. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Synthmuseum.com - Your Vintage Synth Resource Home     Site Map    About Us    Contact Us    Support Us
. museum magazine resources classifieds game store

Museum : PAiA Room : Gnome
.

. .
. . . . .
. PAiA Instruments
Gnome
Modular Synthesizers
2700
2720
4700
4700/C
4700/J
8700
P4700/C
P4700/J
Oz
Programmable Drum Set
Proteus 1
Stringz 'n' Things



Search the Synthmuseum.com Classifieds for this instrument.

. .

Gnome

. . .
. Manufacturer:
PAiA Electronics, Inc., Edmund, OK, US

Model:
Gnome

Production period:
1974-82

Quantity produced:
approx. 3000

.
. . .

PAiA Gnome

image courtesy of PAiA

[from an interview with John Simonton, PAiA Electronics, Inc.]
"While it started out as purely an electronic instrument to make wind sounds, the Gnome turned into one of the smallest, most portable analog synthesizers ever manufactured." [It was also battery powered.]

"'The Gnome started out as an instrument that wasn't going to do anything more than make the sound of wind - not like a flute, but real wind. Ssssshhhhew. That kind of wind, which could be played with a little vinyl controller strip that was part of it. The Gnome was one of those things that just grew. After the instrument that did the wind sound was done, it became pretty apparent that you could stick other components in there and essentially come up with a small synthesizer, a thing that captured the central ideas of voltage-controlled synthesis at the time - Oscillators, filters, transient generators, and so on - but stripped down to the essentials or the core. It was an attempt to get rid of that keyboard that was always by far the single most expensive part of anything we made, by order of magnitude or more.'"

[excerpted with permission from the book Vintage Synthesizers by Mark Vail, copyright Miller Freeman, Inc]



. . . . .

[ Home ] [ Museum ] [ Magazine ] [ Resources ] [ Classifieds ] [ Game ] [ Store ]
[ Site Map ] [ About Us ] [ Contact Us ]


Synthmuseum.com
Watertown, MA, USA   Email Us

Site designed and constructed by IRN Internet Services
Original concept by IRN and New Silver Age Productions
Copyright © 2000 Synthmuseum.com. All rights reserved. Our Privacy Statement

Support Amnesty International