Join us for our Intro to Ableton Live workshop. This is a beginner friendly workshop for all those looking to delve into this popular DAW. Learn the basics and familiarize yourself with this powerful electronic music canvas. We will show you how to work with both audio/samples and MIDI-based instruments. By the end of the workshop you will know what you need to start making your own songs!

Saturday, April 26th, 2025
3 pm - 5:30 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$10-20 sliding scale
(tickets required to attend, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for no-cost tickets)

Join us for a Spring Concert at Synth Library Portland! All performers are members of the library to celebrate their contribution to the community and highlight their incredible artistry. The concert is bookended by audiovisual sets, with live visuals from the SLP crew for the three music sets in the middle. We hope to see you there!

Performances by:
Cellographic
Cattafaxxa
Gregory Allison
blond-noise
Clayton Davis


Sunday, April 27th 2025
4 pm - 7 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool
All ages (10+ recommended)

$10-20 sliding scale
(Tickets are required to attend)

All people in recovery are welcome to join us at Synth Library Portland for a monthly event series designed to foster connection, creativity, collaboration, and community among local artists.

We aim to create a supportive and empowering space where people in recovery—however they choose to define it—can grow, express themselves, and build relationships, regardless of experience or skill level. This is an inclusive, welcoming space for all.

While Synth Library Portland is providing the gathering space and sponsoring this free event you do not need to be a member of the library to attend, though we hope you consider joining our diverse crew of creatives.

Tuesday, April 29th, 2025
Repeats monthly - Stay tuned!
5:30 pm - 7 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

Free
(RSVP encouraged but not required)

During this time the library will be open for all to explore our collection of gear and meet our facilitators! It’s also a great chance to learn more about member perks like our lending program, drop-in hours, and studio hours.

Saturday, May 3rd, 2025
(Recurs every 4 weeks)
2 pm - 5 pm
(Come at any time, or stay the whole time!)
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

Free
(RSVP encouraged but not required)

Learn to make your own analog video glitch device in our AVE-MOD workshop. In this workshop you will assemble a Syntonie AVE-MOD kit.

The AVE-MOD is a circuit-bent version of Radio Shack's Archer Video Enhancer, a set-top device for enhancing your TV image in an era when picture adjustments weren't common on TVs themselves. The bends allow you to create exciting glitch effects that will be the envy of your friends.

Sunday, May 4th, 2025
12 pm - 3 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$50
Workshop fee includes: a kit to build AVE-MOD, power supply, and RCA cables to connect it to video source and TV. Kits will be brought to the event the day of so you can simply show up and everything you need to build the video synth will be provided.

A Wonderful group jam! Bring your own instruments and play electronic music with fellow community members.

Sunday, May 4th, 2025
3 pm - 5:30 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

Free
(RSVP required to attend)

Learn the fundamentals of modular synthesis in this beginner workshop with no prior knowledge necessary. We’ll lay all the necessary groundwork to get you started on your modular journey. It’s also a great review of the basics to ensure you have a solid grasp of fundamental modular concepts and terminology. This is a 90 minute abridged version of the class, but we also regularly offer 3 hour version on weekends in our space at lloyd center.

Tuesday, May 6th, 2025
5:30 pm - 7 pm
@ Control Voltage
3742 N Mississippi Ave

$10-20 sliding scale
(tickets required to attend, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for no-cost tickets)

All women and non-binary folks are welcome to join us for a monthly event series that encourages learning together, jam together, and connect with other artists in the area. We want to create a welcoming environment to help grow our community of electronic musicians for all femmes and enbies regardless of skill level or experience.

Wednesday, May 7th, 2025
(Recurs every first Wednesday of the month)
5:30 pm - 7 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

Free
(RSVP encouraged but not required)

Delay deserves praise, so we made a whole workshop about it! This intermediate-level talk explores the many faces of everyone's favorite effect, delay. Time scales determine how delayed audio effects function, so we will explore these qualitative changes that occur as the delay time changes. We'll illustrate how delay is central to many forms of audio synthesis/manipulation beyond traditional echo.

We will delve into the anatomy of the delay effect, showing you how to create echos with any audio buffer and creating feedback routing ourselves using a generic mackie mixer. We'll show how adding effects inside the delay feedback loop can help you gain precision control over how repeats unfold, as well as provide an opportunity for unexpected results and wild recursive madness!

Instructors: Max Jersak (Max Myriad) and Jon Nasrallah (Casual Decay)

Saturday, May 10th, 2025
1 pm - 3 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$10-20 sliding scale
(tickets required to attend, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for no-cost tickets)

Learn to Play Your First Show EVER! Our aim is not to infantilize or haze new performers. To the contrary, we aim to support you as you navigate the ins and outs of your first performance whilst maintaining the idea that performing should be fun!

