MetaFilter posts tagged with synthesizers

No Need to Atone for Your Synths

jonp72 — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:59:03 -0800

Not all groups with synthesizers in the 1970s and 1980s were lame Top 40 acts with keytars. Some groups of the era used synths for spastic keyboard bleeps, herky-jerky tempos, and angst-ridden aggression in a style now classified by record collector geeks as synthpunk, minimal synth, or minimal wave. Several famous New Wave acts dabbled in the style before providing soundtracks for Molly Ringwald movies (OMD, Electricty) or singing about waitresses in cocktail bars (the Human League, Being Boiled), but vintage videos from synth punk acts all over the world can be found all over YouTube. New York City Suicide, Ghost Rider Suicide, Frankie Teardrop Dark Day, Arp's Carpet Los Angeles Catholic Discipline, Underground Babylon The Screamers, Vertigo The Screamers, 122 Hours of Fear Nervous Gender, Miscarriage San Francisco The Units, Unit Training Film: Warm Moving Bodies Tulsa, Oklahoma Los Reactors, It's A Wonderful Life Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Billy Synth & the Turnups, I'm So Sick of It South Florida Futurisk, Meteoright Futurisk, Army Now France Metal Urbain, Panik Australia The Primitive Calculators, I Can't Stop It The United Kingdom The Normal, T.V.O.D. Fad Gadget, Collapsing New People Spain Aviador Dro, La TV Es Nutritiva Los Iniciados, Marca de Anubis Japan P-Model, ArtMania P-Model, Health Angel

Another Synth Guru Has Left Our Presence

blackvectrex — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 21:16:37 -0800

John "Paia" Simonton died late last week. His company, PAiA is one of the grandfathers of the DIY synth scene. I have one of his modular synths half-constructed in my garage. He helped create an American buzz for electronic music and DIY music gear in the 70s, and was highly influential till his passing away.

skwm — Wed, 05 Dec 2001 18:01:01 -0800

Nanoloop - a synthesizer / sequencer for the Game Boy, which lets you compose and sequence sound loops (samples), entirely on your Game Boy. There's also a soon-to-be-released compilation of songs written entirely with Nanoloop, featuring Merzbow, Hrvatski, Pita and more.