Synthesizer museum - Gatlinburg, TN

Recently, I was offered the chance to travel to a new store in Gatlinburg Tennessee to help out with opening the new location. The hours were long, but it was nice to change up my routine a little bit. One day I was on break, wandering around the strip and randomly made my way to the top floor of one of the touristy mall type places. In the far back corner I noticed a music shop with a lot of guitars and thought “Maybe I’ll find some effects pedals or something”. As I got closer I saw a couple synths in the window. I didnt recognize them. One was guitar shaped - clearly from the 80’s and boasted “Wirelss MIDI”. I dont have as in depth of a well of knowledge to draw upon as many on here (I like to think I am getting better though) but what I particularly noticed was that some of them were clearly Russian made.

My interest was piqued so I went in side. It was mostly guitars but after standing on my tiptoes to look over a big black curtain I saw walls full of synths. I managed to talk to the owner of the shop and he informed me that he would be opening a synth museum soon. I told him I was new to the hobby and building my own modular - and he let me back behind the curtain! There was a LOT of stuff. He listed off more synths than I could remember including an OP 1, a signed mini moog, and several of the Russian made ones. I asked if I could take any pictures and he told me he would rather I didnt because of the construction, which is totally understandable. He hopes to be done within the next couple of weeks and to also provide a synth ‘library’ so that people could come and use them and make recordings in the attached studio.

I’m still in a daze after getting back from the trip - but it was truly a bit morale boost to see something like this so completely at random and talk to someone who was so into synths. If anyone is in Gatlinburg or if you are heading through there it is called Doug Wyatt Guitar. A quick search reveals that you can check out some pictures at Redirecting... and get more info there too.

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