Your Introduction to Synthesis

[Sacred Synthesis]

I thought it would be interesting and amusing if we all described our individual beginnings in synthesis and music - our first instruments, musical influences, eductaion, experience, and all else.  Pictures, stories, and even old embarrassing recordings are welcome.  This is not for bragging purposes, but more for fun and to liven up the forum a bit.

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Although my real musical beginnings were on organ (I learned at home on my mother's Conn Rhapsody), my first synthesizer was the Univox MiniKorg (below).  My father bought it for me for $200 in East Hartford, Connecticut when I was about fifteen years old.  When I got home and plugged it into my stereo, I thought I was the master of the universe.  I was ecstatic.  It sounded like a Moog Modular to my young ears.  If you like bubble sounds, the MiniKorg is the ultimate!  Since I liked to put the speakers in my bedroom windows, the neighbors began mentioning to my parents that they were hearing immense bubble sounds at all hours.  "Is everything alright?"

My next synthesizer was a Korg MS-20.  It was an important step up into programming from the MiniKorg, and I loved having the little patch bay for experimentation.  If I remember correctly, by clever patching you can compensate for the absence of some parameters.  Next, I had an Octave CAT (below).  This instrument was one of my favorites.  It was duophonic and had a fabulous thick, rich, heavy analog sound that was a huge improvement over the rather thin MS-20 tone.  This sort of classic analog tone left a lasting impression on me, and I find myself searching for it again today.  The CAT had impressive modulation and was far more complex than it appeared.  With all the re-issues of vintage instruments these days, I often wish the CAT would reappear.  From there I turned to ARP - the Axxe, Pro Soloist, Odyssey (all three models), Little Brother, and later, a Minimoog Model D, Moog Taurus Pedals, Elka Rhapsody 490, and Roland Juno 60.  I also played Wurlitzer and Rhodes electric pianos.

My favorite bands were the Electric Light Orchestra, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes, and especially, Genesis.  Tony Banks influenced my musical beginnings more than any other contemporary musician.  I learned to appreciate the many uses of the diminished seventh chord from him.  I was also able to perfectly imitate his distinctive Hammond sound on my Crumar Organizer with an MXR Chorus and Phase Shifter.  That, combined with the sounds of the Pro Soloist, put me in Genesis paradise.

For a few years, I tutored synthesizer programming.  After placing my advertisement in a music store and a newspaper, I would get phone calls from people saying, "I have such and such a synthesizer, and I can't get a sound out of it.  Can you help me?"  So, I'd visit their house once a week for several months, teaching them the simple physics of sound and how to understand the basics of synthesis.

After playing in bands for about seven years and composing quite a few elaborate progressive rock type pieces, I sold all my instruments (Okay, I threw the Crumar down a stairs after breaking up with a girl friend!) and went to music school for less than two years as an organ/composition major.  While there, I took one class in electronic music, using a semi-modular ElectroComp 101 (below).  The teacher - a classy middle-aged women from England - eventually decided to abandon electronic music because, in using reverbs and delays, she felt she was tampering with time.  I never quite understood her.  Surely, recording should have struck her the same way. 

Finally, I turned exclusively to church music.  On my own, I worked hard practicing organ for hours every night and studying music theory, especially counterpoint and harmony, with the help of an old Hohner Clavinet.  I composed lots of preludes and fugues, and absorbed the influences especially of J. S. Bach and Girolamo Frescobaldi.  The latter introduced me to a type of voice leading and chromatic movement that I now use constantly in my improvisations.  I was a small-time working church organist/choir director for about twenty years.  Then, about seven years ago, after being away from synthesis for many years, I bought a Prophet '08 out of a need for a home practice instrument.  And you guys know the rest.

Although I took perhaps eight years of organ lessons, one year of harpsichord, and briefly attended music school, I'm primarily self-taught.  In other words, I made very little progress under the guidance of others (probably because I'm slow), but excelled when working alone.  I'm by no means a trained classical musician.  As a performer, I'm only mediocre.  My strength is in composition.

All of my synthesizers have been the parameter-ridden hands-on analog type - excellent for learning the fundamentals of synthesis.  After getting a couple of DSI Evolvers, I seriously considered heading in a more digital direction.  That short period has passed, and I'm now committed to a primarily analog direction. 

