What got you into synths?

[cgren72]

I think i saw this post already but i couldnt find it.. So. What got you into synths/ synth music? Pink floyd any colour you like is definitely what got me into it. To me that song sounds so natural, like the electricity flowing through your body

[synthevoice]

An organist playing a Vermona electronic organ. I thought it was an awesome instrument. Then I discovered synthesizers and thought they were even cooler.

I suppose, if I were younger, I'd never get into synthesizers thanks to the recent flood of software synths which I find the most boring instruments ever invented. I think, I'm actually slipping away from synthesizers, staying with just two favourite keyboards, one digital and one analogue in my setup. The real acoustic sound is growing on me more and more.

[megamanx]

depeche mode

[nvbrkr]

I'm an 80s kid. No further explanations needed.

[memory cords]

The first synth music I really got into was Eurythmics when I was a kid. I also remember liking the synth sounds on lots of 80's pop songs such as Kim Carnes "Bettie Davis Eyes", Kate Bush "Hounds of Love" album, The Police "Wrapped Around Your Finger", Billy Idol "Eyes Without A Face", Roxy Music "Avalon" album and The Cars "Heartbeat City". Also one of my sisters used to listen to Pink Floyd and The Alan Parsons Project, I thought the synths on their records sounded really beautiful.

My friend had a Commodore C64 computer which had a kind of mini-synthesizer built into it. I remember some of the games had very cool soundtracks which got me interested in instrumental synth music.

Then my friend got an Amiga computer. There was a game called "Captain Blood" which had HR Giger-inspired graphics and an opening theme by Jean Michel Jarre (based on his track "Ethnicolor"). I was so impressed by the Jarre track that I went out and bought all his albums. Then from Jarre I got into Vangelis and Tangerine Dream.

In the early 90's I discovered bands like Cabaret Voltaire, Nitzer Ebb and Coil that used synths in more harsh and aggressive ways.

[Boba JFET]

For me, it was going to raves in the mid-late 90s and listening to music like Aphex Twin, The Prodigy, Orbital, etc.

I really liked the strange squiggly sounds.

[stephen]

Oxygene 4.

OK, I'm old.

[theglyph]

Pink Floyd.

Actually this scene from live at Pompeii. The Synthi....

[bluedad]

On the Monkee's tv show one Monday back in the 60's had a segment that featured Mickey Dolenz's moog modular..which was also used on a couple songs from their 'Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jone, ltd' lp

[Voodoo Ray]

Growing up in the 80s I must have selectively filtered out the synth sounds from much of the radio music during that time. I didn't care for the lyrics (I just liked those strange noises!). When I was very young I always thought to myself: Wouldn't it be great to have music based entirely on these kinds of sounds? I discovered proper EDM (not the cheesy commercial stuff) later on and it all went from there.

[AnalogKid]

The first time that I heard the song The Thin Wall by Ultravox in 1981. Since then I've been hooked on synths. To this day I still think that it's one of the coolest synth based songs ever.

[xenomorph313]

Nine Inch Nails

[guillermotin]

Money





Where I live, every synth cost as much as three times the price paid in the US.

[Automatic Gainsay]

Hearing Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like an Eagle" on the radio in the car, and then my brother playing "Jungle" by the Electric Light Orchestra a year later, and then my mom buying me Switched On Bach the year after that.

[Dano]

I'll also plead "child of the 80's" although I didn't get my first synth until much later. Specific early influences were ELO - Don't Bring Me Down, Blondie - Heart of Glass and Call Me, and then later Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran.