Moments in Music: 10 Synth Wizards and the Machines They Fell in Love With

This article was inspired by one of our readers’ comments. Dee suggested I check out Charanjit Singh who used a TB-303 before acid house was even invented.

I’d never heard of Singh, but the discovery was an instant favourite.

That week I was also in the middle of choosing a MIDI controller, so all these things got me thinking…

How does a piece of gear get into a particular musician’s hands? And what kind of relationship do they develop with it?

Here is the story of 10 synth wizards (including Dee’s suggestion!) and the machines that shaped their sound.

1. Wendy Carlos – Moog Modular

Now 76 years old, Wendy Carlos is a pioneer every electronic musician is indebted to.

Carlos studied at the first center for electronic music in the United States, the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. After graduation, she met Robert ‘Bob’ Moog and helped him refine his early synths. Her instrument of choice became the Moog modular synth.

“I got the Moog and worked with Bob to make a prototype of a touch-sensitive keyboard. Can you believe, the standard keyboard was not touch-sensitive until the late 1970s!? So, now I had a keyboard that could make the notes come alive” said Wendy Carlos

“I got the Moog and worked with Bob to make a prototype of a touch-sensitive keyboard… now I had a keyboard that could make the notes come alive.” Wendy Carlos

It was her iconic album Switched on Bach (1968) that brought synthesizers to the public consciousness. At a time when synths were still unknown to most people, Carlos recorded Bach’s famous Brandenburg Concertos with this new synthesized sound.

“I was certainly not about any revival of Bach. It was just lovely music, eminently suited for this stage of the development of Bob Moog’s new synthesizer” explained Wendy Carlos.

Switched on Bach was the first album that allowed a large public to wrap their heads around this new machine – the synthesizer. It paved the way for later experimentation beyond classical music.

Carlos is also the composer behind some of cinema’s greatest soundtracks, including Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Shining (1980).

2. Eliane Radigue – ARP 2500

Éliane Radigue is a French electroacoustic composer who studied under eminent musique concrète composers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry in the 1950s. During a visit to New York city in the 1960s, she met the avant-garde scene of the time including John Cage, Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Her own style moved away from the concrète tradition and into experiments with tape loops, microphone feedback and slowly evolving modulations.

“In Radigue’s work, sounds interact with each other like the cells of an organism, progressing in glissando in an extremely slow and subtle way,” writes Julien Bécourt.

In the 1970s she returned to New York and shared a studio with Laurie Spiegel. There, she began experimenting with various synthesizers like the Buchla and the EML Electro comp. But her perfect match was the ARP 2500…

“In Radigue’s work, sounds interact with each other like the cells of an organism, progressing in glissando in an extremely slow and subtle way.” Julien Bécourt

“ … the ARP offered me an immediate reading, since the oscillators … were all in front of me. Except that the switches had one flaw: they hissed. But, for me, that is precisely what procured this richness and subtlety of sound. The Moog and Buchla are wonderful instruments, but conversely, their sonority is very clear and metallic” described Éliane Radigue.

is an atmosphere creator, no other synthesizer in the world can do this thing,” said Klaus Schulze.

is an atmosphere creator, no other synthesizer in the world can do this thing.” Klaus Schulze

“… the Big Moog has gone, Klaus sold it because he did not use it anymore. Many believe that this is a real pity, because this instrument was so characteristic for his music… For Klaus it was nothing but an instrument, a useful tool” wrote Mr. Modular.

Nowadays Schulze uses mostly VSTs and a DAW to make music. (See, even the synth gurus aren’t analog purists!)

4. Suzanne Ciani – Buchla

Suzanne Ciani’s portfolio is impressive to say the least. The sound effects for the 1980 Xenon pinball machine. The pop and pour in Coca-Cola commercials and even the bleeps in GE’s first musical dishwashers … All sounds by Suzanne. Yamaha DX7 fans will also be happy to know that she programmed the “East Meets West” preset.

“You shouldn’t come to the [Buchla] with a preset idea of what you want to do—you should feedback with the machine and evolve your language with it.” Suzanne Ciani

Her synth weapon of choice for both composition and sound design has always been her Buchla synthesizer. Ciani’s philosophy towards her instrument is to approach the machine on its own terms. “You shouldn’t come to the [Buchla] with a preset idea of what you want to do—you should feedback with the machine and evolve your language with it” explained Suzanne Ciani.

Unlike Moog’s synths, Don Buchla’s modulars didn’t come with a keyboard as a main interface. It was mostly knobs and wires.

“I wanted to develop a technique for [the Buchla] the same way people have a technique for playing the violin… Don Buchla viewed it as a performance instrument, and I believed him. So I wanted to perform it” said Suzanne Ciani.

Michael [Czajkowski] pieces I’d been writing and he said, ‘Here’s something you might find really interesting.’ And he took me down to Morton Subotnick’s studio and showed me the Buchla synthesizer” described Laurie Spiegel.

“Despite commercialization, working with computers in music is still both an end in itself and a means of creating music and expanding human understanding.” Laurie Spiegel

In the 1970s she worked at the Bell Labs developing interactive music composition software for computers. Her and colleague Max Matthews are considered pioneers of computer music. The Bell Labs also gave Spiegel access to experimental machines such as the Alles synth – the first digital additive synthesis machine. Here’s Spiegel masterfully playing the Alles:

found a different way to employ the [TB-303], particularly its glissando function which made it suitable for reproducing the Indian raga melodies.” The Wire

“While the TB-303 was originally designed to fill in for a bass guitar, it was awkward when it came to reproducing conventional basslines, so [Singh] found a different way to employ the machine, particularly its glissando function which made it suitable for reproducing the Indian raga melodies.” – The Wire

8. Vangelis – Yamaha CS80

Greek-born composer Vangelis is most known for his soundtrack work on Chariots of fire (1981) and Blade Runner (1982), among many others. In the 1960s and 1970s Vangelis played in several bands, most notably Aphrodite’s Child as a keyboardist:

Vangelis used synthesizers in a style described as “symphonic electronica.” Melodic and simple but memorable progressions with some folk elements. The relationship between Vangelis and his iconic Yamaha CS80 synth is an interesting one:

“ [The CS80 is] the most important synthesizer in my career — and for me the best analogue synthesizer design there has ever been… It’s the only synthesizer I could describe as being a real instrument, mainly because of the keyboard — the way it’s built and what you can do with it” explained Vangelis.

“[The CS80 is] the only synthesizer I could describe as being a real instrument, mainly because of the keyboard — the way it’s built and what you can do with it.” Vangelis

Yamaha’s CS80 is hailed as Japan’s first great synthesizer. It’s a very expressive polyphonic synthesizer with piano-like weighted keys and polyphonic aftertouch. Vangelis used it to develop a distinctive personal style of playing the CS80. By varying the pressure applied to a key, he created a striking vibrato effect:

was trying to create something that would help you access the part of your brain that separates what you’re used to with a keyboard.” Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

“At that time, it was mostly [Bob] Moog and Buchla, and Moog was more [geared] towards trying to create a synth that you could easily translate from the piano. Don was the opposite. He was trying to create something that would help you access the part of your brain that separates what you’re used to with a keyboard” explained Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.

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Leticia is a lover of acid basslines and hypnotic techno. She DJs and produces under the name softcoresoft. Writer at LANDR.

@Leticia Trandafir