[chysn]

Great idea for a topic!

Like Sacred Synthesis, I started on an electronic organ, an old Hammond. But not one of the cool Hammonds, one of the thoroughly uncool Hammonds. My parents didn't want to invest in an acoustic piano until they were sure I was going to stick with lessons. I stuck with it, and when I was about 11, my parents bought a Sohmer spinet. This was 1982, and that piano is still with me, and it still sounds great. If it seems like I don't care about things like keyboard length and polyphony in synths, that piano is the reason.

I did not, in fact, have much interest in synths throughout the 80s. My first electronic instrument was a Casio MT-68, one of those dinky home keyboards. I more or less missed the end of the analog era. My first year of college, I took an electronic music course. The school's music department had an M1, a TX802, an Alesis HR-16, and a PC running Cakewalk. For the time, it was quite a setup, and it ignited a passion.

So as a broke college student, my first proper synth was a Yamaha DX100. I later added a TX81Z and a Roland MSQ-100 sequencer (look that one up). As one might expect, I found a pure 4-operator FM setup pretty sterile-sounding, and I turned to analog in around 1990 with an Akai Professional AX-73. I picked the AX-73 over a Juno 106 because of the extra octave and velocity-sensitivity. The tradeoff was that the Akai's programming interface was menu-based; being used to a DX100's interface, it seemed like a good deal.

After that, a summer job earned me a Kawai K1, and from there I went through a variety of synths with varying degrees of productivity. Aside from the AX-73, analogs included an ARP Axxe, Realistic MG-1 (built by Moog for Radio Shack), Korg Poly-800, Korg PolySix, DSI Mopho Keyboard, DSI Mopho "brick," and Minitaur.

In the mid-aughts, I briefly played in a rock band, for which I played a DX7. The DX7 is a superb rock-n-roll keyboard, and if I ever join another band, I will endeavor to pick up another. A DX7 was, in fact, my final digital keyboard before I went entirely analog, probably forever.

My favorite digital keyboard I've ever owned (not including the Evolver)? That's easy: Kurzweil K2000.

In my years of gear churn, is there something I regret giving up? That's easy, too: The Axxe. I sold the Axxe to buy a Wavestation, but I never fell in love with the Wavestation.

I noticed a pattern, over the decades, in my purchases. I alternate between two modes: desiring simplicity in sound design (at which times I'm interested in traditional composition) and complexity and flexibility (at which times I'm interested in experimental composition). With each toggle, I would have a mass shift in gear to accommodate the oncoming mode. Now that I understand the pattern, I have an instrument for each mode, and I feel a sense of stability.

[Paul Dither]

Cool idea! And thank you for the insights, Tim and chysn!

I started relatively late with my music education and only because I was betting with a friend (whoever makes it through the school year starts learning an instrument). By that time, I was 13 and I started to learn how to play on cheesy home organs at a so-called organ school close to where I lived. At home I only had a Yamaha keyboard (PSR-500 or something like that) and then a Casio for a couple of years. Since there were also pianos at the above mentioned school, I eventually switched over to that after a short while. 13 is of course a bad age for playing études exclusively, as one starts to rebel around that age and the kind of music that is associated with training is certainly not the most compelling in terms of self-expression. Instinctively, I always knew that I wanted to learn for my own needs instead of becoming an interpret in the first place. So beyond the lessons, I started to play around with harmonies - either from scratch or in response to something I had just listened to and wanted to figure out. Funnily, in my case Tony Banks of Genesis played a role too due to his rather unusual chord progressions. (You can also hear me playing the solo of "In The Cage" in the Pro 2 video I shot for Sacred Synthesis.) So by the time we were being taught about modulations in the music lessons at school I already knew that stuff; I only had to add the official terms to what I somehow figured out by doing.

