KVR Audio

unkow · Post by **unkow** » Thu Dec 16, 2021 12:35 am

I'm sure some of you were around (and paying attention) when the synthesizer was coming of age, so maybe you remember better than I how it all went down...

When the synthesizer came out, it was all about the far out sounds. Switched on Bach, Moog Country Hits, what have you. A guy playing synth in a band would be making all those weird noises, mostly.

But it seems to me that at some point during the evolution of the synth the "bread & butter" sounds became codified. You know, fake piano, fake strings, fake clavinet... And most every synth that was being produced was expected to be able to produce these sounds.

Back then I wasn't paying much attention (I started playin guitar/bass in the 80's, and that time buying a keyboard was way beyond my means). But I seem to remember that you had the home organs, with all their cheesy presets, and that the synths that people played in bands were kind of expected to be able to replicate those sounds.

Keyboards like the DX7 had their famous presets, and then all those romplers came out. Basically preset machines. For a while it seems that most keyboardists (at least on the radio) were playing presets/ bread & butter sounds? Like, in the 80's and 90's. Then electronica happened, and weird noises were "in" again, it seemed.

So my questions are: How off the mark am I? And how much do you think the preset mania hurt electronic music and popular music in general?

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Thu Dec 16, 2021 12:57 am

A little bit. A lot of keyboard players kept using their organs and electric pianos and added a synth to do other things. Of course, most of those early synths were monophonic and keyboard players were generally the musical brains in the band, so they tended to find a monosynth a bit limiting, so they'd use their B3 to play chords and stuff, which left the synth to do stuff the Hammond couldn't. And those early synths didn't have patch memory so you couldn't easily dial in any sound you wanted.

So it was only when polysynths with patch memory started to appear that keyboard players felt like they could manage without their organs and electric pianos and switched to synths full-time. Of course, that's all very general, there were keyboard players who went to synths from the get-go and others who never abandoned their beloved organs and EPs.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:30 am

Well, I was there at the outset of Yamaha FM and was occasionally able to use someone's preset machine called the GS-2 before DX7. I did not approach the latter as a preset machine, I programmed it. My little prog band in the early 70s happened to acquire a Minimoog and there were no presets at all. There were, however patch diagrams sometimes available at teh music store. Or that's a false memory. We definitely made up patch diagrams.

I have zero interest in those Casio kinda experiences, do not play in a cheesy lounge act (albeit I had a satire of them in two iterations) or think of music in that kind of commercial workaday notion. For my first computer setup ca '03 I did buy a Roland XV something something. It was just not very interesting. TBH, I didnt immediately trust software as solid in the beginnning. (fortunately Absynth 2 came out around then, and I could go and hock my DX7 (bought in a pawnshop anyway).

I wouldn't conflate 'electronic music' with 'popular music' myself. I don't think the former is hurt or can be hurt like that, pop is on its own tho

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:33 am

synths are for things you can't get otherwise, bread and butter is bass and drums, and guitar.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:41 am

my first wife worked at Arp on Hartwell Ave in Lexington Mass in 1977 and 78 before we got married and moved to Ft Hood. She got me a bunch of those square, floppy 45 records, that they used for demos and I got to go see their guy demoing them but I wasnt much a synth fan, just guitar at the time so thats as far as I got with them. Besides back then, no way I could ever afford a synth...I made 319 dollars a month in the Army...

cryophonik · Post by **cryophonik** » Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:58 am

unkow wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 12:35 am …how much do you think the preset mania hurt electronic music and popular music in general?

Define “hurt”

On one hand, that’s sort of like asking “how much did distorted guitars hurt rock music?” Every genre has defining characteristics and one of them is usually common sounds or instruments. Certain synth sounds are the defining sounds of various electronica genres (e.g., 303 for acid house, super saws for trance, EPs for loungey downtempo, wub wub for dubstep).

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Thu Dec 16, 2021 2:42 pm

why i'm enjoying the music out of west papua, people who missed kilo 4-3's articles on patching a hoover.

music itself is little dobs of novelty suspended in similitude. best case.

life stumps along until it doesn't. it is only reasonable, that this may present an improvement. if you've ever watched it stump.

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Thu Dec 16, 2021 2:52 pm

depends on the band.
some bands still use synths for weird shit.

unkow · Post by **unkow** » Thu Dec 16, 2021 9:45 pm

cryophonik wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:58 am
unkow wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 12:35 am …how much do you think the preset mania hurt electronic music and popular music in general?
On one hand, that’s sort of like asking “how much did distorted guitars hurt rock music?”

Busted! That was going to be my follow-up question

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Fri Dec 17, 2021 1:09 pm

cryophonik wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:58 am Define “hurt”

praphasing a recent conversation in spanish,

"marijuana is only for people in pain"

"fool, everybody is in pain"

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sat Dec 18, 2021 3:36 am

unkow wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 12:35 am When the synthesizer came out, it was all about the far out sounds. Switched on Bach, Moog Country Hits, what have you. A guy playing synth in a band would be making all those weird noises, mostly.

ShawnG · Post by **ShawnG** » Sat Dec 18, 2021 4:50 am

It seems to me that the synth was definitely originally invented to mimic existing instruments. but they weren't very good at doing that, and making weird sounds ended up being where it went. Instruments make sounds. that's it. it's a bit of a weird question to me. did presets hurt music? Timbre is not the only variable in music that can be played with or innovated, and even then, a "bread and butter" preset can still be useful as a starting point for innovation.

95% of forms of popular music are still in 4/4 with roughly 3 minute songs containing the same basic harmonic and rhythmic structures. making a sound nobody has ever heard before doesn't really change that. a lot of jazz musicians did loads of musical innovation meanwhile on the same classic timbres that have existed forever.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sat Dec 18, 2021 6:14 am

The thing is, after a time all sounds that are adopted by any genre become “bread and butter,” so much so that at this point the term doesn’t really have much meaning.

Synths and the allure of bread & butter