I'm Mike, cheif designer and owner of Artisan Electronic Music.  I've been building synthesizers and since I was 14...that was over 4 decades ago now.

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My very first electronic music machine was built for 7th grade Music Class.  While most kids brought in "bull-roarers" or "Cigar box Guitars", I brought in a 1.5 octave "Electronic Organ" using cross-modulation JFET oscillators as the core.  Of course, I didn't know what cross modulation meant back then, but hacking around in my basement workshop, I stumbled upon something that sounded cool.  I was hooked.

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In 1976 my friend and I bought all the PAIA DIY manuals.  We could not even afford to buy the kits.  So we laid out our own PCB and etched them, stuffing them with parts ordered from Jameco and Digikey.  which resulted in this...

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In 1980, I went to college to get my degree in Electrical Engineering while building a huge modular with a digitally scanned keyboard that would allow duo-phonic playing ... then the whole US synth industry collapsed, 

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...But the dream of building custom and unique synthesizers never quite died.  And as things tend to happen, people started coming back around to the unique sound and tactile interface of the analog synthesizer.  My dream awoke again and lead to the birth of Artisan Electroninc Instruments and the 2017 Knobcon launch of our first product; the Ottava

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And then a few other custom synths and products over the following years..