One of those feel-good inspirational joints right here. Bamanya Brian was just chilling in Uganda doing the usual Uganda stuff and decided to get into the notoriously prohibitive realm that is modular synthesis. Being Uganda this presents a smidgen more of a challenge for him. Heck, even in most the first world, it is so this really serves as a mod-ivatonal post…. see what I did there? Fine, i’ll stop…
A few months ago I dipped my feet into the world of modular synths. The entire African continent has a handful of shops selling Euro rack modules which is really sad. Also, Euro rack modules are overly priced for someone in my context. My only option was to go the DIY route. I looked up schematics and started modifying some circuits and building others from scratch. All parts in my modular were sourced locally. In a few months I have learnt so much about electronics and analog synths and I have built what is an almost decent modular synth. I believe this is Africa’s first home made modular synth. I hope this video inspires someone out there to build their own synth
Let that sink in. “a few months ago”. Colloquially a few is three so let’s just go with four. Four months ago Bamanya found a blog and just started sourcing parts locally from trash and shady pop up stores, dodging warlords, burning his fingers soldering, laying low from Ebola and reading up circuitry all that fun bedroom R&D shit and now he is no longer Bamanya he is A F R O R A C K!
If he didn’t name it Afrorack someone else would of so even that’s perfect. During this same 4 month period he not only built it he got really good with it too. Clearly has a deep connection to his rig and it slaps…
Having learned his way around with some funky Detroit inspired acid now moving more into forward territories heavily influenced by his own native culture..
And he’s touring the world now he’s even in Europe thanks to our pals over at CDM currently banging the Afrorack. Only small criticism I can think of is that I’d like to see to the Arturia beatstep covered in mud and grass to tie it all together for motifs sake but hey, believe in your dreams whatever they may be in the face of adversity with enough hardwork and determination and they might just come true. What did you do this week?
Keep up on Bamanya Brian and learn more about the Afrorack at his homesite: https://bamanyabrian.com/