There's a great BBC documentary on the synthesizer and it's role in the rise of electronic music (in Britain particularly) in the 70s/80s called Synth Britannia, worth a watch if you like this sort of thing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK1P93r9xes
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.
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:
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.
I saw "I Dream of Wires" on netflix. I enjoyed it, and grew up in those days so have a fondness for the sounds.
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.
The majority of people never had access to a hardware modular either, unless they were involved with an experimental music program in a University. For the younger generation now interested in hardware modulars, software modulars may have been a gateway. I think enjoying modular synthesis isn't that different to enjoying programming more generally, people like to explore and see what new things they can create.
I've been into synths and sound design for a while. But even for someone like me, the last few years have been amazing. Two years ago I had a lot of software and controllers. But now you can get high quality analog keyboard synths at great price points (e.g a Moog Sub37 or an Arturia Microbrute), and Eurorack has made modular synthesis cheaper and more accessible than ever before. It's a great time to be into synths.
Seems simple enough. If you're a musician, your Great Commission is to create sounds that nobody has ever heard before, and use those sounds to express things that will resonate at some level with everybody. "Synthesis" means creation by composition.
I'm not a musician so I can't say I get it either, but I can certainly enjoy the result.
I learned to solder when I was in grade 8. At first, it seemed kind of stupid and I really didn't have all that much to solder. But then I became an adult and developed a problem with synthesizers. I bought a broken Juno 106 on eBay, got it shipped, opened it up (because hey, it was already broken) and was excited to find that all I needed was a soldering iron. A few minutes later and holy bass...
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...
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.
Giorgio Moroder (mentioned in the article) reflects on the synthesizer's rise in the song Giorgio by Moroder, from the latest Daft Punk album (Random Access Memories):
> 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
Punks didn't exactly reject synths and certainly not on grounds of 'authenticity'. Suicide were a notable punk band who used them, while Magazine and Joy Division were big synth users and barely post punk. The reason they weren't emblematic with the first wave of punk was entirely down to cost - they were seen as a millionaire's instrument and therefore tasteless and decadent. Once Roland started mass producing, synths became far more popular with post punk bands and spawned an entire movement, from Cabaret Voltaire to Depeche Mode.
As I said, it was on grounds of general inaccessibility, not inauthenticity - the point was to make far more thrilling and relevant music by abandoning the overwraught playing, equipment, and production which had become the norm from the mid 70s. At that point, synthesizers were largely associated with millionaires noodling away in expensive studios and not part of the equation for a bunch of teenagers starting a band. The minute these bands started doing albums and synths started getting mass produced by Japanese firms, they began to pop up in the music from about 1978, just a year after the first crop of UK punk albums.
> Because they relied on audio samples rather than sounds that were designed from scratch, the Kurzweils were known as additive synthesizers.
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.
The first Kurzweil was indeed additive, not sample-based - with hardware designed by Hal Chamberlin, who was famous for the Musical Applications of Microprocessors book.
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.
There was an additive synth, but it wasn't Kurzweil and there was only one model I knew of and saw advertised only once. With 128 sine waves to set, it could do everything but required everything to do something.
There were two (hardware) additives synths, both from Kawai - the K5 and the K5000 series. I have the K5000S, and it is relatively difficult to program.
It sounds like nothing else out there, don't think I'll ever get rid of it.
Recently the major names have reissued the Arp Odyssey and MS20 (by Korg), roland's recreations of select juno/jupiters, and the Moog mother. Very exciting time to be a knobby/CV synth hobbyist. Before this, there were a select few inexpensive knobby synths that people sought out if they couldn't budget for bigger Moogs: Radias/MS2000, jp8000 and 8080, maybe an SH 201, etc.
If you want a full modular synth to play with, with a built-in tracker and an outstanding UI, I suggest trying Sunvox[1]. It is free (as in beer) for a huge number of platforms.
Also a KVR/gearslut hanger-outer. As a side note I've recently gotten into collecting vintage samplers. I just picked up a Roland S-550 for a hundred bucks. These things are just MSX pcs with a fancy case. I have been chatting up a guy who has done some cool stuff bringing these things back in date. http://llamamusic.com great guy and very great stuff he is doing. These samplers used to cost 2-3000 in the late 80s and it's a shame to let them rot.
I used to drool over those adverts of the Roland S-line samplers with computer monitors and mouse attached, back in the early nineties. They looked so futuristic and magical to me! :)
I haven't got any of them in my current collection – but I do have an Akai S5000 (which is almost vintage) and an Emu Emax (which definitely is!).
Brings back happy memories. I built a few of the modules of the Elektor Formant synthesizer in the early 80s. I got as far as building a VCO and VCF but ran out of money then.
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.