Most notable/obvious use of a specific synth

[Music Bird]

JX3P sounds except for bass (that was a 303) in Let the Music Play by Shannon.
Jupiter 8/Prophet 5/Minimoog leads and pads (latter for first two) on Michael Jackson Thriller album.
Moog Modular bass on the Persuaders theme.
Casio CZ-5000 phat lead on No Limits.
Access Virus/JP8000 supersaw on any trance track in the late 90s to the early 00s.
Distorted Yamaha DX7 bass on All She Wants To Do Is Dance by Don Henley.
Not necessarily a keyboard synth, but GR-300 trumpety leads on Pat Metheny band songs.
Emax Pop Choir on Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode.
PPG 340/380 modular and Wave choir in Tangerine Dreams songs.
Distorted SH101 wow leads on Daft Punk's songs which includes Da Funk
Juno 106 organ bass (patch A63 Frontier Organ to be exact as seen on SynthMania) on I Like to Move It by Reel 2 Real.
Casio anything on Casiotone for the Painfully Alone first few albums/Hedluv and Passmans Casio rap music.
Minimoog leads on Dre Day by Dr. Dre.
EML 101 lead on Cold as Ice by Foreigner.
TX81Z Lately Bass on Vogue by Madonna.

[Jacob Hunt]

Davolisint on Caravan's "The Dog, The Dog, He's at it again"
Roland System 100 all over the first two Human League albums
OB-X from Rush's "Subdivisions"

[Micke]

Nyle Steiner's EVI and Synthasystem modular on the Apocalypse Now soundtrack.

The tracks Nung river, Clean's death and Finale from the Apocalypse Now soundtrack were recorded at Zoetrope studios by Nyle Steiner and Shirley Walker during the final period of the project (circa july 1979).
Nyle and Shirley were the only synthesists still working on the score at that time and they worked directly with the crew working on the final mixes of the film just across the street.
The Finale cue was recorded twice, the first version with a traditional orchestral type of texture and a second more abstract version which was used in the film.

The equipment used on these cues included the Steiner EVI, Synthasystem modular, custom Moog string filter, and a double-Synthacon with a custom-built vibrato bar and breath interface.
Nyle had the most portable rig of all the synthesists so he was able to play tracks on most of the other cues as well (the ones that were recorded by the other synthesists).

Nung River:


Clean's death:


Finale:

(most of the string parts were played with the signal output running through the string filter).

[fh991586]

Fairlight CMI on 'Tous les cris, les SOS' by the late French singer Daniel Balavoine (well worth a listen if you don't know the song, which you probably don't!)

I should have known, from the structure! There must be some guitar synth on "Sauver l'amour" too, for the solo section...

Unfortunately, the French music isn't that well documented on the use of synthesizers. I like to point out the obvious use of midi sequencer on some tracks (like "Les démons de minuit", by Image, or "C'est toi qui m'a fait" by François Feldman), but which instrument did what is another game...

On another topic, "Tous les cris les SOS" was covered in a more formated radio fashion by Marie-Denise Pelletier. Heavily synth orchestrated too, but with a better slick modern blend and a great voice.

[gcoudert]

Fairlight CMI on 'Tous les cris, les SOS' by the late French singer Daniel Balavoine (well worth a listen if you don't know the song, which you probably don't!)

I should have known, from the structure! There must be some guitar synth on "Sauver l'amour" too, for the solo.

That solo is typical DX7, both the chords and the lead. Presumably played by Matt Clifford but I digress...
You're right about French 80s pop being poorly documented re. use of synths.

Here's Daniel Balavoine with a Fairlight and DX7 (with drummer Joe Hammer) miming 'Tous les cris, les SOS' on TV:

[ZeeOne]

Knight Rider 2000 was a TV movie from 1991 that reunited David Hasselhoff (Michael Knight), Edward Mulhare (Devon) and for whatever reason an uncredited William Daniels (the original voice of KITT) in a futuristic update of the classic TV series. Also, a pre-X Files Mitch Pileggi played the primary antagonist.

Anyway, synths -- the music from the climatic sequence in a shopping mall featured the very first preset on a Korg WaveStation. Since I remembered the movie from back then (and I saw it again more recently on SyFy), that killed all my interest in that synth because it instantly made it seem so dated...

[vicd]

Where are the jokes on Trent Reznor and DX7?

[meatballfulton]

I'll vote for the Moog modular on Lucky Man.

Sure it's a simple sound, but it seems like almost every synth I ever bought in over 25 years has that sound as a preset.

Davolisint on Caravan's "The Dog, The Dog, He's at it again"

Yeah, that's a good one.

Solo starts around 2:45 and you can see the synth around 3:20

[cornutt]

For most people who heard the Vocoder on Alan Parsons Project's "The Raven" when it was first released, that was the first time they had ever heard that particular device. I still think of that as iconic.

[Vxster]

I'll vote for the Moog modular on Lucky Man.

Sure it's a simple sound, but it seems like almost every synth I ever bought in over 25 years has that sound as a preset.

I always thought it was the Minimoog...not sure why.