Synthesizer, I love you...

i'm pretty sure the first two usages of synth that really made an impression on me were the CHiPS theme and blondie's "heart of glass."

2). Thomas Dolby

3). ...Can the synthesiser still astound? : Oh HELL yes! I love synths.

2)Michael Stearns on the Serge Modular on "Planetary Unfolding" 1981, or possibly Morton Subotnick's Buckla recordings esp "A Sky of Cloudless Sulfur"

3) It's difficuly/impossible for the synthesiser to astound like it used to, the novelty factor is long, long gone.

These guys, "astrogator" from Nottingham, played a set in Leeds last month that fucking owned.

1. my dad used to test new stereo equipment with a copy of "Switched on Bach."

2. the heights of new order are hard to top.

3. that's a synth broadcast uses, right? keep that up..

I remember loving 'West End Girls' when it reached #1 and wanting to play keyboards at that point on (even tho synth work on it isn't particularly amazing, just some really nice pads). See also 'Axel F' and 'n-n-n-nineteen'. I liked it when people played the synths on a strap ala guitar on TV. I think Mark Moore of S Express did this on TOTP and I thought 'this sounds great, I want to be like him'.

2) Who, do you believe has used it to its fullest potenital?

Aphex Twin - he built his own didn't he? Vince Clarke! Rick Smith! and over the years Kraftwerk (the 'Tour De France' album sounds so rich) - this is all in the digital polyphonic age tho after other people took analogue synths to their full potential (inc. BBC Radiophonic, YMO and Jean Jacques-Perry)

3) Who still, in this age of soft synths for all, manages to still knock your socks off in terms of their astounding and constantly surprising use of synthetic sound production? - Can the synthesiser still astound?

i dunno about innovation but i really love and was v impressed by the synths on The Knife album.

2) I don't have the musical authority to answer this, but of those I've heard, perhaps Broadcast?

3) M83, fo' sho'.

2. Can't think of just one, sorry! Eno, Stevie Wonder, Bernie Worrell, Allen Ravenstine & Giorgio are probably my top five.

3. Can't think of even one, sorry. I'm sure the Aphex Twins and the Orbitals and etc. are doing good things, if I wasn't too lazy to check 'em out. (Actually, call me immodest; but I really REALLY get a kick out of the amateurish idiot-savant stuff I've been doing (for) myself ever since I found all those free virtual-analog softsynths online.

For me, I guess it has to be Donna Summer 'I Feel Love' that and later on 'Humanoid' By Stakker, although i guess the latter has as much to do with samplers as synthesisers. Gary Numan, Soft Cell and Jarre all made a big impression on me as a boy, although I wouldn't recommend letting children listen to Gazza - it upsets and depresses them. Funnily enough I picked up a second hand vinyl copy of Replicas the other day, and was really surprized by the amount of live instrumentation on it. In my mind I thought it had mainly been synthetic sounds.

I think the Tomita stuff is some of the most expressive and subtle stuff I've ever heard. 'Clair de Lune' still utterly slays me. No one ever did it better than Kraftwerk of course, but it's neck and neck with them and Tangerine Dream for me, I've got my older brother's taste in music to thank for that. I guess its the melancholy, a kind of wierd nostaligia for an imagined distopian future, that Kraftwerk managed to imbue their sound with that sets them apart, certainly compared to the, at times, relentlessly optimist Jarre. Although being driven through the Alps whilst listening to Oxygene is still one of my fondest childhood holiday memories.

Today? Well to a large extent pop's passionate love affair with the synth is over isn't it? Although they're still good friends. The Knife album is gorgeous, and personally I enjoy Goldfrapp's 'lets push all the right buttons' approach (in small doses). I guess Atom Heart -(Uwe Schmidt), although I certainly don't know all his work, impresses me regularly. Delia and Gavin are a breath of fresh air too, I like the fact they build (some of) their own instuments. I'm always made slightly uneasy, however, by the size of the debt they owe to TD.

More often than not nowadays, however, the synth is the sound of the past rather than the future.

http://www.sequencer.de/pix/sequential_DSI/pro_one.gif

It's so beautiful.

And this was my first love:

http://www.synthmuseum.com/korg/kortridentmkii01.jpg

Talking Heads--This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)

taxing the Prophet 5...

http://www.vintagesynth.com/roland/images/sh2000.jpg

wee old ugly duckling, but I love her.

2)Christ I dont know who used it best. Aphex is a good default, but vince clark did do some awesome stuff as artists from most other genere's including Eno, Herbie Hancock, Parliment Funkadelic's keyboardist, etc...

3)I am astounded all the time by current dance music so no problem with that one. Let me mention again how much I still like plink plonk .

