Conference napalm::commusic_v1

	The earliest pop songs that I can recall using remotely synthetic
	timbres are ones like "Telstar" from 1960 and "My Little Runaway"
	which I think was done in 1959.

	Remember when pop was about what's new rather than how do we cash
	in on what's familiar? (sorry) [-(

    
    The first instrument to be called a "synthesizer", I believe, was the
    vacuum tube monster that RCA built (about as large as a mainframe
    computer) back in the 50s.  I believe a working version of this still
    exists at Princeton University.  Then in the 60s folks like Moog
    started seling modular systems.  As far as synths in pop music:
    
    1967:  The Monkees are the first to use a Moog on a pop record, "Star
    Collector" (or so they claim).  
    
    1968(??):  Walter Carlos records "Switched on Bach" to help pay for a
    sex change operation.
    
    1970:  "Lucky Man" on the first ELP album inroduces the MiniMoog to the
    unsuspecting rock music world.
    
    1972:  Pink Floyd finally get ahold of a synth (VCS3) and use it on
    "Dark Side of the Moon".
    
    1974:  German space band Tangerine Dream gets their first US release;
    other "Teutonic-rock" outfits like Ash Ra Temple and Popol Vuh start
    springing up.  Robert Mason records "Stardrive" on a homemade
    polypohonic synthesizer.
    
    1975:  Kraftwerk gets a top 10 hit with "Autobahn", lyrics in German.
     
    1976:  Gary Wright records "Dream Weaver" with an all-keyboard band.
    Funkadelic's "Flash Light" introduces synth bass to funk music.
    
    1980:  Devo's "Whip It" and Gary Numan's "Cars" shoot into the top
    40.
    
    1984:  MIDI and Ymaha DX-7 introduced, dooming Edd Cote's Fender Rhodes
    to a life as an equipment stand.
    
    							Brian

	I'm sure Tom can add a bit more to this discussion, but having
	studied this a bit myself, here's some of it's history. Sorry it
	isn't complete, but I'm not into writing books in my spare time.

	Synthesizers themselves are only a part of the story.


	The Theremin was indeed considered the earliest contribution
	to electronic music, having been invented around 1924. It
	appeared in a million b-horror movies and sci-fi flix, although
	elsewhere in this conference (and in the MIT Computer Music Journal)
	there is an article of some serious music which was produced in
	the Thirties.

	You may also count the Hammond organ, which was the first example
	of musical waveform generation done by electrical means. I won't
	belabor the point. That took off in the Thirties.

	The great-granddaddy of electronic music was Edgar Varese, who 
	was a pioneer in Musique Concrete, which is(was) a form of
	avant-garde music which was realized with magnetic tape (itself
	a new technology at the time). He used tube oscillators, and was the
	first to apply ring modulation to musical tones (it having been
	done in the radio world for at least 60 years by that point). Others
	in the '50s who worked with Musique Concrete were Ussachevsky, Morton
	Subotnik and the crew at Columbia University, where the first 
	true music synthesizer (the Mark I) was built.  Quite a bit of
	research was conducted at Columbia using the Mark I. Bell Labs
	was into music synthesis, briefly, in the early Sixties, while they
	were doing voice synthesis research.

	In the early Sixties, Bob Moog and Don Buchla emerged from their
	respective garages with some solid-state circuits that were used
	by a number of musicians (one notable was Walter Carlos, who used
	Bob's collection of musical parts to make early, pre-Switched-On
	stuff, for piano and oscillator). Buchla stuck to the West Coast during
	that time, mostly, although he was found at Columbia's Electronic
	Music Lab, where he eventually delivered one of his earliest Buchla
	synthesizers. Bob Moog got his first modular system delivered in
	1964, although it was very testy (the oscillators drifted badly). 

	By 1966, however, they had both developed workable modular synthesizers
	which were appearing in music labs all over the country, and Alan
	R. Pearlman was developing a modular synthesizer system which could
	be used in performance as well as in the lab. Morton Subotnik worked
	with the Buchla, Carlos with Moog, as well as a number of folks that
	you might find in the "synth heroes" topic elsewhere in this conference.

	By 1970, a guy from Britain named Keith Emerson, who was notorious
	for his treatment of Hammond organs (while with the band The Nice,
	he torched an L-100 on stage, while playing it - he was also known
	for stabbing them to death) approached Bob Moog to design and build
	a modular synthesizer for performance with his new band. This took
	about a year, although I don't remember Keith having it before 1972.
	Meanwhile, Pearlman came out with the 2500 and 2600, Moog came out
	with the MiniMoog, and a company in Britain (I think) named Putney
	started marketing the VCS series. About this time (1972) we got away
	from acid rock to hearing little wowee monophonic lines in pop
	music (anybody remember when "Popcorn" was released?) By 1973, 
	Pete Townsend had bought an ARP 2500, Emerson was touring with
	his monster Moog and two MiniMoogs, and a band called Pink Floyd
	was producing a record called Dark Side of the Moon, featuring a
	track using a Putney VCS-3 and a sequencer (early sequencers were
	pretty interesting devices, they were basically large analog switch
	arrays). By 1977, ARP had 6 models, Moog had 8, Buchla was still
	doing custom work, and a Japanese company named Korg was marketing
	a little number which got used by a band named The Cars. Pop music
	hasn't been the same since. 

