COMPANY PROFILE
A NEW SYNTH COMPANY EMERGES … | Bruce Adolph
[ WM ] Glen , first tell us how you got into synthesizers yourself ?
[ Glen Darcey ] I grew up playing a saxophone . I spent a summer semester at Berklee College of Music between my 11th and 12th grade . And rapidly learned that I was not gonna become a professional sax player . I was there about the same time Branford Marsalis was there . ( laughing ) Being like one of the best sax players in Burbank , CA doesn ’ t translate when you go to the global scale . They have a piano proficiency at Berklee , so I had to learn how to play piano . And so that was also at the same time when all the new wave bands were coming up . So Devo , Blondie , The Cars … all those kind of people were coming up at the same time .
And a friend of mine , a girl named Tyler was singing something next to me one day and I ’ m like , “ What are you singing ?” She takes her headphones off and puts them on me . And I ’ m like , “ Wow , what is this ? This isn ’ t seven four . It ’ s like , it ’ s amazing ”. It was Devo ’ s Q : Are We Not Men ? A : We are Devo . The sounds and everything are crazy . I had heard synth sounds and always liked him , but I didn ’ t know if that was like an organ or what . I was a sax guy . I was like the freaky kid that grew up listening to jazz . So that was my introduction to synths in my senior year of high school . And so that was really the catalyst .
[ WM ] And did you study in college then ?
[ Glen ] Yes , I went to Pasadena City College , they had a great synthesizer program there . The teacher was a guy named Stan Levine , who is still a good friend of mine . He had this vast background and experience and getting to mentor under him , that got me into diving deep .
[ WM ] It is an interesting fact that 30 % of all new keyboards now sell to the House of
Worship community presenting the modern Worship music as a genre . Are you familiar with the modern worship movement ?
[ Glen ] Yes , pretty much . I ’ m a Christian myself , I am an elder at our church . I ’ ve followed a number of Christian bands . I even remember taking my kids to see the OC Supertones 20 years ago .
[ WM ] Well there ’ s more and more synthesizers being used in modern worship . Playing pads and doing different arpeggiator sounds . It ’ s definitely grown and is a part of the music genre itself . You have both synths and guitars both doing big washy stuff .
Now your HydraSynth Deluxe is quite a technological feat . There are great onboard sounds as well as the synth is laid out for easy program changes on the fly and the ability to dive deep into sound creation . Tell