Awesome Synthesizers

An awesome bit of classic footage from the 1985 Grammy Awards ceremony in which Herbie Hancock, Thomas Dolby, Howard Jones and Stevie Wonder do battle on a stage packed with their favorite electronic keyboards. Oh, and on the same night, this happened. Damn.

The latest addition to Teenage Engineering’s awesome Pocket Operators is a programmable drum machine you can tote in your pants. Available by itself, or bundled with Microtonic VST letting you upload custom sounds. A nifty calculator inspired pro case drops this April.

The latest creation from the Wes Anderson of makers, Love Hulten. The Voxarray 61 is a tribute to synthesizers from the ’70s. It has a clamshell construction, with the top lid housing a variety of analog and digital modules that can be connected using patch cords.

Steve Reich’s 1976 composition Music for 18 Musicians was about performers working in harmony to produce a minimal sound. Inspired by these properties, Simon Cullen and Neil O’Connor are creating a fully-electronic version. Coming 9/15/16 to Dublin’s Button Factory.

For musicians and DJs who want to carry a MIDI keyboard anywhere. KOMBOS come in sections which snap together to form keyboard controllers ranging from 25 keys to 61 keys. Works wirelessly over Bluetooth 4.0, perfect for controlling iOS and Android synthesizer apps.

Dam’nco owe more than a small debt of gratitude to Daft Punk (and the entire disco era) for plowing the fields for this kind of music, but that doesn’t make their funk-jazz track with a heaping help of analog synth and talkbox vocals any less awesome.

Toon Welling and David Menting designed this plaything which encourages face-to-face interaction, with one person controlling an analog synthesizer, and the other controlling a sequencer on the other side. Its simple enough for kids, but awesome enough for all ages.

An electronic musician’s dream tool, this Kontakt audio sample library lets you play a huge variety of chiptune sounds from classic gaming and computer systems like the NES, C64, SNES, GameBoy, SEGA Genesis and more. The library includes over 5,500 samples.

Castell & Moreno Films upcoming crowdfunded documentary looks at the growing popularity of 1980s style Synthwave music, and the musicians, technology and sounds that provide their inspiration. Sizzle/concept reel here.

A brief demonstration of the shockingly good audio capabilities of a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero computer, as the bargain priced computer replicates the sounds and music of the iconic Doctor Who theme music. Remember when you needed a $1000 synthesizer to do this?

A compact analog synthesizer at a great price. The four-voice, 37-key synth offers up warm and rich sounds, and has a built in 16-step sequencer, arpeggiator, and delay, along with an OLED display that doubles as an oscilloscope for tweaking sound waves.

Musician Lorenz Rhode turns in a spot-on cover version of the talkbox modulated vocals from Daft Punk’s 2001 classic Harder Better Faster Stronger. It would be cool to see him recording the other parts of the track too.

Yamaha’s new 37-key synthesizers may be tiny, but they make the kind of sounds you’d expect from a pro synth. Our favorite is the tribute to the DX7, made famous back in the ’80s on tracks like Harold Faltermeyer’s Axel F. Out 9/2015.

While it’s a sound that owes a ton of credit to Stevie Wonder and Zapp & Roger, we have to say we’re extremely impressed with this funky demo of a talkbox with a Moog Little Phatty synth by Steveland Swatkins of Excellent Gentlemen.

Ok, so the produce in this video is used more for show than for sound but we still have to hand it to j.viewz for making such good use of a maKey maKey and his edible circuit triggers.

Much larger than its predecessor, so you can play it using your fingers as well as the stylus. It has a 37 note keyboard, 2 voltage-controlled oscillators, 8 waveform LFOs and a state variable filter.

Moog’s new analog synth has variable waveshape oscillators, a square wave sub ocillator, a noise generator and lots of ways to tweak them, including Moog’s classic ladder filter. Hear it in action at 4:30.

Analog purists will love the 25-key MiniBrute Synthesizer from Arturia that features a number of unique tone-shaping tools and puts your fingers in control of a 100% analog signal-path.

Ever wonder what composers do in their free time? Yeah, neither did we until we saw Stephen J. Anderson make a synth out of old electronics and a kitchen into an instrument. Music starts at 2:20.

In 1957, Daphne Oram created the Oramics synth, which interprets sound from painted film strips. The 1957 prototype was recently found and is now on exhibit in London. Soon to be an iPhone app, too.

Max Battaglia’s concept guitar does away with strings and frets, replacing them with a long multi-touch screen. Its digital brains would let you configure the number of strings, frets and effects.

Turn your iPad into a professional synthesizer with AKAI’s keyboard docking station. You get 49 velocity-sensitive keys, pitch/mod wheels, drum pads, and it also doubles as a USB MIDI controller.

After all the rounds of Rock Band, we’re already used to playing guitars without strings. The touchscreen Kitara is a string-free performance instrument. Doubles as a MIDI controller.