Join us at Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre, for Synth Soundbath, a new monthly series exploring the intersection of wellness and music technology.
Part educational experience, part immersive listening session, the program invites participants to engage with sound as both a scientific phenomenon and a deeply personal, sensory experience.
This is not your typical soundbath. Each hour-long session begins with an educational deep dive into the history of music in wellness practices, the science of sound, and the technology behind an iconic synthesizer from NMC's collection. Participants are then invited to get comfortable and settle in for the soundbath portion of the experience.
Held on the last Sunday of each month, each session spotlights a different synthesizer from NMC’s collection. Often associated with experimental music rather than wellness practices, synthesizers offer a unique lens into the science of sound and the body’s response to vibration, expanding how we listen, feel, and understand music’s role in well-being.
This session features the Waldorf Wave, released in 1993. A rare and highly regarded flagship wavetable synthesizer, the Wave is known for its extraordinary sonic depth, evolving harmonic movement, and complex digital-analog hybrid architecture. Wavetable synthesis creates sound by moving through a series of stored wave shapes over time, rather than producing a single fixed tone. This allows a single note to continuously evolve and shift, creating rich, animated textures that feel dynamic and ever-changing, making it especially well suited to immersive listening environments.
The Waldorf Wave is associated with prominent artists including Hans Zimmer, Depeche Mode, Aphex Twin, and Nine Inch Nails. Its legacy is closely tied to cinematic scoring, experimental electronic music, and the broader evolution of digital synthesis in the 1990s.
Guests are encouraged to bring a yoga mat, blanket, or anything that helps them get comfortable as they settle in.