By Lauren W. Dillard

Like electronic music pioneers Robert Moog and Don Buchla, who came before him, Joseph Paradiso seemed destined to become a synth wizard. As a child, he was fascinated with music; soldering his own creations and experimenting with tape looping.

A teenage interest in prog rock switched him on to synthesizers and after moving to Zurich in the mid-1970s to study at ETH, Paradiso built his own very epic modular synth from scratch.

Paradiso said, “I was obsessed with building modules. By the end of my stay, I had built over 70 modules. It just grew and grew and grew, a little like that Stephen King book Rose Red, the house that kept on growing.”