The Serge synthesizer (aka Serge Modular or Serge Modular Music System) is an analogue modular synthesizer system originally developed by Serge Tcherepnin at CalArts in the 1970s and originally produced by Tcherepnin's Serge Modular Music Systems company.
Serge synthesizers have been used by composers such as Michael Stearns and Kevin Braheny (who owned a 15-panels system dubbed The Mighty Serge). Serge synthesizers are known for their flexibility, audio quality and relative compactness. Today, Serge synthesizers are built by Sound Transform Systems in Hartland, Wisconsin, USA.
The module configuration for Serge systems can be selected by the user. With module widths ranging from 1" to 3" or more, several modules are then arranged on a 17" wide panel.
In addition to fully featured standard synthesis modules such as voltage controlled oscillators, filters, and envelope generators, the Serge system includes esoteric audio and voltage processors such as a Wave Multiplier, a Frequency Shifter, an Analogue Delay as well as a very flexible touch-sensitive keyboard controller combined with a 16-stage analogue sequencer, known as the TKB.
The first Serge Modular synthesizer created (at CalArts, 1974) became the machine used on the first Greenpeace anti-whaling expedition (1975) by William (Will) Jackson, to approximate whale sounds and broadcast them to whales in the open Pacific. (A photo of this can be found in the Vancouver Sun newspaper archives May 1975.)