As performers it’s important to not take ourselves too seriously and get trapped in the pitfalls of perfectionism, fear and nerves. Your workshop instructors will guide you through a series of writing activities to help you conceptualize who you want to be on stage and recognize the tools, materials and supports you currently have that will enable you to get out there and perform. They’ll touch on logistics, give you a list of accessible venues and open mics, allow the opportunity to connect and network with your fellow developing performers and host guest speakers to give you an idea of what performing in Portland (and beyond) is like! We will be demystifying performing, working through the limitations of fears and nerves, build awareness of potential performance opportunities and enable you to connect with other performers and aspiring performers like you!

Instructors: Mae Pettit and Sawyer Sweet

Sunday, May 11th, 2025
12 pm - 3 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$10-20 sliding scale
(tickets required to attend, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for no-cost tickets)

Learn to make your own contact mic and preamp in eurorack form! In this workshop you will assemble and take home a Music Thing Modular Mikrophonie V3 module.

DIY beginners are welcome! No prior experience necesssary and we are happy to teach you how to solder

Saturday, May 17th, 2025
1 pm - 3 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$30
Workshop fee includes all tools and supplies to build a module. We will have soldering irons/solder available for all attendees.

A potentially gentle introduction to the Fourier Transform and it’s applications in audio processing. This talk offers an accessible overview for and applications of the Fourier transform and its derivatives: the Fourier Series, Discrete Time Fourier Transform, and the FFT. The following topics will be covered:

-The biological basis for how frequency and time are perceived
-A manual calculation of the Fourier Series for a square wave and analysis of its components
-The time–frequency uncertainty principle
-Combining signals: multiplication and convolution
-The impulse and its response.
-Applications, including filtering, modulation and information compression.
-Measuring frequency spectra of signals at the library.
-Some calculus and trigonometry will be shown, but math skills are not required to get intuition and delight!


Presented by Lewis Guignard

Sunday, May 25th, 2025
1 pm - 2:30 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$10-20 sliding scale
(tickets required to attend, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for no-cost tickets)

During this time the library will be open for all to explore our collection of gear and meet our facilitators! It’s also a great chance to learn more about member perks like our lending program, drop-in hours, and studio hours.

Saturday, May 31st, 2025
(Recurs every 4 weeks)
2 pm - 5 pm
(Come at any time, or stay the whole time!)
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

Free
(RSVP encouraged but not required)

All women and non-binary folks are welcome to join us for a monthly event series that encourages learning together, jam together, and connect with other artists in the area. We want to create a welcoming environment to help grow our community of electronic musicians for all femmes and enbies regardless of skill level or experience.

Wednesday, June 4th, 2025
(Recurs every first Wednesday of the month)
5:30 pm - 7 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

Free
(RSVP encouraged but not required)

Ableton Racks are the powerful DAW tool in focus in this intermediate workshop.

We will deep dive into how Ableton's Rack system works by exploring their Instrument Rack, Effect Rack, MIDI Effect Racks, and Drum Rack devices. Then we'll go over how you can design your own racks from scratch as well as how to inject creative alterations to the rack devices you already use!

Saturday, June 7th, 2025
12:30 pm - 3 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$10-20 sliding scale
(tickets required to attend, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for no-cost tickets)

Join us for a video art and visual synthesis workshop and meetup at the Synth Library! Whether you're into software, hardware, flatscreens, CRTs, raster or vector, euro, lasers, VHS, LZX or anything else that makes light wiggle - we're into it!

We'll have several CRT monitors set up and anyone is welcome to bring their rigs or mess around on the gear we'll have set up there already. Attendees are encouraged to share their own video art works during the open projector portion. We can play VHS, DVD, or most digital formats from SD card. Pieces should be under five minutes long.

Presentation: TBA

Sunday, June 15th, 2025
1 pm - 4 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$0-$20 sliding scale
(Tickets/RSVP are required to attend. No one is turned away for lack of funds.)

In this workshop you will learn the magic of tape loops—how they work, how to make them, and why they've been a beloved technique for years. This two-hour workshop is beginner friendly--no experience is required.

We will be teaching you:
- how audio tape works,
- how cassettes and cassette players work,
- and how to hack a cassette to make a tape loop.

By the end of the workshop you will have made at least one tape loop and will go home with supplies to make some more on your own.

Saturday, June 21st, 2025
4 pm - 6 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$20
(tickets required to attend, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for no-cost tickets)

We’re all familiar with the hypnotic nature of Detroit techno—the way a track can draw you in, making a 6-hour set feel like 5 minutes. But what is it that makes these tracks so captivating? How do producers know exactly when to drop the kick, snare, and hats to pull us into a trance?

