Kueen refused to use them. The musicians union tried to ban them. Then computers overtook them. Synthesizers have been mocked, despised, and rejected throughout their history, but somehow they are entering a new golden age.
A new wave of synth makers has emerged, creating machines more ambitious and often quirky than their predecessors, feeding the appetite of an expanding enthusiast.
Thousands of them, including Portishead's Adrian Utley, gathered in Bristol this weekend for Machina Bristronica, a festival of “knobs, buttons and discussions” to create devices that their designers believe sometimes cross boundaries, from musical instruments to conceptual art.
Less than a decade ago, anyone wanting to discover the latest in electronic music production had to make a pilgrimage to Berlin's annual Superbooth fair, but now there are several in the UK. Last week saw Synthfest UK in Sheffield, and SynthEast in Norwich opened its doors for the first time last year.
“A lot of people came to make electronic music with computers,” says Ben Chilton, co-founder of Machina Bristronica. Software like Cubase and Ableton Live have made it easy for anyone to make music on a computer or even a phone for the past 20 years. Software synthesizers are ubiquitous in nightclubs.
“People sold their synths when computers were exciting, and a few years later they longed for something they could touch,” Chilton said. The ability to design sounds on the fly in a performance, without feeling like you're programming a machine, is behind the renaissance of synth hardware, he added.
Synths have inspired generations of musicians in different ways. Pink Floyd created an ominous soundscape The dark side of the moon Along with a synth that came in a briefcase. The Human League, Gary Numan and Cabaret Voltaire pioneered the '80s synthpop sound, which was then supercharged by the Yamaha DX7. Although Donna Summer's I Feel Love brought a nose to disco, modern dance music would have been very different if DJ Pierre and Juan Atkins hadn't discovered that the Roland DP-303 could be pushed as a bass alternative. Acid house sounds.
Modern synthesizers fall into two categories. Arbitrary desktop synths typically have a keyboard and several knobs, dials, and faders that let the player swoop and raise the instrument. Then there are synths assembled from different blocks – some to create sounds, others to manipulate them. Modular synths can be simple affairs like the £15,000 Colossus built for a film composer, or extraordinary masses of cables and metal. Hans Zimmer This year he restarted the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. In 2013, Sound upon sound Eurorack announced that it has about 730 modules, which has become the modular standard. Now there are more than 16,000.
Yesterday also celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Mook module, the first commercially available synth. Until 1964, anyone interested in the possibilities of electronic music had to build their own machines. Delia did with the Derbyshire Radiophonic Workshop when she used it to make tape and BBC test equipment. Who is Dr Tune the theme. Robert Mook's Synth Bin Buchla Easel.
“Originally they were designed with home organizers in mind, but by the mid-'70s people were into their own instruments – [Jean-Michel] Jarre, Tomita, Vangelis,” said synth historian and author Oli Freak. Collectionzer evolution.
Not everyone likes them. Some musicians feared being replaced and some bands took a stand. Queen “No synthesizers!” on the sleeves of four of their albums, and in 1982 the Musicians' Union passed a resolution to ban
Now that almost any sound imaginable can be generated from a computer, the endless choice drives creators toward more limited devices. Tom Whitwell, former editor MixmakeNow turns synth modules into music things, and his latest gear, a portable modular synth, will be shown at Machina Bristronica today.
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Whitwell attributed the surge in interest in synths to the post-pandemic boom and easy access to Chinese factories, whose equipment has been used by Radiohead, James Blake and Ryuichi Sakamoto to Thom Yorke.
“Barriers are very low,” he said. “I can design something, send two files to Shenzhen, and then three weeks later these magic circuit boards turn up for £25. It means you can try different and different things for much less risk.
He would help the Machina Bristronica participants build the microphony. Karlheinz Stockhausen It captures the sounds of synthesizer switches through a microphone and feeds them back into the machine.
Jack Edwards of Beepoop Electronics said the key to the success of synthesizers is that they get people playing again. “It sparks this interest in your environment and the universe as a child,” he said. “It's a conversation between the player and the instrument. You are tapping into something that cannot be described in words.
