All that you need to know (!) about 80s Synths

A lot​ of other synth players arguing here over presets and whatever. Who cares. Use what you like. Use what instrument you like. Doesn't matter if its hardware or VSTi. Doesn't matter if it's FM or analog. It literally doesn't matter what you use as long as you like it and it works for you. It's your music. Do what you want.

Herbie Hancock: "By the time you program this thing, you forgot what you were going to program it for." Maybe that's the reason I never get anything done.

I love how calm everyone is in this presentation. It's really pleasant how everyone is so calm and straightforward about everything.

"The square wave is useful for string sounds" Proceeds to play a string patch made with saws

This excerpt is off a weekly programme called Rockschool, back in the late 80's, if I'm not mistaken. For a budding synth player like me it was a must watch. There was a drummer, guitarist (as seen) and bass player as well as the keyboard/ synth man. Oh, the memories! ❤️

I want to enter this video and live here forever.

"But that day will come"...so right Mr Hancock.

I know this video is old, but it's actually refreshing: the people interviewed are all professional musicians, and they are adamantine in highlighting the cons of vintage analog instruments, especially the voltage controlled ones. Nowadays, commercial resellers in all disguises seldom even mention those inconvieniences, but the limits are still there, plus the unreliability that comes with age. Also, it's heartwarming to see all the enthusiasm about midi, computers, and digital synths: it was the dawn of the modern recording studio, without whom you would have to be Stevie Wonder to have access to synths and record electronic music. And, when people nowadays talk about dawless, they still talk 90% of the time about a computer with a digital software system, that interacts via midi. Some things do not change, only the attitude.

I learned more about synth from watching this video than I ever did watching other modern youtube tutorials. To be alive in that age!

Absolutely fascinating. Vince and Herbs were so far ahead of the game even back then.

Vince Clark using a BBC Micro running sequencer software, pricey in the 80's, about £400, which was a lot. The BBC went on to become Acorn Computers which eventually became ARM which runs almost every mobile device on the planet.

Rock School! I have this on VHS. I got it as a birthday present when I was a teenager in the 80s. It wasn't easy to acquire in the 1980s, in America, in my neck of the woods. I also got an accompanying book. I still have it somewhere. . .

2:17 Modules may have gotten smaller but one thing that stood the test of time was the potted plant.

They really took some liberty with what the actual waveform displayed sounded like.

4:09 interesting to hear people's perceptions on digital synths and how excited everyone was to use them in the 80s.

I liked how back in 1987 (the date of the series this compilation was sourced from) Herbie Hancock was talking about the "touch" of a piano and synthesizer and predicting how "that day will come" when electronic instruments would be able to reproduce the nuances of an acoustic piano. He knew...

They sound and look so much more advanced than we are now...

3:22 Tony Banks: "How do i get out of this square of keyboards?"

Day 54...still waiting for her to play a guitar

"Mother! I am growing a mullet and getting into rock guitar and there is nothing you can do about it!!"