Allan J. Hall had no intention of building synthesizers for a living when he first created the MiniMod. It was a DIY project purely for himself. He’d played guitar and dabbled in keyboards for years as a hobby, but it wasn’t a career. Then, he sold the company he owned and, suddenly, Hall says, “I didn’t really need to do much and I had a lot of spare time.” Free from the responsibility of running a 25,000 square-foot factory building decorative fireplaces (and a few million dollars richer), he threw himself into his hobby, and specifically spent a lot of time on the technology side. Hall built some guitar pedals, tackled a few DIY synth projects, and even spent time as a technician fixing up synthesizers and other music gear.
Hall had plenty of vintage instruments and had built out a sizable 5U system, but when he ventured into the smaller form factor of Eurorack, he was disappointed. “I just thought, they sound terrible, why on Earth don’t they sound like the 5U stuff? Why don’t they sound like the vintage Moog stuff?” he says. This led to his fascination with vintage synth circuits; he needed to understand what made them sound different from his Eurorack system.
He set his sights on the Minimoog Model D, which he refers to (repeatedly) as the “Stradivarius of monosynths.” And what he discovered was, it’s not what vintage synths do well, it’s “what they don’t do well that makes them sound so damn good.” Eventually, he’d cobbled together essentially a Model D in Eurorack form. This wasn’t the “one trick pony” of a real-deal Moog, though. Hall embraced the open architecture of modular synthesis, breaking the Minimoog down into its constituent parts that could be freely assembled, patched and rearranged as desired — the first MiniMod system. “So if you wanted to try five VCOs with or try it with an Oberheim filter,” you’d be able to do that, according to Hall.
All of this was simply something to occupy himself, something he was doing for fun, having more or less retired at 42 years old. But a few friends heard the system and asked if he’d build one for them. And as the requests piled up, Hall began exploring the possibility of turning his creation into an actual commercial product and, 18 months later, AJH Synth debuted the MiniMod at Frankfurt Musikmesse in 2015.
Ten years later, AJH Synth has grown from a hobby to one of the most respected manufacturers in the Eurorack space. Part of that is down to the quality of the modules. AJH’s oscillators and filters do capture the warmth and edge of the vintage gear it’s modelled after, but adapted for use in the expansive universe of Eurorack with tons more inputs, outputs and controls than the Model D.
The other factor is that Allan claims his decisions for what modules to make are “never ever driven by the market.” The company doesn’t waste time chasing fads. Instead, Allan’s own whims decide what to make next. “The thing I did then, and I’m still doing now, is I’m building myself the ultimate modular system,” he says, so he just goes where his interests and desires for his own system lead him. This has led to some slightly wacky devices like the Lunar Module, which is designed to recreate the sound of Apollo-era space-to-ground communications.
That sincerity is obvious when you talk to Hall, and it’s likely part of what has endeared him to the synth scene. His passion and knowledge are obvious. But he also recognises the lucky position he finds himself in. “I’d just do this stuff for fun, and people are kind enough to buy this stuff,” he says.
This authenticity and dedication to quality are likely part of what caught the attention of Hans Zimmer. Hans had been using an AJH system for some time, including on his many scores for Christopher Nolan, like The Dark Knight. He’d gotten in touch with Allan just to compliment him on the quality of his work. Still, when Hans decided to recreate the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, it was something of a surprise to Hall when he was tapped to create “the ultimate modular system” for it.
It’s a daunting and admittedly sort of vague design brief, but ultimately, Hans and Allan landed on a system based loosely on the EMS VC3 layout with a stereo signal path — a necessity when scoring film. The two batted around a few ideas for what shape the synth would eventually take. But Allan chose the VC3 because of its importance to Hans. The EMS VC3 was the first synth that Hans Zimmer ever owned, but being a struggling musician in London, he was eventually forced to sell it, something he told Allan he always regretted. But don’t worry, the story does have a happy ending. Hans eventually tracked down his VC3 and bought it back.
Allan would tell you, unequivocally, that creating that system (two of them in fact) for Hans Zimmer and being part of an effort to resurrect the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is the highlight of his career at AJH. But that doesn’t mean he’s ready to say he’s peaked and move on. Ten years after the introduction of the MiniMod, when asked what’s next for AJH, Allan Hall simply responds, “The next 10 years.”
The post How Allan Hall went from hobbyist to Hans Zimmer’s favourite synth maker appeared first on MusicTech.
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