Boy Meets Synth

British synth pop brought the synthesizer into the mainstream. Before that, it was largely confined to specialist performers like Vangelis and Jean Michel-Jarre, or the occasional soundtrack. But a new generation of young musicians harnessed the power of the then-still new instrument to create bold and fresh new sounds. A big contributor to this was the availability of relatively low-priced preset synths. With reduced functionality but also a reduced price tag, these synths—often available on layaway—proved a boon to young musicians hoping to forge a new genre without the prohibitive price tag. One such group was Liverpool’s Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (hereafter referred to by the much less unwieldy OMD), who married catchy pop melodies to experimental ideas. Their early records featured the Korg M-500 Micro Preset heavily. It can be heard providing leads on songs like “Enola Gay” and “Messages.” Play with an M-500 for a few minutes and you can’t help recalling those songs. ...

Sometimes, for whatever reason, a synth will stay off your radar. It could have nothing to do with the sound of the synth itself. Maybe it’s even (in the parlance of our times) a beast. But for whatever reason you haven’t given it the time of day. This was my history with the Poly-61, Korg’s 1982 polysynth. Sandwiched between the famous and desirable Polysix, and the Poly-800, the synth that everyone loves to hate, the Poly-61 is easily forgotten. Nobody really talks about it, despite it having been used by big names of electronic music like Boards Of Canada and Com Truise. It also looks incredibly synthwave with its gray color scheme and grid-patterned front panel. I’ve been through more Poly-800s than I care to count, I have the Polysix iPad app, and I certainly wouldn’t mind a Mono/Poly, but a Poly-61? I must not be the only person with a blind spot for the 61 because I managed to get one recently in decent shape for $150. And pleased as punch I am. It’s a 6-voice dual DCO ana...

Tokyo has a reputation for being a high-tech wonderland, and while I don’t always agree with that idea, it’s definitely not true when it comes to synthesizers. Tokyo-and Japan in general-is still in the throes of a love affair with guitars and this is reflected in musical instrument stores. Everyone loves music, but despite the fact that Roland, Korg and Yamaha are some of the top synth manufacturers in the world, most people would rather buy a guitar because it’s rock and roll. So what’s a synth fan to do in Tokyo? There are a few stores worth checking out, and thankfully they’re all in the same area, so you could visit them all in half a day and still have time to make an unboxing video of your purchase for YouTube. Shibuya is famous for its scramble crossing, giant Blade Runner-style video billboards, and shopping. But it’s also synth central for Tokyo. There are, of course, other synth shops in Tokyo and Japan, and I’ll mention them at the end, but the bulk of this piece will b...

It’s often said that the Casio SK-1 was the first mass-market affordable sampler. Not long after the introduction of such behemoths as the Fairlight and Synclavier, whose price tags were more in line with high-end cars than musical instruments, Casio managed to get sampling into the hands of the unwashed masses. Including the unwashed hands of a certain junior high school boy, who saw it as a way to finally realize his dream of making a perfect copy of Dead Or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record).” I had the synthesizer, a Korg Poly-800 recently received for Christmas. I had the studio, in the form of a keyboard amp, Numark mixer, and belt-drive turntable. All I needed was the drums. It was this, more than the sampling function, that really had me excited about the SK-1. I could just hear it: the rapid-fire hand claps, the machine gun cowbell. All of that Hi-NRG rhythm would soon be mine. Of course, anyone who’s heard the SK-1 (or any other Casio home keyboard for that mat...

I bought the Korg Minilogue as a present to myself. I quit drinking in 2015. It’s not like I was falling down drunk everyday, but I had reached a point where even a few beers were giving me hangovers and interfering with things like meditation and general life satisfaction. To give myself something to aim for, I promised myself a six-month present and a one-year present. After six months I was the proud owner of a Volca FM (which I later sold) and for being booze-free for a year I rewarded myself with the Minilogue. OK, so actually I bought it at around the nine month mark when I knew I was in the clear. But it continued to function as an incentive since I knew that if I succumbed and had a beer I’d have to sell it and take a loss, and I didn’t want that. It’s been almost two years now. I still have the Minilogue but oddly enough I’m only just now finding a niche for it in my studio. People complain that the Minilogue is tinny and metallic sounding. They hate the clicky envelopes...

I got it in my head that I needed a string machine. You know, one of those divide-down polyphonic synths from the ‘70s that have basically only one sound: strings that don’t sound like strings but sound like a string machine which is entirely the reason you want one. After spending a few weeks scouring Yahoo Auctions I found a Roland RS-101 for less than $100. That seems to be the magic amount for me. I’ll buy pretty much anything if it’s less than $100. I didn’t have the space for it but I bought it anyway, and when it arrived and I opened its built-in case, I regretted it immediately. I knew it was going to have problems. I mean, it was less than $100 for a synthesizer from 1975. I was expecting the rust spots, the dead keys, the missing sheet music stand. I was expecting it to be well-used. But I didn’t expect it to stink. In the mid-1970s, synthesizer polyphony was highly sought after. There were monophonic (and even duophonic) synths but not much with the kind of polyphony...

