SpaceSynth and our project
What is «SpaceSynth»?
About SpaceSynth.Ru
SpaceSynth.Ru Radio
SpaceSynth.Ru non-profit label
SpaceSynth.Ru Shop
SpaceSynth is space-themed instrumental synthesizer music with pulsating bass line and catchy synth riffs (short repeated melodic patterns). The first correct style name is SynthDance, since in the beginning it was only an instrumental synth-dance version of Italo-Disco. But in the end, under the influence of science fiction, space cover designs and song titles, the style became known as SpaceSynth.
At the origins of SynthDance stood Italian projects Cyber People and Koto.
In the early 90's, SpaceSynth began to lose its popularity and almost completely disappeared, but remained alive thanks to the labels of Hypersound Productions and AXIS Records (later renamed Alpha Centauri). Some time later, a new record label specializing in SpaceSynth music appeared, Audio Energy Music Productions. Currently, the main publisher of SpaceSynth is the Space Sound Records independent label, but many projects are released in web release / self-release formats.
At the origins of SynthDance stood Italian projects Cyber People and Koto.
- The Cyber People project originated in 1984 on the Mercury Records label under the management of Alessandro Zanni and Stefano Cundari. Only singles were released and solely on vinyl, with the exception of "Polaris", which ZYX Music released on CD. Tracks from the A-side were included in various collections on CD.
- Кoto is an Italian project formed in the beginning of the 80s by Anfrando Maiola and Stefano Cundari. Inspired by Italo-Disco, they developed their own style of synth music with pulsating bass line and changing melodic parts. And the "Visitors" single released in 1985 became a big hit. Koto was influenced by Eastern culture, as the name of the project dictates.
- In parallel, Koto, Michiel van der Kuy and Erik van Vliet from the Netherlands founded the Laserdance, project, which became the most successful in the history of SynthDance, and later SpaceSynth. Their debut album "Future Generation" was released in 1987 with a run of about 150 thousand copies. Also, Rob van Eijk wrote the tunes for Laserdance, but only Michiel set the standards for this style. In 1989, ZYX Music bought all the rights of the Memory Records label, including the rights to the name and music of Koto. Maiola and Cundari approached Michiel to re-record and remix the tracks of Koto. This is how the first album "Masterpieces", appeared, with three new songs by Michiel: "Time", "Minoan War", "Plain". Later, Michiel recorded three more albums with Koto, but Maiola and Cundari have nothing to do with them.
In the early 90's, SpaceSynth began to lose its popularity and almost completely disappeared, but remained alive thanks to the labels of Hypersound Productions and AXIS Records (later renamed Alpha Centauri). Some time later, a new record label specializing in SpaceSynth music appeared, Audio Energy Music Productions. Currently, the main publisher of SpaceSynth is the Space Sound Records independent label, but many projects are released in web release / self-release formats.
About SpaceSynth.Ru
SpaceSynth.Ru is a international Russian-speaking community of fans and authors of electronic synthesizer music in the style of SpaceSynth from different countries. The site was launched on February 1, 2015. The project aims at promoting and popularizing the style, cataloging information (articles, interviews, discographies), providing a platform for the style-related discussions, covering the latest music news, and helping release new albums and compilations.
Most of the site pages work in the forum format, as well as the catalog of discographies. This allows each participant to add information independently and leave comments to it, participating in discussions this way.
Biggest forum sections:
For easy tracking of new publications and comments, the site has the ability to subscribe to the news feed using RSS. You can subscribe to either a general or a specific section of the forum.
At the moment, more than 50 producers of spacesynth music from different countries are registered on the site. Our project is regularly visited by both Russian-speaking audience and native speakers of other languages. Every day, the forum is read by 100 to 250 visitors including unregistered users.
The site has pages in the largest social networks where the most important news and events of the project are published:
Despite the fact that the project is designed primarily for Russian-speaking audience, we try to organize a comfortable visit for everyone, including speakers of other languages. The option to switch the site's system language to English is available in each participant's account settings. To translate the rest of the content, including posts and messages, you can use the menu to instantly Google Translate to any language.
Most of the site pages work in the forum format, as well as the catalog of discographies. This allows each participant to add information independently and leave comments to it, participating in discussions this way.
