What were popular synths in early 90's pop?

[Music Bird]

Like Ace of Base, Celine Dion, Paula Abdul, Mariah Carey, and other similar stuff, especially in eastern and SE Asia. I'm talking about 1990-1993 pop music.
For example the sounds I'm talking about
Bell type synths
Piano chords (non M1, it's more jangly than one, this has it https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oEDZ7TAANKg from 1992 at 2:26 also the solo and bass stab)
Solos like the above song that are guitar or sitar or banjo sounds
The same songs kind of square bass with resonance (plays in solo)
Basslines
Synth brass
Synth trumpets and trombone leads
Squelchy lead synths
Guitar like pluck sequences
Ethnic sounds
Pianolike chords
Synth organ
Brass stabs
Choirs
Saxophone
Organ chords
Leads
Pads
Resonant type basses and pads

[Kenneth]

I think the SH101 was quite popular during this time. I’m not positive that it was used on these albums, but most of these basses you mentioned are certainly possible on the SH.

[fh991586]

The SH-101 has no midi, and it was the golden era of midi programming, so I seriously doubt it was much used compared to everything else available that was easier to program and sync together!

[Z]

SAMPLERS! The 90s were all about samplers. Akai, Ensoniq and Roland.

Of course the early ROMplers, too. Korg Wavestation & 01/W, Emu Proteus series, Roland JV series. Racks and racks of this stuff.

[desmond]

Early 90s synths in pop/rock were mostly M1, D50, the thick, layered rompler ounds.

There were of course other thing being used, the DX7 had kinda fallen out of favour by then.

Then in side genres like acid/house etc, it was different, lots of samplers, lots of cheap Roland stuff (101/303/Juno106 etc) and other cheap analog gear - it's quite genre dependent.

But to save you some time, and some posting, what you really want to know is "What synths were used in all music, of all time, by everyone?" and the answer is "Pretty much all of them, depending on what was available to the artists, what music they were making, and what their tastes were".

[Z]

But to save you some time, and some posting, what you really want to know is "What synths were used in all music, of all time, by everyone?" and the answer is "Pretty much all of them, depending on what was available to the artists, what music they were making, and what their tastes were".

Are you kidding? He's been making these sort of posts for a year now and will continue to annoy the heck out of us, especially with the really obscure SE Asia c**p.

What does it really matter what synths were used by who? Unless you're writing some sort of documentary or essay.

Go make some music already.

[ItsMeOnly]

Second with Z. But the answer is 01/W and shitload of reverb.

[Mark76]

Well I'm not expert, but I would agree that the D50 and M1 were the big hitters of the time.

The D50 feaured on Mariah Careys first album, obviously the M1 was pretty much everywhere in the early 90s. Don't overlook the drum sounds on this either, the 'fingersnap' sound I think was used on some Toni Braxton stuff from the mid 90s. I'm really surprised this particular sound hasn't been revived actually....hmm theres an idea!!!

Don't overlook the Casio CZ1, this featured on a lot of electronic dance music (in Europe) in the early 90s. The Rhodes Mk1 was also widely used to early 90s soul/R&B

Other usual suspects are the Juno 106 (Erik Morillo was a big user of this beast in 93) and I'd actually disagree with some others and say the SH101 was fairly heavily used particularly in the rave sound in the UK around 91/92. On a similar note don't forget the 'hoover' from an Alpha Juno 2!!

[Music Bird]

Yeah listening I can hear
E-mu Proteus: a lot of stuff, drums, bass, piano, horns, power chord stabs, ethnic sounds, orchestral
Akai S950 and Roland S-50: sampling and orchestra hits
M1: Piano 16', Organ2, strings, brass stabs, Slap bass (Marky Mark Good Vibrations), tons more
D-50: Fantasia, Staccato Heaven, Horn Section, bass, strings, pads, bell type sounds, Pizzagogo, Slap Bass, tons more
DX7/TX-816: tines, bells, bass
TX-81z: Lately Bass
TB-303, MC-202 and SH-101: squelchy stuff in house type pop
Casio CZ: organs, brass, bass, high stabs, strings, bells, nice gritty leads, guitar type stabs
Kurzweil K2000: tons of stuff
SY-77/99: a lot of stuff
Budget analogs like Roland JX, Alpha Juno, and MKS-50/70/80: analog type stuff, particularly Hoovers and all sorts of other electronic sounds, used a lot by Altern8
U-110/220: tons of stuff, especially bass and high strings
Kawai K series: a lot of stuff too
Sound Canvas, Proteus, TX-81Z, Kawai stuff, Casio and Yamaha home keyboards, and MT-32: extremely low budget stuff
I think if there were any high end analog stuff, it was mostly samples of it, or ROMpler version.
That song I posted spams 01/W and Proteus.