Resynator

A night I’ll never forget. Thank you to my friends and heroes Jimmy Jam, Matt Musty, Money Mark & Gotye for being on stage with me last night. Thank you to the Grammy Museum for having us and for being the easiest most wonderful crew to work with. And thanks to everyone who showed up and continues to show up for me and this project. I’m so happy. @resynator @flytetymejam @moneymark @mattmusty @gotye @grammymuseum 📸: Courtesy of the Recording Academy™️/photo by Rebecca Sapp, Getty Images© 2025 & @otoart for a couple shots too!

Happy 1 year anniversary to Resynator being on the Criterion Channel. Go stream it for free with a 7-day free trial! Link in bio, or head to /resynator 💫 🙏🤍

Two years ago today. My first film: Resynator, my first film festival premiere: SXSW premiere. My first award: an Audience Award. And I got to experience it with about 30 friends, family and talented friends who worked on the film and was in the film. It was a dream I will happily relive over and over again for the rest of my life ❤️ also - Watch Resynator and tell your friends!! /watch

I am so sad to write this — and this video from 2018 about the Resynator project is so wonderful, but really hard to watch — because Professor Scott Deal has passed away. Scott was the director of the Tavel Center at IU, and the modernized Resynator prototype that is in development was all due to him recognizing the importance of this project and championing it every step of the way. The last time I spoke to Scott was a few months ago; I had a meeting with the Dean, and Scott was in it too, and afterwards he called me and told me he was proud of me, not just for the way I handled the situation but for how I have managed this project as a whole. He then told me he loved me and that he was admitted to Hospice and that he hoped he would be able to see me again before he left. I am so crushed that I didn’t get to see him, but I am comforted knowing that he was at peace with the reality. His passing is a huge loss to Indiana University, Herron, The Donald Louis Tavel Arts & Tech Research Center, and it’s a huge, huge loss to me. We will finish the Resynator prototype project (with many thanks to Scott’s right hand man Harry Chaubey) and we’ll always have W. Scott Deal to thank for championing it from day one. My heart goes out to his family, friends, colleagues and students. ❤️

Special shoutout to @townsendmastering for making my Resynator vinyl sound so good. I called him in a pinch and he turned it around so fast! The record is available locally or online at Healing Force Records (link in bio & stories, and it’s also the first record on their “staff picks” page 😭❤️) and if you haven’t been to a show there yet check out the lineup and go see one. It’s become such a staple to our music community! Thanks again @healingforcerecords and @austinmanuel and Nick!!

#2016 was my favorite year. My trip to Colombia with the Resynator changed my life forever. I had my friend Peter take this “hero shot” of the Resynator at the beach and it eventually became the movie poster art done by the fabulous @fem_design_ The main poster is just me, and then for @criterioncollection we made a special poster that was the same Colombian image of me, but with my dad as well that better suited the tagline “The Girl. The Synth. The Legend.” I love both posters so much though, and I love the photo that inspired them. I miss Colombia and all of my friends there so much and I WILL BE COMING BACK soon ❤️

Cozy synthy things for your gift giving consideration 🎁❄️🎛️ resynator.com/store ✨

@resynator LPs available now via their page and Resynator.com/store. Feat. my score, additional music from many other folks, and even Don’s own music. The first official vinyl release featuring the rare Resynator synth, and also the first release of Don’s music. The film is streaming now on the @criterioncollection channel.

Don Tavel, a small-town musician and inventor from Indiana, died in a car crash when his daughter @alisontavel (pictured here) was 10 weeks old. When Tavel was 25, she dug the synthesizer prototype out from her grandmother’s attic that he’d invented in the 70s called the Resynator and started a project that would take her ten years to complete, a documentary about the synth and discovering who her dad, whom she never knew, really was. We got to see a screening of the doc at @grammymuseum , last week, and highly recommend - it’s a moving story. You can watch the movie, which won the Audience Award for Documentary Feature at SXSW in 2024, on Criterion Collection. Alison was kind enough to drop some copies of the Original Documentary Soundtrack, scored by Chris Ruggiero, with additional music by @mattmusty , Don Tavel (posthumously), Crisanta Baker, @benalleman @jonnatchez @drewtaubenfeld using one of four Resynator prototypes, her dad’s, for the score (@itspetergabriel purchased the other three in the 70s). It’s a fun listen and in-store now.

To take a quote from my dad from the film, he says, “Instead of love, I got awards. I didn’t want awards, I wanted your love.” I’ve thought a lot about that during this release - It would have been so fun to get nominated and win, and the awards are great for small projects like mine because it brings more viewers, which is all I want. But instead, I get so much love everyday from my family, my friends, people I don’t know and my musical heroes. And that love is for me, the film, the Resynator — and it’s also for my dad, and that means the world to me. The messages that I have received from you all and the stories about your families that you share with me after seeing the film are so meaningful, and I will keep them with me always. Including this one above from Jam. Thank you for everything, always @flytetymejam ❤️ we carry on!! 🎥: @grammymuseum (thx Laura!!)

Resynator at the GRAMMY Museum Nov. 3rd! Q&A with Jimmy Jam, Gotye, Money Mark, Matt Musty, and director Alison Tavel. @resynator “expands the entire notion of what a music documentary can be.” Grab your tickets now!

So excited that Gotye will now also be joining the panel for this special Resynator screening along with myself, Matt Musty and Money Mark! We’ll be talking about the film and the music but also about preservation of music history & instruments, and how he, myself and Mark have each taken something from the past and worked to bring it into the future. If you don’t know about the work that Wally & his team are doing via @forgottenfuturesmusic , check it out! Hosted by the one and only Jimmy Jam. Tickets for the screening are linked in my bio ✨#grammymuseum