Optigan
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Optigans were essentially early electronic keyboards made by Mattel that relied on optical discs to reproduce sounds. The have earned quite a pedigree in the last 30 or so years as musicians Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Kraftwerk, PJ Harvey and Mark Mothersbaugh have all added Optigans to their recorded material.
They’re known for their lo-fi sound and the peculiarly specific technology they used to produce that sound. That being said, the impressive limitations of the Optigan format leave me envious.
Learning to create music with something like Ableton Live can be completely overwhelming and even guitar amp software can take a nonprofessional a year or so to master and understand. From the samples I’ve heard on Youtube, it seems like this instrument has some life to it and anyway it certainly sounds better than our musical Model-T, Apple’s Garageband.