At one synthesizers were like dirty words to rock lovers. When Van Halen did Jump & I'll Wait it was a huge deal. Synth was seen coming into rock with prog rock bands like Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, Rush etc.

When New Wave and synth pop was big n the 80s. It was seen as sub-par compared to rock guitars and drums.

Nowadays bands like Depeche Mode, Blondie, New order, Pet Shop Boys, The Smiths, Tears For Fears, OMD, Human League, Talk Talk etc. Are highly loved and respected by indie rock groups, pop groups, hipster blogs, and even rockers. Sites like rateyourmusic.com stan hard for all these bands. Yet in their time they were seen as ''not real musicians'' and shit like that because of synths.

I also hear synths everywhere! there nearly on every pop song out. And every other rock or indie artist as well.

Do you feel like music with synthesizer is way more respected nowadays? VS in the 80's.

I think your premise is flawed: the 80s weren't necessarily derogatory towards synthesizers

because they were ubiquitous: from Bruce Springsteen, to Michael Jackson, to Madonna, to

the Cars, to Prince, to Cameo, to even the greatest recording artist of all time - Miles Davis!

duccichucka said:

I think your premise is flawed: the 80s weren't necessarily derogatory towards synthesizers

because they were ubiquitous: from Bruce Springsteen, to Michael Jackson, to Madonna, to

the Cars, to Prince, to Cameo, to even the greatest recording artist of all time - Miles Davis!

There's lots of interviews from back in the 80's. with dozens of rock stars claiming that synths were ''fake music'' and didn't take a lot of talent to use. And i'm mainly talking about synth-pop esque groups. A lot of these artists had more than just the synth sound going for them.

But you're older than me, and lived through the 80's. So you can shed some light on this issue. I'm only going off of what interviews and 80's documentaries have said about synth music. And also going from the ''rock'' POV from the time.

[Edited 7/29/14 18:46pm]

I think synths sounded better in the 1980s.

I think there was a certain "synths arent real instruments" back in the day.

Yes, they are.

It's certainly true that many people had an attitude towards synthesizers and drum machines a few decades ago, but I don't think those people had very varied taste in music. That type of a sentiment actually grew towards the 90s and the Grunge movement was in part a reaction to "fake" sounds (it was Eddie Vader that apparently was most vocal about it - the funny thing was people like Dave Grohl were huge Prince fans).

Some "jazz elitists" shared the sentiment, but mostly it was people that somehow made the exclusive connection in their minds that if synths were used in bad dance music in a very simplistic way it was the only way they could be used. I think another factor that contributed to it was that most people had never tried out playing professional quality synths themselves, so they thought everything must be as crappy as the home organs and the casio keyboards found in people's homes and in teenagers' bands at the time. I think many people thought that the artists that used drum machines didn't even program their beats themselves ("they're machines, right?").

People have always had very ignorant views on music technology. Like some 10-15 years ago some still thought that you couldn't record music on a PC and that you needed a mac. It wasn't just about the stability issues associated with Windows, some really thought the music wouldn't sound as good if you didn't record it using a mac.

[Edited 7/30/14 1:22am]

I have ALWAYS loved me some muthafuckin' synths, son!! Synths are like any other sound or instrument; When used right, They are awesome! When used wrong, they suck HARD! Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, & Prince [among others obviously ] showed many how it was done.

[Edited 7/30/14 2:09am]

I can only remember a couple of groups making a big deal out of "No synthesizers were used on this record," Boston and Queen. That was late 70s. By the 80s, almost everyone is using them.

I remember when Jump came out, some of the heavy metal guys thought it was not their best song ever but I wouldn't say it was a huge deal. It still had a wailing guitar solo, they could get into it. And it helped that the next two singles from 1984, Panama and Hot For Teacher, was some of their most rocking stuff.

But I think there was a kind of raised eyebrow about synth sounds becoming so dominant in the pop side of metal. It may be one reason why kids who were into heavy music went toward Metallica and Slayer rather than Def Leppard and Rainbow. Now some of the extreme metal bands have synthesizers.

Nowadays you hear "rockist" used like it's a dirty word, describing a small-minded, prejudiced person. Hopefully peoples' attitudes have evolved enough to know that an instrument is just an instrument.

There is still not much synth going on in hardcore rock or country. Drum machines are still considered "canned" to that crowd, and synths cheesy.

Let's be fair some of of those 80s synths WERE cheesy!

But it's just bad use of the instrument. You hear the intro to 1999 and it sounds HEAVY, way heavier than Rainbow or synthy Foreigner.

NIN and Ministry did a lot to get metal people used to the idea of synths in heavy music. There was a lot of crossover in the early Industrial bands. People got over their issues with drum machines too.

I just think for a while that "Dx7" sound was all over all popular music. The pop groups had it, the new wave groups, the hair metal groups, the classic rock groups, definitely the R&B and rap records. You give people too much of any one thing and they'll start puking on it. After a few years of distorted guitar and hyper-natural drum sounds in grunge and speedmetal, people were like "Oh wow, synthesizers! Neato! Something new, something different!"

hmm, no

I think synths were a lot more respected in the '90s

synths now are seen as the devil

i see some orgers know very little about synths.

Maybe some narrow minded peole hated synths but synths brought

edge to the music.

When synths become smaller and cheaper in the late 70s lots of ppl bought it.

When punk become mainstream a new genre post punk was new underground and

it included synths.

Thing is there are analog and digital synths.

digital synths are sample based and they sound like shit compared

to the analog synths.

analog synths sound amazing.digital synths sound cheap.

Lot of Princes music lost magic when he stoped using analog synths.