Biggest forum sections:
- Catalog of projects, discographies, biographies - this section contains a catalog of authors and projects, arranged alphabetically. For each project, a separate section is created, where details on its author or authors, as well as a biography, discography, and interview are published. Any audio material for listening or direct download is published only with the author's permission, except for links to public services such as YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, etc.
- Music news - this section presents spacesynth-related news: new songs/albums, concerts, performances, posters, and more. Each topic of the section corresponds to a specific month and contains publications that occurred during that month.
- Music discussion - in this section, users discuss any topics related to the style: musical events, people, hardware, software, etc.
For easy tracking of new publications and comments, the site has the ability to subscribe to the news feed using RSS. You can subscribe to either a general or a specific section of the forum.
At the moment, more than 50 producers of spacesynth music from different countries are registered on the site. Our project is regularly visited by both Russian-speaking audience and native speakers of other languages. Every day, the forum is read by 100 to 250 visitors including unregistered users.
The site has pages in the largest social networks where the most important news and events of the project are published:
- vkontakte - our group on VK, in the Russian language
- facebook - our group on Facebook, in the English language
Despite the fact that the project is designed primarily for Russian-speaking audience, we try to organize a comfortable visit for everyone, including speakers of other languages. The option to switch the site's system language to English is available in each participant's account settings. To translate the rest of the content, including posts and messages, you can use the menu to instantly Google Translate to any language.
SpaceSynth.Ru Radio
In February 2016, a 24/7 Internet radio station was launched, the purpose of which is to popularize style, promote the authors and familiarize the audience with both the classics and new released. You can listen to it on the Portal page or in your favorite player. In addition, the radio occasionally hosts themed broadcasts, transmissions, as well as presentation of the new author's album. Announcements about upcoming broadcasts are published in Our radio section. All the authors who write spacesynth music can present their new album or single on the radio.
At the audience request, in January 2017, an Android application was released for more comfortable listening to radio on mobile devices.
At the audience request, in January 2017, an Android application was released for more comfortable listening to radio on mobile devices.
SpaceSynth.Ru non-profit label
December 2016 saw the announcement of the creation of non-commercial SpaceSynth.Ru net label, which aims to promote authors who write electronic music in the style of spacesynth. In the same year, the label released its debut «Space Odyssey» compilation featuring the composers of our community.
All members of our team can publish their albums on behalf of SpaceSynth.Ru, having previously agreed with us. We publish both physical CDs and digital releases. Since the publication of physical media is very expensive and doesn't pay off, the decision to publish a CD is made personally by the administration and in very small quantities. You can independently publish CDs on behalf of the label, however, you will have to distribute it yourself and its catalog number shall differ from our standard one. Details are discussed personally. Publishing in digital formats on behalf of the label is almost unlimited. More information about the label can be found here.
All members of our team can publish their albums on behalf of SpaceSynth.Ru, having previously agreed with us. We publish both physical CDs and digital releases. Since the publication of physical media is very expensive and doesn't pay off, the decision to publish a CD is made personally by the administration and in very small quantities. You can independently publish CDs on behalf of the label, however, you will have to distribute it yourself and its catalog number shall differ from our standard one. Details are discussed personally. Publishing in digital formats on behalf of the label is almost unlimited. More information about the label can be found here.
SpaceSynth.Ru Shop
In August 2018, a separate website page was launched at shop.spacesynth.ru where you can find CDs from our label and other merch from the project (still in process) for purchase. It is important to understand that distributing CDs from the label does not bring any benefits. CD printing is ordered in limited amounts as souvenirs for special fans and is sponsored exclusively by the project administration. Despite this is not a factory press, the quality of printing and the media itself is at a very high level, since printing is ordered in professional printing houses. The price of the CDs is formed to at least partially recoup the costs of their production and free delivery to authors who participated in the releases.
Everything we do is done solely for the sake of art. The site has not had and will never have any third-party advertising or any other content for making money! Neither the release of CDs, nor the activity of our site as a whole brings any financial benefit, but rather the opposite. However, in return we get something much more – a moral satisfaction from this work and joy from communicating with like-minded people. We are sure that we are doing something big!