Check Out This Online Museum's Collection Of Over 60,000 Musical Instruments

Its synth section will make you drool.

It’s absolutely amazing how many different kinds of musical instruments there are in the world. If you don’t believe us, then just take a look at this project called Musical Instrument Museums Online (or MIMO for short) that compiles the collections of a number of European and African musical instrument museums into one easy-to-browse database.

MIMO features a database of over 60,000 instruments that are digitally represented with photos and interesting trivia. Now you can finally explore the fascinating diversity of stringed instruments with faces, like this creepy thing. The MIMO also includes a whole load of notable synthesizers and drum machines, which ought to appeal to historians and collectors alike. Who knows, you might just find a few new boxes to lust over, like this pristine early ’70s Moog drum machine prototype.

Considering how large the library is, we feel completely safe in saying that it feels practically endless. We could spend entire days browsing the archives picking out photos of obscure gear we could previously hardly imagine, like this late ’60s research synth console. Special thanks to the folks at Open Culture for tipping us to this resource via their in-depth article, which you can read here.

Read more: Watch a 360° video from inside Roland’s Japanese synth museum