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about Wernick Musical Instruments
Our Philosophy
We want to make every one feel good when playing our musical Instruments, whatever skill they may possess & to shine through when playing well.
We produce electronic musical instruments but try to keep the components of the acoustic equivalent that are important to the player. We evolve instruments with help from many sources & come up with inventive solutions if required rather than just ‘inventing’ instruments. The player will then find it easy to transfer between our equipment & possibly acoustic equipment in his/her set up. However our Instruments should stand well on their own in any environment.
We do not believe in the ‘throw away’ culture. All our products are serviceable. We believe in gaining & keeping the trust of players through offering an excellent ‘after sales’ service.
Who have helped us to form into a cutting edge company?
Will Wernick first took a commission for a ‘Xylophonic Synthesizer’ in 1986 for an English pop band called Drum Theatre but the Instrument was used only as a visual prop in their video as the electronics supplied by some one else never materialised. They had the foresight though to see Midi would revolutionise the MI industry with virtually limitless applications but there was no hardware (or software) easily available. CBS their record label still own this Instrument & it is most likely stored in their vaults.
There were small flourishes of activity with software engineers to re address the problem of no electronics for the Xylophonic Synthesizer in the mid 80’s and it did not come to fruition when other manufacturers released their mallet controllers. We were going to mothball the idea and accept defeat. Our instrument was inherently more expensive to make & we only had a 2 Octave version (Mark 1).
However in the early 90’s we started to hear Mallet Players saying how it would be great to play on wood again. Having heard through the age-old grapevine that players would be interested in our type of Instrument we started developing again with Gerry McCavana on software/electronics. Gerry was a work colleague of Will Wernick & would work in the evenings with Will. During this time Will became a Chartered Engineer (MIMechE) because of his experience & success in designing complex mechanisms & measuring instruments for industry. Also players such as Pablo Cook (professional session percussionist) were helping to develop the Notepad which is also made from wood.
In the beginning of 1996 Wernick Musical Instruments was established with a set of Notepads & a working Xylosynth Mark 1 prototype to show at the Frankfurt Music Messe that spring. It was Katarzyna Mycka that recommended the Xylosynth Mark 2 for the German Musical she was playing in (Miss Saigon). This was to replace their MalletKat and this purchase increased to two Xylosynths as the production company had a new Musical (Joseph & the amazing technicolour dreamcoat) to run. These Xylosynths were delivered just before the new year as a teacher from Kent in England purchased a more transportable version (mark 3) Xylosynth. Even though this mark 3 Xylosynth has been upgraded for the player, the original one for Miss Saigon is still being used today. The production is ‘the Vampire’ in Stuttgart, Germany & the Xylosynth is still above the Timpanis.