Rise of the Synthesizer
collectorsweekly.com
collectorsweekly.com
Also on Netflix is a documentary film called I Dream of Wires about modular synthesizers, which I'm yet to get round to watching but is supposed to be very good.
Really must have a play on my synthesizers again, they've been gathering dust while I've been focussing on other things but a good synth really is a joy to play with.
But there was one thing I didn't quite get, which it didn't explain, just glossed over, is why people got so obsessed with synths. It assumed you already know why. I've always tinkered with things, but don't get it. Perhaps because I never had access to one. Commodore 64, yes, soldering iron, yes, modular synth, no.
I'm not a musician so I can't say I get it either, but I can certainly enjoy the result.
Today it still boggles my mind that I have a fully working CS-80 as a Reaper plugin.
Synth Brittania starts with the excitement from musicians listening to "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer. (They say something along the lines of "Wow! It made me feel that I could music too. To play punk you needed to know three chords, but to play a synth you only needed to know one chord.")
There's another BBC documentary about Funk music, which predated the synth movement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_dXS8UMrxE
Funk has a very distinctive beat, with an emphasis on the downbeat (one), and the use of many different instruments in percussive ways. That documentary ends with the rise of disco, which had a four-to-the-floor style beat, and was more generically palatable to a broader whitew audience. The song "I Feel Love" is played towards the end of the Funk documentary, as music heralding to imminent decline of funk's popularity.
Years later, I moved into a smaller place and had to part ways with most of my synths. Sadly, my 106 was a casualty (since a Juno 106 is basically an eviction notice with a keyboard attached), but I sold it to a wicked musician who made some amazing sounds with it.
I still miss that instrument. I hate spelling fat with a 'ph', but the Juno 106 can only be described as phat...
Not everyone's type of music but this track is basically a Juno 106 pad, strings and lead demo and my angry driving music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsLYwR9Jp-Y
I myself drive a Korg Triton which I paid equiv $90 for because it was broken. Turned out to be a shorted cap in the power supply that took 10 mins with a multimeter to find.
> I wanted to do an album with the sound of the '50s, the sound of the '60s, of the '70s and then have a sound of the future. And I said, "Wait a second...I know the synthesizer – why don't I use the synthesizer which is the sound of the future?" And I didn't have any idea what to do, but I knew I needed a click so we put a click on the 24 track which then was synched to the Moog Modular. I knew that it could be a sound of the future but I didn't realise how much the impact would be
This is absolutely incorrect- this describes a wavetable synthesizer, which is what the early Kurzweil's were. An additive synthesizer works by adding individual sine waves together of various amplitudes and frequencies.
It sounds like nothing else out there, don't think I'll ever get rid of it.
The other famous additive synth was the DKI Synergy. It was a preset-only version of the ludicrously expensive Crumar GDS ($27,500), although if hung a Keypro micro off it you could create your own sounds without the GDS.
The Kawaii additive synths came a lot later.
The most recent additive outing is Camel's Alchemy, which does additive and other synthesis types. It which was bought by Apple and bundled with Logic Pro 10.2. NI's Razor is also additive, although the programming model is strange.
Additive can sound amazing but it's incredibly tweaky and time-consuming to program, so most people still prefer subtractive/analog.
For a nice "plug-in" like DAW integration of hardware synths, check out http://ctrlr.org/