FM | MASTERCLASS
What if synth history had taken a different turn? Here are some of the underappreciated machines we could have classed as legendary
The pantheon of synthesisers has its uber-successful, key instruments. Units like the Minimoog, the Prophet-5, ARP’s Odyssey and 2600, and the DX7 sit alongside many others we haven’t mentioned in the hardware realm; and in the plugin world, there are options like Massive, Serum,Phase Plant, Diva and more. These instruments have left many a competitor in the dust, and eventually buried by the sands of synth time.
What is it about the successful synths that made them legends? Was the Minimoog an instrument whose time had truly come, and the brainchild of a certified genius?
Or did Yamaha’s DX7 only rise to fame through lucky timing and the right marketing strategy? There’s room for both versions of history, but we’ll never be able to say for sure.
What we can say, though, is that the history of synths could have looked quite different. All through the past decades, there was an alternative history that didn’t get selected – machines that didn’t have their time in the sun, went underappreciated, or were simply ahead of their time. In this feature, we’ll shine a light on these ‘alternative synths’, giving them the love and admiration they missed first time around, and their second chance at a new audience.
With today’s digital emulation of analogue instruments, those who create synths have the chance to make tweaks and changes to the instrument they’re bringing back to life. Companies like Arturia and developers like u-he tend to update even their emulations of classic synths with improved virtual circuitry, and so it’s equally possible for virtual synth-smiths to go back and correct ‘what went wrong’ with some of the units that missed the mark.
In this article, we’ll concentrate on a little of each – both the underloved and lesser-known instruments that can be revised and given a leg up with modern plugin development, and the oddballs that actually did make enough of an impression on producers, but strayed from the mainstream intentionally.
We’ll look at the Novachord and Solovox, two of Hammond Organ Co’s instruments that can be considered – depending on your frame of reference – to be muscling in on synthesiser territory a couple of decades before its rise to prominence. Then there’s the perennial ‘alternative’, the Buchla Music Easel with its West Coast synthesis pedigree. We’ll run through these three alternative synths through the next few pages.
How about the EMS Synthi, with its ‘battleships’ style pin matrix and its sequencing abilities? And have you ever heard of the Akai AX73, the analogue synth that came just at the turn of the digital revolution?
These and more are the focus of the next few pages, so join us through