And what is strange is that he bulit his sound with the help of analog synths yet

he uses some cheap digital shit.

nothing can touch analog synths sound.

and thank God analog synth sound is back.

check out Where Your Children Are Timberland version.its analog synth

bobzilla77 said:

I just think for a while that "Dx7" sound was all over all popular music. The pop groups had it, the new wave groups, the hair metal groups, the classic rock groups, definitely the R&B and rap records. You give people too much of any one thing and they'll start puking on it. After a few years of distorted guitar and hyper-natural drum sounds in grunge and speedmetal, people were like "Oh wow, synthesizers! Neato! Something new, something different!"

New Wave groups peaked 1980 1982 period.

Yamaha dx7 was the first digital synth made in 1983

bobzilla77 said:

thebanishedone said:

for me, it depends on the synth and how it's used... i absolutely loathe the synth on jump

i'm a bit of a purist at heart... but i'm not against using certain technology... while i play guitar, bass, drums etc... i'd love to get my hands on a dave smith synth (right now i use a triton )... but i'd be likely to use a synth and then play some slide on my national resonator over the top of it ... i prefer using a synth for rhythmic sort of stuff, rather than 80s sounding chords... i'd much prefer a b3 sound for chords

the 80s cheesy synth thing i don't dig ... prince gets away with it for me cause his shit was so funky

MoBettaBliss said:

what do u mean by 80s cheesy synths? for me 80s cheesy synths are digital synths starting with 1983s yamaha dx7 but even dx7 sounds analog compared to the latter samplers.

Analog synths on the other hand are amazing.

full fat sound.nothing cheesy about it.

and analog synths make their sound in a natural organic way

hopefularranger said:

thebanishedone said:

digital synths are sample based

Not entirely accurate. The first digital synthesizers marketed were based on FM synthesis (the aforementioned DX7), linear arithmetics (the Roland D50) and even phase distortion synthesis. Sample-based technology was a much different animal, and as you know, any sound source (whether digital or analog) can be sampled.

check out Where Your Children Are Timberland version.its analog synth

Virtual analog actually - which is not quite the same thing. Most of the sounds used by Tim on that production were based on samples and rompler data files of analog sounds. [Edited 8/2/14 10:07am] [Edited 8/2/14 12:37pm] [Edited 8/2/14 12:39pm]

thanx for the input d i have juno roland alpha analog synth and i have dx9 yamaha digital dm synth

thebanishedone said:

MoBettaBliss said:

for me, it depends on the synth and how it's used... i absolutely loathe the synth on jump

i'm a bit of a purist at heart... but i'm not against using certain technology... while i play guitar, bass, drums etc... i'd love to get my hands on a dave smith synth (right now i use a triton )... but i'd be likely to use a synth and then play some slide on my national resonator over the top of it ... i prefer using a synth for rhythmic sort of stuff, rather than 80s sounding chords... i'd much prefer a b3 sound for chords

the 80s cheesy synth thing i don't dig ... prince gets away with it for me cause his shit was so funky

You loathe oberhaim synth used on Jump? The amazing legendary analog synth Oberhaim? Wow u dont have a clue about synths

it's pretty simple... i don't like the sound used in the context of that song

Yeah, it's pure trash. I know it's a typical joke among keyboardist to play that riff as the first thing when you dial up an Oberheim like sound on a synth you've never tried before, and I often do that too just to amuse people, but it having been played on a cool synth originally does not make it fine art.

MoBettaBliss said:

thebanishedone said:

MoBettaBliss said: You loathe oberhaim synth used on Jump? The amazing legendary analog synth Oberhaim? Wow u dont have a clue about synths

it's pretty simple... i don't like the sound used in the context of that song

But that is a classic oberhaim sound.the same sound is used on 1999 by PRINCE.dO YOU DISLIKE 1999?

[Edited 8/4/14 14:17pm]

MoBettaBliss said:

thebanishedone said:

MoBettaBliss said: You loathe oberhaim synth used on Jump? The amazing legendary analog synth Oberhaim? Wow u dont have a clue about synths

it's pretty simple... i don't like the sound used in the context of that song

I like the synths used with the Sammy Hagar era. I do love I'll wait by VH! But synths and David Lee Roth don't mix well imo. Sammy sounds like he was born to by synthed up

thebanishedone said:

MoBettaBliss said:

it's pretty simple... i don't like the sound used in the context of that song

But that is a classic oberhaim sound.the same sound is used on 1999 by PRINCE.dO YOU DISLIKE 1999?

[Edited 8/4/14 14:17pm]

i don't know what's so difficult to understand

if someone says "i don't like the bass in that song" on a song where a p bass is used, does it mean they can't like any bass lines played on a p bass?

jump is very different to anything on 1999

MoBettaBliss said:

thebanishedone said:

But that is a classic oberhaim sound.the same sound is used on 1999 by PRINCE.dO YOU DISLIKE 1999?

[Edited 8/4/14 14:17pm]

i don't know what's so difficult to understand

if someone says "i don't like the bass in that song" on a song where a p bass is used, does it mean they can't like any bass lines played on a p bass?

jump is very different to anything on 1999

In some ways its different,its more related to the song

Dirty Mind if you listen to the synth phrases.

But its the same model of Oberheim synths that was used on 1984 album

by Van Halen and by Prince on 1999.

Listen to the synth bass line in the song Jump and listen to Lets Prettend Were Married

,its the same sound. Oberheim synths have very characteristic warm fat sound.

Jump riff is one of the best and most classic Oberheim synth riffs ever.

Eddie didnt do lot of

tweaking on it so its classic Oberheim. I doubt there is a single lover of

analog synths not

loving that riff and sound.Maybe you are not into synths and that is your choice

but let me tell you ,you are missing a lot.Synth is just a sound texture like any other instrument,its the song that matters in the end.

Anyway can you give us a few examples of your favorite synth sounds please?