Top 20 Synths of All Time

[mps]

Sonicstate.com is having a poll on the top topic of the top 20 Synths of all time. You can vote at...

www.sonicstate.com/top20

They have been putting some interesting video up to go with this topic.

[Hollow Sun]

My vote would be (in no order)....

* EMS VCS3 or Synthi-A .... and you think Fusion is 'quirky'!!! Cut my teeth on those as a 14-yr-old synth geek! Utterly fabulous!

* MiniMoog .... not a well spec'd synth but what a sound!

* ARP2600 .... elegant semi-modular design. Flexible and sounded great

* MemoryMoog .... when it worked, the ultimate true analogue polysynth

* Korg Polysix .... a Prophet 5 for those on a budget - great little synth

* Yamaha CS80 .... not an amazing synth spec-wise but in the hands of a great player who could use that polyphonic aftertouch....! Heavy though!

* PPG Wave 2.2 .... unique

* EDP Wasp .... great sounding synth and in conjunction with the Spider sequencer, a powerhouse ... and cheap

* Crumar 'Performer' .... great string synth that put the venerable ARP/Solina String Ensemble to shame

* Ensoniq ESQ1 .... a great synth/sequencer combo

And, of course, the obvious - the reason we're here at The Fusion Club

-------------

Not synths but worthy of a mention in dispatches:

* Mellotron .... no more to be said - totally unique, pain in the arse but.... *THAT* sound!

* Fairlight CMI .... hellishly expensive and could sound like junk but the sampler/workstation that started it all and in the right hands could sound like magic

* Akai S900 .... brought affordable sampling to the masses. A Fairlight at 1/10th the price!

* Akai S1000 .... brought CD-quality sampling to the masses

* Akai MPC60 .... spawned a new generation of music makers that still lives on and thrives today despite software alternatives

* Akai S5/6000 .... biased opinion but to me the ultimate hardware sampler

* Akai EWI .... arguably the most expressive controller/synth... in the right hands

* TR808 .... first totally programable drum machine

* LinnDrum .... the drum machine that changed everything

-------------

Landmark products (IMO)?

Moog modulars, Prophet 5, Fairlight, PPG, TR808, Yamaha DX7, Akai S900, LinnDrum, Akai MPC60, Roland D50, Korg M1 ... pretty much everything else is a derivative of those now in one way or another.


At the risk of sounding like a nerdy 'fan-boy', I would like to think that Fusion might go down in history as being one of the few keyboards/synths that harnessed most of these landmark technologies in one instrument - it's certainly one of the reasons *I* like it ... kind of like all the synths and samplers and (via sampling) all the keyboards and beatboxes I have used, owned or wanted over the years .... in one instrument.

But one thing is certain in almost all of these products - none of them were perfect and most were flawed in one way or another (and often a right pain in the arse just to get the buggers working) .... but that didn't stop creative people overlooking the shortcomings and exploiting these instruments' strengths to their advantage.

Go figure


Steve

[deweak]

But you can only vote for 4 machines !

[Hollow Sun]

deweak said:

But you can only vote for 4 machines !

Bugger!

Well... let this be our own vote where such restrictions aren't imposed

Vote as you like.


Steve

[jaggeddoctrine]

Hmm.. I can only comment on the ones I have owned... the top 10 that I have owned in order:

Alesis Fusion (Great lots of things)
Kawai K5000s (Additive synthesis on roids!)
Oberheim OB8 (Love the Oberheim sound)
Moog Minimoog (I feel obligated to make it top 5 since I owned it)
Yamaha FS1R (very nice FM synth)
Korg MS2000R (my first time getting into mod sequencing)
Ensoniq Fizmo (Transwave synthesis)
Korg Wavestation AD (wavesequencing with a vocoder)
Korg family (Trinity Plus, Triton, Triton Extreme 88 & 61)
Oberheim OB12 (so so VA, but with tons of knobs and sliders)

Gary

[guydenruyter]

What about

- Casio SK8
- Casio VL-1
- Yamaha PSR-77
- Bontempi GT960
- Medeli mc-49

?

Sorry...it's Friday...

[gwenhwyfaer]

Hmm. Yamaha made a VL-1 too - but you wouldn't want to bid for the wrong one on eBay by accident.

[richey51]

I would like to bring up some little known facts about a little known company that had ground breaking digital technology before anyone........and they are Rocky Mount Instruments.