	Bob Moog sold Moog Music Inc. in 1981, Alan Pearlman folded ARP in
	1982, if I remember correctly, and Don Buchla is still building
	occasional strange pieces of hardware. Korg, Roland, Elka, and 
	Yamaha made synthesizers affordable to the masses as well as the
	big names, and I don't think I hear much music that doesn't have 
	some kind of electronic box in the background. Bob Moog was last seen
	in one of the back halls of Kurzweil.

	If you listen to records, check out what happens in the years between
	1973 and 1980. Amazing how much change occurred in that period. I don't
	think there's much of the original music left in print (1948-1964).

	/pjh

>       <<< Note 2381.2 by AQUA::ROST "Get up and get hip to the trip" >>>
>                        -< History of the World, Pt. I >-
>    
>    1970:  "Lucky Man" on the first ELP album inroduces the MiniMoog to the
>    unsuspecting rock music world.
 
Not quite, Brian. Have you listened to Abbey Road lately? The Beatles (of 
course), come through again as pioneers of the use of synthesizers 
in the rock world, in 1969.

Also check out a tune called "You Showed Me" by the Turtles (1969). It has 
a little countermelody in the verse done on a Moog.

Never heard that Monkees tune. I'll have to check it out.

Although, I will agree that Emerson used it much more flamboyantly in 1970.

Mike D

RE .4, .2

Beat me to it!  Abbey Road has tons of Moog work on it.  BTW, though
it's splitting hairs, I'm pretty sure that Emerson used a Moog III
on Lucky Man.

Popcorn?  I had almost forgotten about that.  The album?  "Hot Butter",
of course!  Or was it the other way around?

a

    ...and didn't the theremin (?) on The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations"
    beat Abbey Road?
    
    Edd

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Sorry, but the Theremin was NOT the first electronic musical
    instrument.  Back in the late 1800's a fellow named Thaddeus Cayhill
    built something he called a Teleharmonium.  Essentially, it was a
    monsterous Hammond "Tone Wheel" organ whose "generators" were to drive
    speakers directly without amplification.  Cayhill wanted to "pipe"
    music into people's homes or into restaurants over phone lines.
    
    Cayhill failed to complete his project when he realized that it would
    simply be too expensive.  His prototype already had to be moved on
    freight cars because of the massive size of the generators.  I'm not
    sure how many he had built, but he never had enough to "fill" a typical
    keyboard.
    
    I'm suprised that no one has mentioned Max Mathews of Bell Labs.  Max
    is credited with the "invention" of Digital Synthesis.  In 1969 he
    wrote Music V in Fortran.  While his work (in those days) did not
    include real-time performance machines, Music V was the foundation upon
    which all D/A Converter based synthesizers were built.
    
    Max has been working with violins and other string instruments of late. 
    People like Laurie Anderson have been using instruments designed and
    built by Max.
    
    By the way, Max's wife was my High School German teacher...
    
    -Ed

    Anyone have any info on the history of the Serge Modular synthesizer?
    
    .. they're BIG ..
    
    karl

    I don't believe that "Popcorn" was done on a synthesizer.  That was
    from an album called "The In Sound from Way Out" and that album
    was done with various kinds of early signal processing and tape
    recorder tricks.
    
    It must've taken forever and a small army to produce that album if
    you believe that was done as the liner notes indicated.
    
    By the way, while "Popcorn" may be the most familiar tune from that
    album, there are actually quite a few other tunes from that that
    were used a lot on TV.  I remember that "Wonderama", a 60's kid
    show, used about 3 different cuts.
    
    what made that album so special was that musically it was top-notch
    as well as technically.
    
    A couple of other things: "Lucky Man" was not done on a minimoog on
    the original recording.  It was done on the evolving modular Moog
    that Keith Emerson had.  Interesting note, he dusted off that thing
    and brought it out on the "Three" tour a few years ago.  The keyboard
    had been MIDI'd!!!
    
    I think an important milestone in synthesizer use was that hasn't been
    mentioned was Billy Preston's "Space Race".  I think that was the first
    (perhaps even the "last") #1 hit where the synth was the lead
    instrument in an instrumental tune.
    
    I still have my "Space Race" 45 and I will never part with it.  It
    was one of the main reasons I bought my first synth (Moog Satellite,
    although that was years after "Space Race" came out).  Someday it's
    my hope to ressurrect "Space Race" at a DECjam.
    
    	db

    re .6
    
    The thing the Beach Boys used was NOT a theremin. I recall they had a
    lot of trouble with it... I think it was a resistively controlled
    oscillator. They had a strip of resistive material and a slider  on a
    table which was used to control the pitch. I think the table had marks
    on it (like frets on a guitar).
    
    I made one of these around 1970 - it was a great hobbyist project. You
    could also use LDRs to control the pitch fairly well.
    
