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After a quick back and forth in another thread I realized I haven't really seen a "big synth discussion" thread here.  Since I know some folks here play them and it's a great community, I thought I'd start one.

All topics related to hardware, software, sequencers, studio setups and the like are welcome!

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Maybe around 2010 or so I started to get interested in synthesizers.  I was never into synth related music as a kid so I'm not sure what captivated me about it then.  I think it was probably the resurgence of Moog and some of the videos they shot online.  I ended up opting for a used Nord Lead 2 off CL and learning the basics of subtractive synthesis on there.  

I got my first legit analogs last fall with the Behringer Model D and the Korg Minilogue XD.

Lately, of all things I've been captivated by nostalgia and the Korg Wavestation and the Roland D50.  I'm trying to resist dropping cash on another older, probably parts-rare hardware synth but I have such strong memories of the evolving pads from those old machines.

The worst part is that I've already bought Omnisphere, so I've probably got a more capable plugin...  But man hardware is cool. 

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Sorry, I didn't see this and posted an addendum manifesto to our discussion in the other thread.  I have been a synth fanatic (fan, not a player) since I was a kid.  I was (am) a fan of funk, disco, new wave, basically anything that included synths.  I didn't play keyboard so I never entertained actually buying one.

Some time in the 00's I was backing a singer in church (on guitar) playing all these pads with long delays and volume swells.  It occurred to me I'd be better served playing this on synth.  It was a fleeting thought, but it hung somewhere in the back of my mind.  And then around 2016 Roland introduced the JD-Xi - it was so affordable and did so many things I had to have it - in white.

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It's been great, but the mini keys are tough for a keyboard klutz.  The sounds, except for the piano emulations, are amazing, but I'm not too interested in straight piano out of this thing.  The sequencer is so easy even I can use it and the drums include 909, 808, 707, etc.  Fantastic!

I continue to Jones for the MODX I posted about in the GAS thread, or a full-sized key MIDI controller for the JD-Xi, but it's been a fantastic introduction in synthesis.

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                                                                                                                              Love the Yamaha CS-80 and DX-I!..........................I guy I knew had the CS-80 which was amazing. I've never seen a DX-1 in person they are so very rare. I'm sure Hans Zimmer has both in here somewhere. ATmc530.jpg

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Yeah, some of those guys like him, Junkie XL, etc. just have these absurd collections.  I definitely sighed a little when the ARP 2600 reissue came out, knowing I wouldn't get one.

Trying to beat guitar GAS by getting into synths was possibly the dumbest thing I've tried musically.  :D

 

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I love synthesizers. They scare the shit out of me.

Subtractive is reasonable easy, and analog modeling has brought prices down and capabilities up.
I took a stab a FM synthesis, never got anywhere.

They scare me because I see them as a big rabbit hole to fall down, timewise.

I have a three analog modeling synths, two FM and something from Yamaha that is probably AWM, and a couple drum machines. None of them are set up right now.

Edited to add: At one time I owned a Roland G77 bass synth. Fun, but when you're screwing around in synth mode, who's playing the bass part? Also ,didn't track too well - I probably should have put flatwound strings on it. 😆

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You're right @killerteddybear...  When I was in a band with a synth player it was like he first had to decide what kind of instrument he wanted to play for the song, then he had to dial in the sound.  He just had this whole other level at which he needed to work.  It reminded me of the pod scene in spinal tap...  He'd be finished picking his sound and the jam would end. :D

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I've been a synth fanatic since I first heard an entire piece with synths; Switched on Bach.  First taste was at Disneyland in 72, the Mainstreet Electric Parade and it blew me away, but was a kid and had no concept of what a synth was.

Fast forward and was playing bass in a progressive/art rock band in the 80s.  Guy on keys was fantastic, so just got a Korg Delta for occasional flavor. 

Out of bands since, but the fever has come and gone quite a few times over the years.  Polysix, Matrix1000, VirusB, AN1X, MicroQ and a few others. 

Latest is a Novation Peak.  Absolutely fantastic unit.  Sounds great, a ton of modulation possibilities, and close to one-knob per function.  And they just updated it so you can create and load it with your own wavetables. 