After three years and a few summer jobs later, I finally got money together for my very first synth, a Korg Wavestation EX (neither did I know back then that Dave was involved, nor who he was). That was fun. It was supposed to be either this one or the Roland JD-800. In the end, I preferred the Korg sound, which I actually do until today. I wasn't even bothered by the fact that it was so menu driven, since the display appeared so large in comparison to most other synths around that time. And that's basically how I got into synthesis. Once I got a Kawai Q-80EX MIDI sequencer, I was finally able to record my first tracks. What helped significantly was that the Wavestation was 16 times multitimbral. I also got a Korg DF1 MIDI Data Filer in order to save my sound libraries to 3.5" discs instead of buying an endless amount of RAM cards. The next synth I got was a used DX7, which I always liked and still do like for its sound, but found incredibly obnoxious to program, which is why I ended up selling it again after only a few years. I also owned a Rhodes Mk II electric piano as well as a Wurlitzer A-200 in between. My first real stage piano in today's sense of the word was a Korg SG ProX though, which got later replaced by a Kawai MP8 II. By the time I got the Rhodes, I was already exploring different genres. I moved from what you would call Prog to Jazz and Fusion and then into the electronic driven music of the 90s.

After a break in taking lessons, I also returned to classical piano lessons. My teacher wanted to prep me to study music. The requirement for that is that you have to play at least two instruments. So I started to learn playing the electric bass in addition to the piano. The problem is that it's not really fun to sit down at home and play the bass on your own. In fact, I only got to appreciate playing bass years later, when I used to help out in a friend's punk band (which was probably the right framework for my playing abilities anyway). To cut a long story short: I eventually decided not to apply at a conservatory, since it became conscious to me that I'd find interpreting other people's compositions to be rather boring in the long run. And what would have been the most realistic outcome? Ending up as a frustrated music teacher? Thankfully my bass teacher also gave me a reality check, which basically ended up in the question, "Would you really like to do what I'm doing?" So I realized that my interest in learning about music was mostly selfishly motivated - I wanted to learn stuff in order to be able to use it for myself. That was always paired with a fascination for sound, which is such an important ingredient in popular music of course (I'm thinking of production techniques, not particular timbres that you can also have in an orchestra). Nevertheless, I ended up getting a BA in musicology.

After a period in which I was rather focusing on my technical abilities and improvisational skills, I eventually became interested in writing songs in the traditional sense. (Keep in mind that there is no song tradition in Germany just like in the Anglo-American culture, so I treated that genre rather like a music ethnologist and an exercise in form.) I became very unsatisfied with what I achieved on keyboards, and synths became less and less of an interest at that point. One day, I figured that I simply knew too much on the piano, which would only make things unnecessarily complicated. So I decided to unlearn everything by picking up an instrument that I couldn't play, which ended up being the guitar. I was never interested in it before, because teens only picked it up for promiscuous reasons connected to rock music or rather its perception. When you pick up the keyboard instead, that's almost the antithesis. So I ended up abandoning keys for a while and worked on songs that were based on my limited guitar skills. In that period, the only keyboard sounds I would use were organs and pianos.

A while later, I got my first MacBook Pro and became a late starter in computer recording. It was also the time when my eclecticism fell into one place and I finally was able to make use of various styles and interests in single pieces (also due to playing in completely different bands). What made this a lucky coincidence was of course the sheer abundance of possibilities that had developed ever since I abandoned synths, namely in the form of plug-ins. I became an avid Native Instruments user and tried out everything, although most of the times I was only tweaking presets to be honest. At around that time I remember seeing the cover of a keyboard magazine that featured Dave and the Prophet ’08 on it. I was just laughing to myself, thinking, “who needs that overpriced stuff anymore, when you can have it all as a plug-in?” Needless to say, I didn't even bother reading the article. Fast forward to 2011 I got back into hardware with baby steps: I got a Monotron, with which I even did a whole performance in conjunction with a looper and an effects unit, then a Monotribe, then a MiniBrute, and so on. I realized that the hands on experience did indeed make a huge difference and for the first time in years I was starting to make sounds from scratch again instead of getting lost in the sheer abundance of possibilities I tend to face with plug-ins. And then I eventually got a Prophet ’08 – oh the irony. That's how my story with DSI started and why I finally joined the old forum. From there I added other instruments, and sold former ones, the old game. As of now, I can't wait to fulfill one of my teenage dreams by getting a Prophet-6, which will make me feel like things came full circle somehow. Oh, and by the way, I still own my Korg Wavestation EX, but it's currently back in Germany. As it was my first one, it'll never go.

