World Music Day 2012

Originally known as Fête de la Musique and starting in France, World Music Day happens every June 21st, the normal date of the summer solstice (although this year, as in every leap year, it is on the 20th, but hey, who’s counting?!) and is designed for the world to celebrate music, those who make it and those who make it possible. I kinda like that vibe, and so do the folks at Arturia who, for one day only (June 21st 2012), have released a version of their Minimoog V software synthesizer, called Minimoog V – Original, and you don’t have to pay a single penny for it! Yup, it is free, gratis, no cash required. It comes as a plug in and standalone and the only difference between it and the regular version is that the whizzy cool stuff that Arturia added to the ‘rear panel’ has been omitted.

Other than that, it’s fully functional, with all the library of presets included too.

Other than their altruism (in exchange for your email address), Arturia have given the world an opportunity to own a version of the Minimoog which is also a great tool for learning about synthesis and I wholeheartedly recommend everyone to get this and install it on your computers, or better still, on your kids computers. encourage them to play with sound and learn the basics of the art. It will serve them in good stead.

Be prepared for some time to grab this as I imagine Arturia’s servers will take a hammering (unless they’ve seen sense to utilise a cloud based, scalable service to cope with the almost certain demand).

And for the rest of today, if you know a musician, or maybe someone that creates the tools for musicians, or maybe even a music blogger, give ‘em a hug and thank them for filling the world with the joy of music

P.S. Learn more about the Minimoog from Moog’s own expert, Marc Doty, aka Automatic Gainsay…