, distinct, or memorable- especially at smaller venues where every other act is a solo guitarist/vocalist...)


  1. Inspired by my experiences growing up playing in concert/symphonic band in school, I've experimented with ways to bring a more panoramic acoustic experience to a show using multiple small speakers. The idea is that people in the audience can each hold a different part in their hands, and feel/experience the song differently depending on their proximity to the different parts (like players of a particular instrument in an orchestra). I can use my synth and my computer to record, loop, and route individual tracks in real time. While that's very exciting, it's been logistically challenging- and now that I've started to more intimately understand the organizational flow of a small-mid size event, I've realized that setting up and tearing down something so elaborate might be too cumbersome and disruptive to bring to do all the time. Additionally, this type of song is probably not the only thing I'd want to showcase, so all the setup would be for maybe a 5-10 minute experience, and then probably not used again for the rest of the show? Not ideal.

  2. Another project I've worked on involves designing and programming motorized devices that respond to sound/analog audio signal. I've prototyped an Arduino that listen to the input from an 8th inch audio cable, and translates it into movement of a motor, and it's going pretty well! I've made a lot of progress on this, but it's still a bit buggy, fragile (IE: they're all on breadboards right now), and it's cumbersome to setup and troubleshoot on the fly. I have a lot of ideas for how I might expand this in the future, but in the present, I feel like I've taken it as far as I reasonably can without committing to an enormous investment of time and money. The next steps in this project are going to be a bit expensive and I'm not sure if this is the right time to dive in. (Maybe this is a good candidate for a Kickstarter project?... or something to pursue with a grant? or in an academic institution?)

  3. I've also explored ways to create more visible/unique physical controls that attach to my synth. This has proven much easier to implement- and (since I'm blessed to have access to a 3d printer through my work) relatively easy to produce and iterate. I've gessoed, hand painted, and finished a few dozen funky potentiometer knobs, and they've turned out really well! Some of the more adventurous shapes can really change the way you think about interacting with the instrument. I originally started making these as a way to make it easier to reach/ articulate certain combinations of knobs on my synth with one hand. Some of the knobs can even hold other objects (like small flags, flowers, or whammy bars)- which all stick up out of the synth in a very fun visible way. They really transform the act of rotating a tiny 1 inch knob into something that can be seen (and therefore felt/ anticipated/experienced) an the audience.


As I get more opportunities to play live, I'm excited to start showing these projects off! I'm sure there are many more lessons to learn once things step out of my apartment and into the real world of live music, but I'm excited to see how they evolve!


I've also thought about opening an Etsy store to sell my funky synth knobs. I'm sure there are other musicians who might enjoy them- and beyond synths, there are also guitars, amps, and pedals which all use similar knobs. There are already people out there making colorful knobs, but most are pretty standard shapes, sizes, and colors. None I've found are hand painted, or nearly as unique as the one's I've produced. I feel like there's a lot of room to do something more whimsical in that space, and I bet people would be into it!





bottom of page