Early synthesizers were viewed as
avant-garde, valued by the 1960s
psychedelic and
counter-cultural scenes for their ability to make new sounds, but with little perceived commercial potential.
Switched-On Bach (1968), a bestselling album of
Bach compositions arranged for Moog synthesizer by
Wendy Carlos, demonstrated that synthesizers could be more than "random noise machines", However, debates were held about the appropriateness of synthesizers in
baroque music, and according to the
Guardian they were quickly abandoned in "serious classical circles". Today, the synthesizer is one of the most important instruments in the music industry, used in nearly every genre. It is considered by the authors of
Analog Days as "the only innovation that can stand alongside the electric guitar as a great new instrument of the age of electricity ... Both led to new forms of music, and both had massive popular appeal." According to
Fact in 2016, "The synthesizer is as important, and as ubiquitous, in modern music today as the human voice." Emerson was the first major rock musician to perform with the Moog and it became a trademark of his performances, helping take his band
Emerson, Lake & Palmer to global stardom. According to
Analog Days, the likes of Emerson, with his Moog performances, "did for the keyboard what
Jimi Hendrix did for the guitar". String synthesizers were used by 1970s
progressive rock bands including
Camel,
Caravan,
Electric Light Orchestra,
Gentle Giant and
Renaissance. With the rise of polyphonic synthesizers in the 1970s and 1980s, "the keyboard in rock once more started to revert to the background, to be used for fills and atmosphere rather than for soloing".
Queen included statements in their 1970s album notes specifying that no synthesisers had been used, but added them in their 1980 album
The Game.
African-American music The Minimoog took a place in mainstream
African-American music, most notably in the work of
Stevie Wonder,
Electronic music In the 1970s, electronic music composers such as
Jean Michel Jarre and
Isao Tomita released successful synthesizer-led instrumental albums. This influenced the emergence of
synth-pop from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The work of German
krautrock bands such as
Kraftwerk and
Tangerine Dream, British acts such as
John Foxx,
Gary Numan and
David Bowie, African-American acts such as
George Clinton and
Zapp, and Japanese electronic acts such as
Yellow Magic Orchestra and
Kitaro were influential in the development of the genre. The authors of
Analog Days connect the synthesizer's origins in 1960s psychedelia to the
raves and British
Second Summer of Love of the 1980s and the club scenes of the 1990s and 2000s.
Pop Gary Numan's 1979 hits "
Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "
Cars" made heavy use of synthesizers.
OMD's "
Enola Gay" (1980) used distinctive electronic percussion and a synthesized melody.
Soft Cell used a synthesized melody on their 1981 hit "
Tainted Love". Chart hits include
Depeche Mode's "
Just Can't Get Enough" (1981), and works by
Ultravox. and was used by artists including
Whitney Houston,
Chicago,
Korg M1 presets were widely used in 1990s house music, beginning with
Madonna's 1990 single "
Vogue".
Film and television Synthesizers are common in film and television soundtracks. In 1969,
Mort Garson used a Moog to compose a soundtrack for the televised footage of the
Apollo 11 moonwalk, creating a link between electronic music and space in the American popular imagination. ARP synthesizers were used to create sound effects for the 1977 science fiction films
Close Encounters of the Third Kind and
Star Wars, including the voice of the robot
R2-D2. In the 1970s and 1980s, synthesizers were used in the scores for thrillers and horror films including
A Clockwork Orange (1971),
Apocalypse Now (1979),
The Fog (1980) and
Manhunter (1986).
Brad Fiedel used a Prophet synthesizer to record
the soundtrack for
The Terminator (1984), and the filmmaker
John Carpenter used them extensively for his soundtracks. Synthesizers were used to create themes for television shows including
Knight Rider (1982)
, Twin Peaks (1990) and
Stranger Things (2016).
Jobs The rise of the synthesizer led to major changes in the music industry, including
job displacement, comparable to the 1920s arrival of
sound in film, which put live musicians accompanying
silent films out of work. With its ability to imitate instruments such as strings and horns, the synthesizer threatened the jobs of
session musicians by allowing one keyboardist or music programmer to produce the same range of sounds as an entire orchestra. For a period, the Moog was banned from use in union work, a restriction negotiated by the
American Federation of Musicians (AFM). The musician
Walter Sear persuaded the AFM that the synthesizer demanded skill, and the category of
synthesizer player was accepted into the union. However, players were subject to "suspicion and hostility" for years. In 1982, following a tour by
Barry Manilow using synthesizers instead of an orchestra, the British
Musicians' Union attempted to ban synthesizers, attracting controversy. In the 1980s, a few musicians skilled at programming the Yamaha DX7 found employment creating sounds for other acts. == Sound synthesis == , complex waveforms are generated by oscillators and then shaped with filters to remove or boost specific frequencies.Synthesizers generate audio through various forms of
analog and
digital synthesis. • In
subtractive synthesis, complex
waveforms are generated by oscillators and then shaped with filters to remove or boost specific frequencies. • In
additive synthesis, a large number of waveforms, usually
sine waves, are combined into a composite sound. • In
frequency modulation (FM) synthesis, also known as phase modulation, a carrier wave is modulated with the frequency of a modulator wave; the resulting complex waveform can, in turn, be modulated by another modulator, and this by another, and so on. FM synthesis is characterized as
harsh,
glassy and
chilly. • In
wavetable synthesis, synthesizers modulate smoothly between digital representations of different waveforms, changing the shape and
timbre. • In
sample-based synthesis, instead of sounds being created by synthesizers, samples (
digital recordings of sounds) are played back and shaped with components such as filters, envelopes and LFOs. • In
vector synthesis, pioneered by the
Prophet VS, users crossfade between different sound sources using controllers such as joysticks, envelopes and LFOs. • In
granular synthesis, an audio sample is split into
grains, usually between one hundredth and one tenth of a second in length, which are recombined and played back. • In
physical modelling synthesis, a mathematical model of a physical sound source is created. == Components ==