S100-HERITAGE - Restoration & Digital Representation of the EMS Synthi 100 (MWK Lower Saxony, 2026-2028)

The project is dedicated to the preservation, scholarly documentation and digital accessibility of the EMS Synthi 100 at Osnabrück University. Only a few examples of this large-scale instrument survive intact worldwide, making it a significant testimony to the music and technology history of Lower Saxony and beyond. The project aims to document, conserve and contextualise the Synthi 100 both as a material object and as evidence of historical production and performance practice. This includes condition-based restoration, the systematic survey of the instrument's technical, aesthetic and use-related characteristics, and the integration of the results into a sustainable digital collection and metadata system.

On this basis, a digital representation — a "digital twin" — of the instrument is being developed. Its motivation is not primarily technical but archival and cultural-historical: it makes historical modes of operation, working processes and possibilities of sonic design transparent and comprehensible, thereby opening up low-barrier access to a cultural object that is otherwise difficult to approach. Complementing this, a "playable archive" is being built that brings together historical sources, sound examples, documents and operating practices, and makes them available for research, teaching and the wider public.

Funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture (MWK), 2026–2028