In his latest video, German synthesist Hainbach takes a look at a rare modular synthesizer system from behind the iron curtain.

Here’s what he has to say about it:

“Synthesizers had it hard in Socialist East-Germany – Socialist Realism was for a long time the prevailing art form. An instrument that creates unreal sounds was not endorsed by the SED leadership. Only in the waning years of the GDR (or DDR as it is called in German) that changed, with the Vermona Synthesizer coming out in 1982.

The first officially sanctioned modular synthesizer, the Audiotronic AMS3 featured in this video was built between 1986 and 1988 for the Electro-Acoustic Studio of the Akademie der Künste.”