A widely circulated photo claims to be taken in 1970, but it appears to be taken around 1980.

For anyone who regularly surfs around the various synth subreddits, Facebook pages, Instagram and Twitter handles, the image of a young Hans Zimmer posing with a massive modular monolith along with the year “1970” is a familiar sight. However, this appears to be inaccurate, by at least a decade.

Hans would be 13 years old.

Hans Zimmer was born in 1957, which would mean he would only be 13 years old in 1970. While he did begin his musical career as a teenager, he wasn’t quite that young when he moved to London and started his efforts writing jingles. His first significant music project was working with The Buggles in 1980.

Hans would be broke

While Hans had worked on some high-profile projects throughout the early 80’s, it wasn’t until his score for 1987’s The Last Emperor that Hans said he finally made enough money to pay his rent. While many of us would gladly shirk our fiscal responsibilities for such a glorious piece of kit, it seems unlikely that a broke, young Hans would shell out the 10’s of thousands a massive modular setup like this would have cost at that time.

Roland System 100m was released in 1979.

Some Reddit users have pointed out that some of the modules here are not Moogs, they are, in fact, Roland System 100m components, which were first released in 1979. These appear to occupy the bottom row of modules in this photo.

In conclusion, we would estimate this photo could not have possibly been taken any earlier than 1980, and could very well have been much, much later.

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Categories: Synth in Film

J.P. Fontana