Product Description

This new edition is the ultimate exploration of the upstart instruments - and their unique analog growls and screams - that paved the way over the last four decades for today's fast-paced electronic music world. Explores the development of the modern synthesizer from 1962 on, with in-depth interviews with pioneering designers Bob Moog and Alan R. Pearlman of Moog Music and ARP Instruments fame. These and other designers reveal their initial ideas, reflect on their hits and misses, and discuss how star performers have used their creations. Histories of groundbreaking instruments examine modular, analog and digital synths and samplers, plus more unusual instruments like the Mellotron. Noted synthesist Keith Emerson and composer Wendy Carlos ("Switched-On Bach") offer musical insights and performance techniques. Includes fully updated pricing and production info, and more than 200 photos and a stunning color section.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #330843 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 342 pages

Customer Reviews

More a collection of short magazine articles than a book.
This is a good book if you want brief histories of some classic synthesisers (including the ARP 2600, MiniMoog, EMS VCS3, Prophet 5) and makers from Korg to EML, EDP & Polyfusion. The drawback is hidden in the small line on the front cover "Keyboard Presents" - this is a collection of articles published in the American magazine Keyboard, so every chapter is as short as you'd find in a magazine, so pretty unsatisfying as book chapters.

Apart from a short section of colour pictures near the beginning, the book looks like a collection of poor B&W photocopies. Another off-putting aspect is that the bulk of the articles in the book were written before 1993, and none later than 2000 so, even where they remain relevant, the references & prices quoted are out-of-date, making one feel that the whole book is semi-obsolete.

There's also an irrelevant article on Keith Emerson's Moog Modular which, unsuprisingly given the scale of absurdity of the music of Yes, contained a complete row of non-functioning modules & a TV screen showing an unrelated osciloscope image. And you definitely wouldn't want Toto's Polyfusion modular stuck up your jacksy!

If you can tolerate these caveats then there is a lot of information that's difficult to find anywhere else, and there still isn't a better book on vintage synthesisers. The excellent Synthmuseum.com website quotes extensively from this book (& Peter Forrests A-Z of Analogue Synthesisers, which is a real anorak's catologue).

Sloppy editing and out-of-date overview
Can a book about vintage equipment become obsolete? To my surprise it can! The book gives a picture of the vintage synthesizer scene of more than a decade ago. Many interesting synths have since come and gone again.

In fact many of the coveted vintage synths has been recreated since. Either in the form of soft synths, hardware replicas or as genuine reissues. For instance Moog is producing their analogues again.

The book has been revised with new material for 2nd. edition (in 2000), but existing aticles (from 1993) seems untouched.

The editing leaves much to be desired. The book is more a collection of magazine articles rather than a genuine work. I could have done the editing much better myself! Finally the pictures are almost exclusively black-and-white instead of coulour. And many are very dark.

A book with many weak points, but still with enough interesting parts to be considered a fair buy, though.

A book with a gear focus
This books gives a good view of synthesizers from a synth collector's view. It also contains many picures of old synths and their inventors.

I had hoped for a book from a musicians view, where the synths were better explained in terms of the sounds of "ancient" musicians, and also in comparison with today's synthesizers.