The parent company is Allen organ,ie ; digital pipe organs

The company created a couple of firsts:

1. Digital multiplexing keyboard or scanning keyboard of which they held the patent for were payed royalties for .
The Patent has been up for a number of years,and now we are buying keyboards with that technology very cheaply.

2. The First computer driven Digital synthesis additive type ,in which envelopes, waveforms,and modulation is generated in real time by the computer.

Allen Organ is still using that type of technology today with upgrades of course.

RMI was there combo and experimental keyboard company.
They had some very interesting ideas other than the RMI piano.

The KC1 and KC 2 keyboard computers were a direct spinoff from the allen digital pipe organ.

I had the RMI KC 2 keyboard computer which had pre sets and more sounds were programmed via a computer card reader. It had a pedalboard with a variable attack pedal which changed the whole envelope curve and a volume pedal . It was just as much a tank as the RMI piano but had very rich sounds for the time . It was built into a case similar to the RMI Piano.

My setup in 1978 was:

Yamamha CP-70 piano ...................................$2600.00
RMI keyboard computer KC-2 ..........................$3000.00
Seq. Circuits Prophet 5 ..................................$3200.00

.................................................................$8800.00
This is what we used to pay for keyboards!!

I used this setup on the road 1978-1981
The prophet five broke down six times in that period .
THe piano and the RMI never broke down,and the RMI fell off the back of our truck once without injury.

Still this is one of my favorite setups in my life playing on the road.

I just wanted to give RMI some Kudo's for their creative mark of which they have never recieved recognition for in our circles.

I have seen some of the experimental instruments that never made it to any real production although the prototypes were finished working keyboards that no doubt would have been roadworthy.

If anyone is interested about these let me know.

Also no one has mentioned the Kurtzweil P-250 which is another landmark keyboard! A friend of mine had one and I had some access to it . It was $20000.00 with all the options,he had a studio to support it!

[Hollow Sun]

richey51 said:

My setup in 1978 was:

Yamamha CP-70 piano ...................................$2600.00
RMI keyboard computer KC-2 ..........................$3000.00
Seq. Circuits Prophet 5 ..................................$3200.00

.................................................................$8800.00
This is what we used to pay for keyboards!!

Which by today's standards would probably equate to about $20,000 or more.

RMI were very ahead of their time and I remember being interested in their gear but it wasn't really available (readily) here in the UK (and was very expensive here). A friend had the opportunity to play the KC2 and loved it.

I always wanted their Electrapiano coz all my keyboard heroes back then (Banks, Wakeman, Moraz, Greenslade and others) had them. Until I actually got hold of one! That was a bit of a crock it has to be said and sounded NOTHING like a piano... or even a Rhodes/Wurli.

You must be glad of the CP70 and RMI piano in Fusion in view of your old keyboard lineup Richey!!! Didn't cost you $20,000+ either


Steve

[richey51]

I agree about the RMI piano but it held tune . At the time the RMI piano came out I used a rhodes piano, a Lawrence Audio piano ,and a Hammond M3 with a Leslie.

The KC 2 was a very different animal. The only famous band that used it was Todd Rungrins Utopia's keyboard player . It's all over the song "Can we still be friends". It could do some very complex percussive sounds and bell sounds with variable envelopes in real time which he also utilized well.

Yes I think the RMI and the CP70 are great .... AT the time the real instruments were out every company was trying to emulate a real piano , which considering there was only five or so years between their release a broad step was taken with the CP 70 ..man was that thing heavy though!!

My favorite piano is the Holy Grail in the Fusion . I have Best Service Steinway D in Akai format so it just needs to be converted to the Fusion !!!

[Failed Muso]

Ok, I might as well give this a go

In no particular order....

• Yamaha GX-1 - A true behemoth, massive and overstated, but in the right hands (Emerson, Wonder) sounded divine. Also responsible for most Yamaha synths after that for at least 10 years
  
  
• Minimoog - Not the "first" but the first to get us all going.
  
  
• Yamaha DX7 - A new form of synthesis at a time when things were getting boring. Massively influential.
  
  
• Korg Prophecy - Another landmark. New forms of synthesis and a truly expressive instrument.
  
  
• Seqential Circuits Prophet 5 - A thing of beauty, in looks as well as sound.
  