[Paul Dither]

I've never seen the EML before. Thanks for sharing the pic.

[Paul Dither]

Oh, and I edited my contribution a bit.

[Sacred Synthesis]

The ElectroComp 101 was much like an ARP 2600 - a partly modular/partly hardwired four-oscillator instrument.  It was excellent for complex experimental sound.  It never made it as a popular instrument, but I think it was used more in university music departments.

[Paul Dither]

The ElectroComp 101 was much like an ARP 2600 - a partly modular/partly hardwired four-oscillator instrument.  It was excellent for complex experimental sound.

Very cool. Do you still have any recordings that feature it?

[Sacred Synthesis]

No.  It wasn't mine.  It belonged to the teacher at the conservatory.  But I sure would like to have one, or something comparable to it, like a 2600. 

[eXode]

I'm a bit of a seeker I guess.

My first real contact with synthesizers was through music. My dad had tapes with Jean-Michel Jarre and Kitaro, and I remember being almost mesmerized by the sounds. I also got introduced to a certain Vangelis track at an early age (Soil Festivities Movement 1). I think these musicians and their music had a big impact on me, but I still didn't know much about synthesizers at that point. My dad also opened my eyes to the music of Mike Oldfield, whom I'm also a big fan of (not his newer stuff so much though).

Sound and music is very emotionally tied for me. I've got no formal training in anything related to music and thus when I produce something (usually promotion material for either my own sounds or some software synthesizer, etc) I often work on finding a mood. I don't think that music needs to be complex (i.e. in terms of structure, many chords, etc) to be interesting, for me expression/feeling is what's most important. One doesn't have to exclude the other though.

When I was in my teens I got in contact with tracking software for my Amiga A500. It was extremely basic (or you could even say primal) by today's standards but somehow I clicked with it. I continued working with trackers, eventually got a PC and initially continued with tracker software (Fast Tracker II). Around 1996/1997 I started to discover software synthesizers, I guess this was also around the same time that home computers had the power to run a couple of voices in real time. It was around this time that I started to learn the concepts of subtractive synthesis, but completely on trial and error. I'm a very analytical person which is great when I have to learn new things on my own.


AXS (I think it was called Analogic back then) was a DOS based real-time soft synth that I used to educate myself.

I got my first hardware synth/keyboard around 1999/2000, the Yamaha CS1x. It was actually OK to tweak on, even though it was a rompler. I eventually sold it on to a friend though.

I mostly dabbled around for the next couple of years and it wasn't until I discovered propellerhead Reason in 2004 (then at version 2.5) that I finally found a home. Reason has been my main platform ever since. I just clicked with the rack paradigm and routing of audio and CV cables on the back. I think Reason really helped my creativity because it was a closed environment, just like real hardware you had to make do with the tools at your disposal, and this really triggered me to search for alternative solutions to problems. Over the years with Reason I also started reading up on various hardware synths and meticulously learning about their capabilities and limitations. In an almost obsessive manner I studied what kind of filter a specific synth had etc.

I've purchased and sold various hardware through the years. I think that I like the idea of hardware more than actually using it, probably because I'm so accustomed to working ITB.

Some of the hardware that I have owned is:
Access Virus Snow, Akai Miniak, DSI Evolver Desktop, DSI Poly Evolver Keyboard, DSI Tetra, Moog Sub Phatty, Realistic MG-1, Studio Electronics Boomstar (5089+SE80), Waldorf Blofeld, Waldorf Pulse, Yamaha FS1R. I also spent an considerable amount of money on a modular system (that I've also sold now).

Yet I'm still considering getting some sort of hardware, and I like to keep up with what's happening in the hardware world.

I do miss the Tetra at times.

[chysn]

When I was in my teens I got in contact with tracking software for my Amiga A500. It was extremely basic (or you could even say primal) by today's standards but somehow I clicked with it.

Ah, the Amiga! I used Deluxe Music 2.0 for Amiga for a couple years. I had no MIDI interface for my Amiga, so it was basically just for printing music.

[eXode]

When I was in my teens I got in contact with tracking software for my Amiga A500. It was extremely basic (or you could even say primal) by today's standards but somehow I clicked with it.

