Creative Resource Library
Synth Session June 2025
A monthly free-to-all electronic music workshop & collaborative jam session held in the Gray Area lobby.
Wednesday June 18, 2025
6PM Mini Workshop
7PM Group Jam Session
Free RSVP (Limited capacity)
View our FAQ page for more info, or contact us at [email protected] with any accommodation requests.
Gray Area and Crowbar Corner are proud to present Synth Sessions, a free hands-on workshop and group jam open to all levels to expand your sonic horizons.
Every month, participants learn about a new synthesis topic (drones, sequencing, sound design, etc.), then collaborate on a group jam that will propel the workshop sounds into the beyond!
Participants are encouraged to bring their own electronic instrument or use one from the Creative Resource Library (limited availability). Participants can also preview the instruments available from the Library and sign up to borrow one after the session. We have full modular systems, desktop synths and drum machines and a selection of Macbooks, iPads, midi controllers, and audio interfaces.
The workshop begins promptly at 6pm, followed by group jam time beginning at 7pm. There will be time at the end of the workshop for general questions and advice about synthesis. Please arrive in time to set up your instrument(s) before the jam begins.
This month's topic is:
Dialectical Sequencing
In the hierarchical model of composition, sounds can only come from notes, and notes can only come from ideas. But modular synthesis offers a compelling alternative to that hierarchical model that we'll call "dialectical sequencing." Led by New Systems Instruments Evan Buswell, this workshop will go over the philosophical basis for dialectical sequencing, discuss a few historical examples, and then look at some techniques to do it using whatever you currently have on your modular.
About the Instructor
Evan Buswell
Evan Buswell is a designer, researcher, and musician operating out of the North Bay Area. As New Systems Instruments, Evan has spent the last 5 years producing Eurorack modules rooted in analog electronics, artistic practice, and mathematical and philosophical inquiry. So far, New Systems has released around a dozen modules and generated several new research results. As a musician, Evan releases patient and harmonic music as 1/3 of the imminently expanding Borderlands Collective. In parallel lives (maybe non-Euclidean parallel lives), Evan has a degree in cultural studies from UC Davis, with a dissertation that examines how the changing production of money over the history of capitalism has determined the evolution of mathematical/programming languages.
New Systems Instruments
New Systems manufactures electronic musical instruments in the SF Bay Area, focusing on modular synthesis in the Eurorack format.
The Creative Resource Library is a collaboration between Crowbar Corner and Gray Area.
