My Favorite Vintage Synthesizers

I have had the privilege to own and/or play several legendary synthesizers in the 1980s - 1990s.  Now, I never played that well on the keyboards, but I dabbled enough to get by on stage for mostly simple pop stuff.  I never strayed into complicated songs and managed to fool most listeners into thinking that I could play.  Most of the stuff I performed was 8-10 chords for the whole song, if that.

Besides my own synthesizers, my buddies and I also practiced at several rehearsal studios around Jakarta, giving me more opportunities to get my hands on other keyboards that were available there.  Needless to say, I enjoyed myself immensely.

Nowadays, all synths are digital with sampled sounds rather than analog avatars of sounds from back in the days on the analog sets.  They are great, great products and their sounds open up the imagination for creativity and inspiration, but I do miss the old analog sounds of the 80s.

This short list is a recollection of my favorite vintage synthesizers from back in the day and here they are:

1.  Roland JX8P

Polyphony: 6 voices
Oscillators: 2 DCO's per voice (12 oscillators),
VCF/ VCA: low-pass and hi-pass filter / 2 ADSR envelope generators per voice; Keyboard: 61 note keyboard with velocity and aftertouch;
Effects: portamento, chorus
Memory: 64 patches; Released in 1985

My favorite patches from this gem are: Stab Brass, May's Wind, Soundtrack and many others.  The JX8P was one of the last true analog synths from Roland (the Super JX10 was actualy the very very last one).  I actually still own 1 unit of a perfectly working JX8P at home.

2.  Yamaha DX7

Polyphony - 16 Voices

Oscillators - 16 bit Digital 6 operator FM. 

LFO - Sine/Square/Tri/SAW up/SAW Down/Random

VCA - 6 Envelope generators 8 parameters each

The first FM tone generator at the time. Patches are adjusted through Yamaha's own logics, which is really weird if you are used to the analog sliders or the Roland user interfaces.  Anyway, the sounds coming out of the DX7 was just different than anything the other synths are producing, plus most of the GRP jazz musicians were always sporting these cool synths on their videos.  Classic patch on this thing would be the unmistakable DX digital piano sound.

3.  Moog Liberation

One of the cheapest Moogs (if there were ever such things) around at the time.  Released back in 1981.  Look cool with the very rare white Moog Liberation - most are in black.  I fooled around with a white unit at the Pangkalan Jati Studio of Eramono Soekarjo's way back in 1984/85.  Me & my band mates turned off the studio lights and went through hundreds of otherworldly patches of analog sounds.  Awesome, man.  Even without any drugs.

Polyphony - Monophonic (plus 10-voice poly-section organ)

Oscillators - 2 VCO: OSC 1: Pitch: 32', 16, '8'; Wave: Sawtooth, Triangle, Rectangle. OSC 2 : Pitch: 16', 8', 4'; Wave: Sawtooth, Triangle, Square.

Filter - one 24dB/oct lowpass; cutoff, emphasis, env amount; Attack, Decay/Release, Sustain.

VCA - Attack, Decay/Release, Sustain

4.  Korg Poly 800 MK II

In the early 80's, first Korg offered the Poly-800 an 8 voice polyphonic analog synthesizer with 64 memory patches and up to 50 editable parameters! There's also a stereo chorus effect, a sequencer, and a funky joystick used to adjust pitch, modulation and the filter. There is a double mode in which the oscillators double up making 4 fat voices of polyphony - fun for trance and techno.  Fun fun stuff.  But then, Korg raised the bar shortly after, when one year after the introduction of the Poly-800, in 1984, came the Poly-800 mkII which added digital delay effects and a darker paint job. All sound editing is done by scrolling to a given parameter, described by little more than a number, and pushing the up or down buttons to adjust it. Fortunately every parameter’s numeric code and data-range is printed on the faceplate. However, some sort of external MIDI controller is the best way to edit here.  I've used this little baby on stage performing songs by the romantics and others.

5.  Casio CZ 1000

I had the chance to play the CZ 1000 back in 86.  I strapped it on and performed a couple of Van Halen's keyboards songs (jump, dreams, why can't this be love, etc).  Never learned how to play proper guitar, but strapping this thing on and 'dueting' with the lead guitar player on VH's songs gave me thrills as if I'm a shredder on stage.  In fact, I was able to out-"tap" my guitarists on the solos part - that was fun. One major drawback after performing more than 2 songs with the CZ on is that my shoulder & back was really sore, and this is back when I had a much younger & physically fitter body.  The CZ 1000 is certainly no lightweight (literally).

Next gen synth such as the Roland D-50, the Korg M-1, etc was just around the corner at the late 80s - early 90s, and they would provide a different kind of inspiration, but that will be a story for another day.....