    As to whether it's a synthesizer... just barely!

    Note also what YES did.  The YES Album, Copyright 1971 lists Tony Kaye
    playing a "moog" and Fragile, (c) 1972 lists Wakeman playing a
    "synthesizer".
    
    Chad

    Hey! let's not forget Roger Powell!!  He recorded "Cosmic Furnace"
    around 1972.  This album was almost COMPLETELY synthesized!  
    
    Rog toured with what Contemporary Keyboard Magazine called "The largest
    modular synthesizer ever used in live performance" during his early
    days with Utopia.
    
    He is also responsible for the whole concept of the "Guitar-Style"
    keyboards you see strapped around people's shoulders these days.  
    
    What sets Powell apart from most of the other Pop/Rock musicians
    mentioned earlier, is that he truly UNDERSTANDS what makes synthesizers
    tick.
    
    -Ed

	re: .various

	Minimoog was announced in '72, about the same time the ARP 2600
	came out. Anything done on a Moog before that was a modular with
	those awful linear VCOs that drifted (anybody else play a Moog 12?)

	There was plenty of signal processing available in the late '60s.
	Oberheim and 360 systems were both spawned in the late '60s, and
	Orban-Parasound was building dual-VCA panner/faders somewhere back
	in 1968, although I wasn't cognizant of that until '72 (I was
	12 years old in 1972. I didn't know what VC meant until then).

>>    Sorry, but the Theremin was NOT the first electronic musical
>>    instrument.  Back in the late 1800's a fellow named Thaddeus Cayhill
>>    built something he called a Teleharmonium.  Essentially, it was a
>>    monsterous Hammond "Tone Wheel" organ whose "generators" were to drive
>>    speakers directly without amplification.  Cayhill wanted to "pipe"
>>    music into people's homes or into restaurants over phone lines.
 
	Yeah, I forgot about that, I read it in CMJ last year. It predated
	the Hammond by 30 years, although if I recall he (Hammond) used
	Cayhill's technology to a point. Although Cayhill did his without
	any tube technology! The machine was so large because each tone
	generator was essentially an ac alternator. That's what I'd call
	power sound.

	And as far as Max Matthews goes, I don't recall him getting all the 
	credit, although articles for his techniques ended up in IEEE Spectrum
	somewhere in the early '70s. I remember because I used to subscribe
	to Bernie Hutchins Electronotes from 1973 to 1979, and somewhere back
	there was a reference to Matthews. But there were a lot of other people
	doing a-d and d-a for audio. 

	Speaking of Electronotes, everybody's favorite technodweeb, Craig
	Anderton, used to submit all sorts of widget circuits for Electronotes
	when he was at E-Mu. He always pushed the Emu VCO chips then. I built
	a couple of his circuits for my first VC-synth around 1976, since
	he had a decent EG circuit. 

re: Popcorn

	I have it on hearsay from an old friend who worked at ARP in the
	early days that it was done with lots of pieces of modular ARPs and
	Moogs as well as a lot of other outboard gear. 

re: Roger Powell.

	Another synth hero. When I was 14 I met him at the Boston School
	or Electronic Music (1974?) He'd been at it for years by then. Anybody
	heard about him since?

re: Chad (Tony Banks, Wakeman refs)

	Tony Banks played a Moog 3 modular, I think. Wakeman's setup had 
	2 Minimoogs along with his RMI harpsipiano, although he also had
	2 Mellotrons and his piano and c3. Somewhere buried in there was
	a 2600 too, but you'll be hard pressed to hear it through the
	Minimoogs. I can still tell the difference between an older Moog
	butterworth and the "new" ones like what they used in the Sonic Six.
	Sounds nothing like the multimode that the ARP 2500 had. Now
	you get digital filters, but they don't have nearly the warmth. 

	Ah well, I wax nostalgic again. 

	/pjh

    re: re: Chad
    
    I was talking about Tony Kaye, Yes' Keyboardist at various times, not
    Tony Banks.
    
    
    CHad

    re: re: Roger Powell
    
    Yeah, Rog is an old buddy of mine.  He's been working with WaveFrame of
    late.  As a matter of fact, I'll be headed down to Santa Cruz tonite to
    see him and Todd prepare for the live recording sessions in San
    Francisco next week.
    
    The last bit of recording he did was on the "Audion Sampler".  This was
    a compilation of artists on Larry Fast's ill-fated "Audion" label. 
    Too bad.  Fast was hoping to create a record company dedicated
    EXCULSIVELY to electronic music.  Too bad Passport (his distributor)
    went kaput.
    
    -Ed

                     <<< Note 2381.15 by FORTSC::CHABAN >>>
>    Too bad.  Fast was hoping to create a record company dedicated
>    EXCULSIVELY to electronic music.  Too bad Passport (his distributor)
>    went kaput.
    
    Too bad they couldn't get deals with one or more of the larger indie
    distributors like Backroads, New Leaf, or Music Design.  Losing your
    distributor is no excuse - there's LOTS out there.
    
    karl