In this workshop, we’ll dive into the art of form in Detroit techno production. We’ll break down the structural elements that define the genre, exploring how iconic artists like Robert Hood, Jeff Mills, and Juan Atkins use repetition, modulation, and subtle automation to keep listeners locked in. We’ll also examine sound design techniques like delay, reverb, and filtering, focusing on how these tools shape the form and overall flow of a track. By the end of the session, participants will have the skills to compose their own track, with a focus on the form and flow that makes Detroit techno so powerful.

Presenter:
CHAiA (NYC) performs house and techno incorporating samples from traditional Yiddish music.

Sunday, June 22nd, 2025
1 pm - 2:30 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$10-20 sliding scale
(tickets required to attend, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for no-cost tickets)

During this time the library will be open for all to explore our collection of gear and meet our facilitators! It’s also a great chance to learn more about member perks like our lending program, drop-in hours, and studio hours.

Saturday, May 31st, 2025
(Recurs every 4 weeks)
2 pm - 5 pm
(Come at any time, or stay the whole time!)
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

Free
(RSVP encouraged but not required)

This workshop will showcase creative ways to perform your own music without relying on traditional DJ setups. We’ll go over the features of standard DJ mixing techniques and explore how to bring those same ideas to gear like the Elektron Octatrack, Akai Force, and even Eurorack. You could be a producer looking to get your tracks off the laptop and onto the stage, a hardware performer looking to streamline your live setup, or a DJ curious about performance tools to spark inspiration.

This session will show how a few tried and true DJ techniques can be applied to nearly any performance setup for intuitive, engaging live sets.

Instructors: Geoff Belcher

Saturday, July 5th, 2025
1 pm - 3 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$10-20 sliding scale
(tickets required to attend, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for no-cost tickets)

Welcome all Women, Femmes, and Non-Binary folks! This introductory workshop teaches the fundamentals of modular synthesis. If you are new to synths don't worry! Neither a traditional background in music nor a familiarity with electronic instruments are necessary to attend - in fact, the course is explicitly designed for total beginners.

Saturday, July 12th, 2025
12 pm - 3 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$10-20 sliding scale
(tickets required to attend, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for no-cost tickets)

We are thrilled to have Matmos join us in the Library for an artist talk. Matmos are respected, innovative auteurs in the world of electronic music and sampling culture whose very first album was hailed as “entering electronics Valhalla” by the WIRE magazine for sampling highly unusual sound sources such as the amplified nerve tissue of crayfish.

Their new album, Metallic Life Review (coming June 20th on Thrill Jockey), continues their approach of taking a seemingly impossible premise like making an album only with select, often commonplace objects like sounds of plastic (Plastic Anniversary) or a washing machine (Ultimate Care II), this time by entirely sourcing its sound from the sound of metallic objects: bronze, copper, steel, aluminium, and various alloys. In this case, they have collected field recordings of metal objects from around the world, sourced from moments across the entirety of their years as a band. This life review documents their lives together, their curious collecting, and collages their magpie hoard into rhythmic patterns, sometimes writing melodies and basslines, but sometimes just letting sound be sound.

Matmos have collaborated with a wide array of artists across media and distinct disciplines. A partial list of musical collaborators includes: Bjork, The Kronos Quartet, Terry Riley, Marshall Allan (Sun Ra Arkestra), So Percussion, Anohni, Yo La Tengo, The Rachel’s, Oneohtrix Point Never, Jefferson Friedman, Zeena Parkins, J.G. Thirlwell, Jeff Carey, Wobbly, David Tibet, and Mouse On Mars. The diversity of this list, comprising internationally celebrated pop stars, minimalist composers, giants of jazz and indie rock and innovative improvisers and electronic musicians, indicates the range across genres and musical scenes that has been the hallmark of Matmos’ varied and mercurial career.

Matmos will be performing at Holocene on Wednesday, July 16th.

Thursday July 17th, 2025
5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$15-$30 sliding scale
(Tickets are required to attend)

This event is a DIY meetup for people interested in hacking audio tape. Come make tape loops, hang out with tape friends, and talk tape. We'll provide tools and cassette players, BYO cassettes if you want to make loops, or bring your loops if you want to play them for others.

Saturday, July 19th, 2025
12 pm - 2 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$1-10 Suggested Donation
(RSVP and donation encouraged, no one turned away for lack of funds, email info@synthlibraryportland.org for free entry)

In this hands-on DIY workshop, we'll explain how and why breadboards are used in creative circuit design and get you started building right away.

We'll build an oscillator that can make a speaker buzz. We'll explore how this works, and then expand upon the simple oscillator to create some of the basic parts of a synthesizer on your breadboard. No experience with electronics, synthesizers, or breadboarding is required. Beginners are encouraged to come!

Sunday, September 21st, 2025
1 pm - 4 pm
@ 1256 Lloyd Center (view map)
2nd Floor, near Dicepool

$30
(The cost of the workshop includes a breadboard and parts, which you can take home)