Ah, the Amiga! I used Deluxe Music 2.0 for Amiga for a couple years. I had no MIDI interface for my Amiga, so it was basically just for printing music.

Yeah I forgot to mention that. I didn't get an actual keyboard until I got that CS1x. Both Pro Tracker (Amiga) and Fast Tracker II (PC) had support for using your computer keyboard for inputting notes. Of course there was nothing like velocity or any other kind of expression.

[DavidDever]

My first synth was a Roland Juno-106, although I had lusted after a friend's Roland Jupiter-6 for some time. I then cut my teeth on CV/gate with a Roland MC-202 MicroComposer and a matching grey SH-101, along with the requisite late-70s used synths (Moog Prodigy, Arp Omni 2 which I still have - interesting story), before I eventually ended up with an original Yamaha DX7 (shortly after they started shipping, also still have) to go with the Juno for live work (1985-86). I missed out on too many opportunities to buy a used OB-1 or Pro-One monosynth, as I didn't get it back then, and I'm kicking myself for it....

[dslsynth]

Great topic that I have followed with interest since it was started. I have decided to postpone my own entry but can say that I have been deeply and madly in love with synthesizers almost all of my life.

[chysn]

I have decided to postpone my own entry

Shut up and do your entry!

[Sacred Synthesis]

I have been deeply and madly in love with synthesizers almost all of my life.

 

We'll accept that for now as the abridged version.

[dslsynth]

Shut up and do your entry!

General note: I would really appreciate if the voicing could be reconfigured to a more polite version. Thanks in advance!

[chysn]

Shut up and do your entry!

General note: I would really appreciate if the voicing could be reconfigured to a more polite version. Thanks in advance!

Pretty please, with sugar on top, do your damn entry!

[BobTheDog]

I guess my story is a bit different than most of you as I am not a keyboard player.

I started playing guitar at about 12 which is my main instrument.

My first "synth" was a Casio PG380 guitar which I got in 1987 and cost a staggering (for me at the time) £1400. luckily at that time my partner was on good wages and leant she me the money to get it. I spent quite a while paying her back.

I wanted one as I had seem Midge Ure playing one and though it would be a neat way to get some synth sounds so we could kick the keyboard player (who was a pain in the arse) out of the band I was in at the time, of course this didn't quite work out.

It was a nightmare to play live with, requiring the utmost attention to detail to getting the tracking right and it weighed a tonne. Total nightmare.

I then ended up buying a roland GR300 and then a GR700, both of which were also nightmares. So I gave up on this synthesis stuff.

As time went on life got in the way of things and as I used to travel a lot for work so I stopped playing guitar totally until around 12 years ago when I started playing guitar again.

Soon after that I got back to the idea of synths and I got my first proper synth, a Nord Modular G2 which I coupled with an AXON AX100 guitar to midi converter and then the bug bit.

I now have crap loads of synth gear that still doesn't mesh well with being a guitar player, I still try to learn to play the keyboard but it just doesn't seem right too me, so I am currently also struggling with the Fishman Tripleplay guitar to midi system and a Linnstrument to control stuff.

In general I prefer complexity over tone, I always had this feeling which as a guitar player is very strange as they all seem to obsess about getting a particular tone, a particular guitar from a particular year with a particular amp from a particular year, etc. All well and good but only for a narrow subset of sound.

One of the most interesting things I own is a Symbolic Sound Pacarana running Kyma, A mind numbingly complex digital system that can produce the most sublime sounds. Other favourites are the Nord G1 and G2, Reaktor, MAX/MSP, VSynth-XT, Korg Kronos and P12. All complex synthesis dreams.

So really I like to make noises, I am not a classically trained musician, I'm a guitar player who thinks all guitar players are luddites and I like beer.

[Paul Dither]

So really I like make noises, I am not a classically trained musician, I'm a guitar player who thinks all guitar players are luddites and I like beer.

 

[dslsynth]

I now have crap loads of synth gear that still doesn't mesh well with being a guitar player

http://www.keithmcmillen.com/labs/stringport-2/
http://www.keithmcmillen.com/labs/strongarm/