  
• Fairlight CMI IIx - Without this system, we would not be where we are today. Period.
  
  
• Yamaha CS80 - A GX-1 for the masses. It's performance controls gave it a life of it's own.
  
  
• Yamaha VP1 - More rare than rocking horse shit (only 3 ever made) but it was the GX-1 of Physical Modelling.
  
  
• EMU Emulator II - Did for sampling what the CS-80 did for Polysynths. It made it affordable.
  
  
• Akai S6000 - I was going to put the S950, but the S6000 was the pinnacle in terms of total sampling power and creativity.
  
  
• PPG Wave 2.2 - Dared to be different and it was blue !
  
  
• Korg Mini 700s - My first synth (albeit owned by the school) but those simple controls and smooth sounds were beautiful.
  
  
• Roland Jupiter 8 - Big, warm, massive sounds and arpeggiators. More buttons than you can shake a stick at.
  
  
• Roland SH-101 - Made synths cool because you could strap it round your neck and it had a mod grip too. Only really fully exploited it's sonic capabilities in the last 10 years.
  
  
• Korg M1 - The first proper and affordable workstation, without which we'd have no Fusion. It's sounds may have been digital, but the crappyness of the samples and filters made it warm.
  
  
• Korg Wavestation - A synth that created images as well as sound. Those moving sonic landscapes conjure up amazing visions.
  
  
• Arp 2600 - Unique and temperamental. Almost "human" then
  
  
• Yamaha FS1r - The pinnacle of FM synthesis and vastly under-rated.
  
  
• Roland TR-808 - Allowed us to break free of sweaty, knuckle dragging tub thumpers ! Wait, hang on, I'm a drummer.....damn !
  
  
• NED Synclavier - Expensive, powerful and misunderstood. But ultimately, an all in one device with character.
  

[mps]

Here is the latest from Sonicstate...

www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=4026

There will be a 10 minute video about each synth that will be compiled into an all in one program in the spring.

[Failed Muso]

Good to see the Triton and V-Synth missing out, but can't figure out why the PPG Wave didn't get a slot !

I eagerly anticipate the results

[falcon]

richey51 said:

...Utopia's keyboard player....

He has a name too: Roger Powell, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Powell_%28musician%29

AFAIC he is/has been a respectable synth influence. Musically minded and technically gifted. I still like his synth-leads on 'Ra' (overture -- best synth arp ever? ). He's not a very widely known person I think, kind of a forgotten hero.

There was a live registration on TV way back, where Roger had a Moog Modular onstage for the synth solo. As part of a 'regular band'. How often do you see that?

He has also done some solo projects. I still own 'Air Pocket' (LP) -- a style inbetween mainstream and electronic/experimental -- but have no idea what the other records/CDs are like.

[mozape]

My favs, in no particular order:

Moog Modular System - the local college had one, and I learned my basics on it.

Moog Minimoog - the condensed version of the above, I ended up with 2 of them.

ARP Omni - crappy strings and more, but it was state of the art for the 70's.

Ensoniq Mirage/DSK/EPS - sampling for the working cat, I can't tell you how great they sounded layered with DX-7. And the built-in sequencer of the EPS was a precursor to the next series of synths that Ensoniq put out.

Ensoniq VFX/SD/TS - these particular instruments still have the most spectacular on-board sequencers---way more intuitive than a Motif, XP-80, Fantom, Triton or even a Fusion. One of these days, they'll make a stand-alone sequencer a la Linn 9000 or Akai MPC and sell many of them or maybe license the technology to a company that appreciates intuitive ergonomics.

Yamaha DX-7 - everyone and his mother had to have one in the mid-80's. John Chowning probably had no clue how revolutionary his FM synthesis when Stanford licensed his patent to Yamaha.

Roland D-50 - Roland's airy response to the DX-7 and probably just as significant---seems like every D-50 preset ended up on so many pop records.

PAIA Synth Kits - for a working class kid like me who had soldering skills, these kits were a godsend. Affordable and as professional as anything else out there.

Yamaha CE-20 - Yamaha's hipper version of an ARP Omni for the early 80's. Russ Ferrante of the Yellowjackets used one for their debut album.

Sequential Circuits Pro-1 - the poor guy's minimoog, which included a rudimentary sequencer [domo arigato Mr. Roboto]