2. I have no idea. Music is too broad to really say. Do you vote for Autechre, Stevie Wonder, or Patric Cowley? I think Deep Space by Juan Atkins is a hard record to beat.

The record that really turned me on was Low by Bowie and the the Eno records of that era and Kraftwerk. Later, I got into I care Because You Do by Aphex and Techno.

3. I am not interested in being astounded by new synth sounds. I am more interested in complete productions with good songs.

You what? Kraftwerk? Guitar? I think not.

In response to lexurian's questions:

1) Probably The Model, when it was re-released in 1982 and hit number one in the British charts. I was a little too young to have properly appreciated the Human League's miraculous run of singles in the previous year, but I still remember how thrillingly alien Kraftwerk sounded to me. I was hooked.

2) Over the years, Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode have both continued to make dazzling use of every advance in the technology. Wendy Carlos, the T.O.N.T.O. guys, Tomita and the Yellow Magic Orchestra achieved truly remarkable results during the heyday of the analogue era.
Trevor Horn and his Art of Noise cohorts signposted the future during the dawn of the digital age.
Orbital's In Sides album is still amazing, as is Aphex Twin's Windowlicker and the Future Sound of London's Papua New Guinea. BT is curiously underrated - although he eventually disappeared up his own fundament in a frenzy of micro-programming, his early material (e.g. The Voyage of Ima) is a thrilling blend of traditional musicianship and futuristic production.

3) Recent trends in electronic music (e.g. laptop glitch, minimalist house) have led to a real low-point for the genre, artistically speaking. I find it both interesting and encouraging that the best stuff I've heard in the past couple of years has been created by women - Ellen Allien is great, and Ada's Blondie album is marvellous.

You what? Kraftwerk? Guitar? I think not.

actually, i think i read that on ILM.. maybe on one of the many startrekman threads? someone might have been just messing with him..

2. I think the Brits have best utilized the synth in pop/rock music, though some American and Australian acts (and a few from Europe) have done synthpop/synthrock justice. I think the best example of this non-British lot is probably Pseudo Echo.

3. I'm not certain very many new artists can do with synths that which makes me feel alive, that the artists of the classic New Wave/synthpop era of the early - mid '80s did. Perhaps it's because synth technology has progressed to the point where synths now sound too natural, too much a part of the overall background sound, but I think a new artist is going to have to go back and use the synths of the early '80s for me to really think them worthy of securing as much of my attention as that which I impart to my beloved '80s music.

Oh, and sorry Wub-Fur, but I really don't like classic rock-type music.

And that wasn't really a synth in "Runaway", PHoenix! (I believe it was possibly a Clavioline.)

I am the official Synth question asker around here

1) Grandmaster Flash "The Message" aint sure what they used in that song. I love the extensive synth work in there.

2) Stevie Wonder, Eurythmics, Human League, Midnight Star, Cameo.

3) Prophet 5, Ob-Xa, Synclavier, DX-7.

x-post

(The one to watch: the Yamaha DJX, whose corny "DJ" sounds and textures distract from a surprisingly good array of effects and modificiations available for the standard Yamaha general MIDI set, plus a VERY good supply of bass and drum sounds.)

"autobahn" actually has a coupla guitar solos in it!

2) impossible to answer! this is worse than deciding on who your favourite guitarist is! i think aphex got there first in the race to push things to the limit and then spread the word. now everything seems to be about what you take out, rather than throw in. things are starting to get interesting.

3) a lot of dance producers i guess. does it really matter? nowadays you can make more noises than stockhausen could in the 50s with a sequencer and a plug in. or if you're really clever, notepad. when it comes to mixing a synth with a piece of music, again, dance producers are winning, i couldn't tell you which one though.

But not the same ones Stockhausen did, instead you're generally making the same noises as everyone else is

Doin' The Do!

2) That said! I can still go ape over a synth sound on a record. Love the purity and warmth on Stevie Wonder's 70s records. In the same vein, Eddy Grant's Walking on Sunshine is one thousand percent gorgeous - download "My Love, My Love" for probably the most joyous synths you've ever heard. Oh, and Bernie Worrell of course, I can't even begin to pick one song or album in particular for that guy.

And let's not forget Doctor Casino, new-wave master of the DJX! (cough)

http://ivansafrin.com/musla/

This is pretty cool. A synth programming language.

It's just like writing music in BASIC. Sounds great!

I've been obsessed over generative synth Youtubes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ4--MaAiD0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM8emp9WHwk

oh my god that max window

i do enjoy watching the buchla videos just so that i can dream of having one, such a cute fucking machine.