 

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For a few years I made it into Kontakt on PC. The number of virtual instruments is endless. Not that I can seriously play the keyboard. But it is great fun to play around with virtual instruments for an evening or so. Biggest thing was to connect @Sentinel‘s symphony to a sampled Dutch organ. It had been a month long project with great enjoyment on the outcome. But, I‘m also having some vintage synth loadable.

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My first job out of college was with Baldwin Piano and Organ Co.  While the home organs are considered cheesy, the technology was really cool. This was the start of the transition from analog to digital, most of the digital function was switching and digital control of current-controlled op-amps and modulation.  The Church Organ guys were developing synthesis using the mighty for the time Motorola 68000 microprocessor.  The early synthesizers like Mini Moog and ARP were already used by bands.

i believe the reason there were and continue to be a wide variety of synths is the UI, how a musical person interacts with the machine.  It is difficult to figure out what types of signal sources and paths might actually sound like, and to present endless options in a musically understandable way. Indeed, interesting sounds arise from non-standard logic.  In the guitar world, the simple analogy is turning the amp all the way up and adding a couple of pedals. Some stuff was great, some not so much, but has developed tremendously (but stuck in the rut of variation of pre-existing sounds, not totally new. I can dig it).

Early analog synths used various oscillators to generate the main tone; control filters and modulations. Had to use patch cords to connect them.  Yamaha came out with their operator system, a cool method that was less direct in terms of signal routing. Today, it can all be done inside of the machine with code and DSP. The UI is almost everything in terms of using the machine.  And the methods to generate sounds by software are nearly infinite.  One could use a simple sine wave for the tone, modulate the amplitude by the waveform of the earth’s wobble, do some frequency modulation derived from the cycle of fog rolling in and out of the San Francisco Bay and add echo from a valley in the Swiss Alps.

One of the first commercial waveform synthesizers is the Hammond B3, introduced in 1935. It was meant to duplicate a pipe organ but has its own distinctive sound that became a standard for jazz, rock and blues.

 

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My first start with a synthesizer was a Radio Shack moog created concertmate or something.  I had a blast playing with that thing.  Wish I still had it.  Had a few other keyboards with some basic controls.  One that is great fun now is the Alchemy synth that is built in to Logic Pro.  Logic has some nice synths but Alchemy was loved by a lot of people and many were quite pissed when Apple bought the guy out and hired him to work for them. 

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2 hours ago, seeker said:

I've been a synth fanatic since I first heard an entire piece with synths; Switched on Bach.  First taste was at Disneyland in 72, the Mainstreet Electric Parade and it blew me away, but was a kid and had no concept of what a synth was.

Fast forward and was playing bass in a progressive/art rock band in the 80s.  Guy on keys was fantastic, so just got a Korg Delta for occasional flavor. 

Out of bands since, but the fever has come and gone quite a few times over the years.  Polysix, Matrix1000, VirusB, AN1X, MicroQ and a few others. 

Latest is a Novation Peak.  Absolutely fantastic unit.  Sounds great, a ton of modulation possibilities, and close to one-knob per function.  And they just updated it so you can create and load it with your own wavetables. 

The Polysix was badass, always wanted one.

Take a look at the Alesis ION analog modeling synth. Three oscillators, the usual filters and envelopes and knobs everywhere (I think I counted 30). Voice layering, keyboard splits blah blah blah. Five octave keyboard.
I have the ION and it's mini-version (Micron). Both sound fabulous, but the Micron suffers from 'one-knob-and-infinite-menus' disease. As a stage tool it's full of usable presets which you can tweak to death (as I did).

Isao Tomita put out Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite" in the '70s, in the days when everything was done manually. It must have been an enormous task.

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1 hour ago, BoogieMKIIA said:

One of the first commercial waveform synthesizers is the Hammond B3, introduced in 1935. It was meant to duplicate a pipe organ but has its own distinctive sound that became a standard for jazz, rock and blues.

This is seriously cool!

Yamaha went all in with synth technology, creating some engines that you rarely encounter. They had one box that modeled the mathematics of an open tube, for woodwinds and brass sounds.