Ah, my first synth. So 80s, so plastic, so disposable. The Korg Poly-800 is certainly a polarizing synth. Some people love it; others loathe it. Polyester-800, they call it. I have a hard time being objective because it was my first synth love but I think it sounds just fine. Is it better than a CS-80? No, of course not. Few are. Does it find its way into my songs alongside my other synths? Yes, it certainly does. Would I sell it if I had to? Have done and will do again. Say what you will about Korg’s 1983 affordable poly but it has a unique sound. This is apparently due to it using a video game sound chip for its oscillators. Use it in single DCO mode and you get a surprisingly generous 8 voices. With two DCOs you have to make due with 4 voices, but for around $800 in 1983 this was ground-breaking. However, whether you actually like the sound of those 8 voices is another matter. The Poly-800 does square waves and sawtooth waves that sound like square waves. So basically if you...

Sometimes a synth surpasses all expectations and blows you away. Sometimes a synth that you didn’t expect much from fulfills a need in surprising ways. And sometimes, no matter how hard you both try, a synth just won’t live up to your expectations, even if they’re modest ones. The Yamaha CS01 falls into the latter category for me, mainly because of its lack of MIDI. But more on that later. The CS01 is part of Yamaha’s illustrious CS series, which stretches from the humble CS01 all the way up to the godlike CS-80. I have never even seen a CS-80 in person, let alone played one, so I can’t comment on it, but I do have a CS-10 and like it very much indeed. It’s hard to see the family resemblance in the diminutive CS01, with its Casio-like slim plastic housing and mini keys, although the filter does sound similar to the CS-10’s. Released in 1982, the CS01 is a single oscillator mono synth with the usual filter, LFO, and ADSR configuration. Where it distinguishes itself from other mo...

Although I listened to industrial music all through high school, and loved groups like Front 242 and Skinny Puppy, my interest in electronic music really exploded when I discovered techno and rave in 1991. I loved the energy of it but mostly I loved the sounds. It was unabashedly synthy, and each song was seemingly built around one or two incredible sounds that just repeated. It was glorious. I loved all the hoovers, but especially the Dominator, so if you had put money down with a bookie in 1991 that I’d someday be the proud owner of an Alpha Juno synth then you’d be a winner today. Well, almost. Instead of buying a reasonably sized Alpha Juno or Alpha Juno 2, I had to go and get the HS-80 SynthPlus 80, the rather unwieldy and, it has to be said, ugly home version. Introduced in 1987, a year later than the original Alphas, this behemoth widened the case to include an amp and two speakers. Gone are the fetching membrane buttons, replaced with D-50-style black push-button jobbi...

And so it happened that I found myself with a Roland JX-10, or Super JX as they’re also known. Roland wasn’t kidding around with this thing. It’s basically two JX-8P’s lashed together inside a case so big it puts some aircraft carriers to shame. It has a 76-note velocity-sensitive keyboard with aftertouch, a pitch bender with LFO modulation control, and more buttons than a closet full of dress shirts. Like many mid-80s synths, the Super JX foregoes sliders and pots and forces the user to make do with the aforementioned buttons, as well as an alpha dial, which is oddly slow to react for some parameters. But you don’t buy a synth for its buttons, you buy it for the sound, and in this case the Super JX is really something special. Like I said, it’s two JX-8P’s in one machine, which means you can double up the sounds and create full, rich, layered sounds with up to 12 voices of polyphony. You can also split the keyboard if you like. It was Roland’s flagship synth at the ti...

The Technics SY-1010 is not the most famous analog mono synth on the Japanese block. It's not the fattest sounding, nor the most complex. In fact, it's a little on the thin side and downright simple. It has one oscillator with only one waveform, for crying out loud. It's housed in a lightweight plastic case that's prone to discoloration, and its keys are often so yellow a life-long smoker would be shocked. And yet I love it. It was my first vintage synth purchase in maybe 20 years. I had recently gotten back into hardware, thanks to the MS-20 re-release, and was being increasingly lured in by the tantalizingly low prices on Yahoo Auctions. I had yet to really learn the language of auction lots in Japan but I took a chance and was surprised when I won the bidding for this Technics synth for around $100. Something of a rarity even in Japan, the SY-1010 was sold in Technics showrooms in Japan in the late ‘70s. I imagine it must have been similar to the RadioS...