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Another Yamaha fan here. I don't know much about the range of current tech out there but have really enjoyed using my MX49 in my Radiohead tribute, in terms of how easy it is both to customize sounds and to cart around. The MIDI side of things was kinda painful to figure out, but I eventually got my Helix talking to it for switching banks and presets and using the Helix's expression pedal to control filtering:

I also use the Helix's on-board synth blocks for old-school analog sounds:

 

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3 hours ago, BoogieMKIIA said:

My first job out of college was with Baldwin Piano and Organ Co.  While the home organs are considered cheesy, the technology was really cool. This was the start of the transition from analog to digital, most of the digital function was switching and digital control of current-controlled op-amps and modulation.  The Church Organ guys were developing synthesis using the mighty for the time Motorola 68000 microprocessor.  The early synthesizers like Mini Moog and ARP were already used by bands.

That's super cool.

 

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Piano was my first instrument, had 13years of serious instruction.  Eventually I owned, rented, rescued or screwed around with most of the stuff mentioned here.  I eventually figured out that playing guitar AND keys AND owning the PA was, shall we say, unduly burdensome.  The keyboard gear got relegated to  the studio, ridiculously huge MIDI rigs, etc.  These days I have the piano I learned on, an Alesis QS8 and a Proteus keyboard.  The Proteus hasn't been out of its case in probably a decade.

Oh, and a Casio CZ101 that I keep because it has a funny as hell dentist drill sound.

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2 hours ago, killerteddybear said:

Take a look at the Alesis ION analog modeling synth. Three oscillators, the usual filters and envelopes and knobs everywhere (I think I counted 30). Voice layering, keyboard splits blah blah blah. Five octave keyboard.

The ION was already unobtanium when I started shopping for my first synth, but it was so on my radar.   So. many. knobs. 

The NL2 was a nice compromise at the time.  It's fun to play and its got a ton of sounds.  In hindsight I think "bigger mod matrix, more envelopes" is something I should have prioritized in at least one of my synths.  The mod options in the NL2 are "meh" as are the ones in the Minilogue XD and the Model D (although the Model D is such a classic it scratches a different itch).

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Yamaha MODX-88 is my buddy Steve's choice.  It does everything well.  The Mellotron, Mini-Moog and horn/strings sounds are just stellar.  There's a smaller version with fewer bells and whistles that he brings to practice.  If you'd have told me that one machine could do all this just ten years ago, I'd have called bullshit.  We play 25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago.  You'd swear there was a horn section.  Incredible unit for less than 2K.

 

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This year I bought a Moog Modular IIIP for work.  Next semester classes are online so the students can't use it in person!  They'll have to suffer watching videos of me patching it.

 

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Well, I always wanted to play in a band with a keyboarder, playing original music and jamming. But it just doesn't happen. I did play with keyboarders in cover and top40 bands, but that was kind of boring. Most keyboarders I know just want to do cover music, and many do not improvise well. I am a guy who loves all the old stuff, B-3 organ, piano, Rhodes/Wurli, Clavinet, Mellotron, Minimoog. Most players I know prefer post DX-7 era keyboard sounds. So, I don't think I'll ever find a keys player who's interested in what I would like to do. I tried keyboards myself, and though it is interesting, I don't like to play everything by myself (I am not good on keyboards anyway). For the homerecording I have some VST's like CS80 and Moog. So, I programm the stuff.

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On 5/7/2020 at 10:17 AM, ARM OF HAMER said:

                                                                              Love the Yamaha CS-80 and DX-I!..........................I guy I knew had the CS-80 which was amazing.

CS-80 huge sound... weighs close to 200lbs.  "Toting"  a CS-80 and CP-70 probably required doctor's permission.

unnamed.jpg

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I fell in love with synth’s when I first heard ELP’s Lucky Man and the intro to REO’s Riding the Storm out. Then Genesis’s Lamp Lies Down on Broadway! Loved that album! I’ve never played with a keyboard player that used a Moog but when our keyboard player got a Korg M1 keyboard and had the rack unit with it also it reshaped the sound of the band. He’d put layers of synched stuff in that just sounded incredible!! Especially the Sax voicing’s!! Just plain fun!!! 

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For me, this was absolutely the beginning.  I'd heard synth before, but this was the first time I'd really listened.  From what I recall from interviews, Numan went into the studio to make a very different album and discovered a Minimoog when he arrived.  Apparently the sounds he used were just the settings left by the previous user in the studio.

First heard in my bud's sister's car as she carried us home from junior high school - eight track tape in a Mercury Cougar!

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