Why we're we given synths sooner?

[tom Cadillac]

Don't know if this is a useful topic.

Have just been listening to an early soft machine CD. Everytime the poor sod on keys starts playing I have to stop listening. Why didn't someone give him a synth? That organ sound is just so goddam lame. This was a great experimental band and he's trying so hard to do something interesting. But its pre-synth and basically he's screwed.

I often wonder why the tech was historically so out of sync with the musicians. If only it had been sooner.

And we had to wait till the 80s - surely one of music's lowest eras - for bands like Duran Duran to underuse the fabulous instruments that were suddenly available.

[Phollop Willing PA]

I like Soft Machine.

[sequentialsoftshock]

Why weren't we all given books on grammar sooner?

[tom Cadillac]

I love Soft Machine too - so many great moments, but don't you feel Mike Ratledge is let down by the keys he is playing?

I'v just asked for help with my grammar from an Indian nurse and she says "please being kind to each other and staying on topic is so nice!"

[monolith]

Why weren't we all given books on grammar sooner?

Come on man... if you're directing that at Tomcadillac, you're really splitting hairs. People do far far worse than that on here. Play nice!


I dig Soft Machine too - I love the organ!

[Automatic Gainsay]

It wasn't really pre-synth.

[Virgule]

[Solderman]

It wasn't really pre-synth.

Yeah, so perhaps the more appropriate question would be why someone would choose not to use them if they were in an(y) experimental band. I wouldn't hold it against anyone, personally. Eno and Fripp didn't use synths for everything, just one example.

[tim gueguen]

Some people just didn't like the early synths. Tony Kaye left Yes because they wanted him to play synth and he didn't like the idea. Later with the band Badger he would get so frustrated with a Mellotron he was using he pushed it off the stage into the orchestra pit of the venue he was playing at. I'd guess he found that Robert Fripp was correct when he quipped "Tuning a Mellotron doesn't."

[b3groover]

I like the organ (surprise, given my alias!) I think he got some interesting sounds out of it and played it differently than other people at the time. It's called using what you have to express yourself. He probably wasn't sitting there thinking "s**t, I wish I had a 16 voice polyphonic analog synthesizer with built-in effects and a ribbon controller; then this s**t would be REALLY happening!" He just made music.

A lesson to be learned from that.

[tekkentool]

I like the organ (surprise, given my alias!) I think he got some interesting sounds out of it and played it differently than other people at the time. It's called using what you have to express yourself. He probably wasn't sitting there thinking "s**t, I wish I had a 16 voice polyphonic analog synthesizer with built-in effects and a ribbon controller; then this s**t would be REALLY happening!" He just made music.

A lesson to be learned from that.

+1

[nathanscribe]

The worst thing about Soft Machine is Karl Jenkins' subsequent career in anodyne bullshit.

[paugui]

"s**t, I wish I had a 16 voice polyphonic analog synthesizer with built-in effects and a ribbon controller; then this s**t would be REALLY happening!"

That sounds just like an advertisement to an Alesis Andromeda


But back on topic... I quite like Soft Machine too.
The earliest of their works I have is Third, and that is undoubtedly an amazing work.
All of it sounds just great...
I don't remember to hear any synth sounds.

If the music is good, I don't think there is any problem with not using synths

[meatballfulton]

I love Soft Machine too - so many great moments, but don't you feel Mike Ratledge is let down by the keys he is playing?

I can't imagine that using synth sounds rather than his Lowrey organ would have improved Ratledge's playing any.

Once they did start using synths on 7 their music was becoming a lot less interesting.

[Syn303]

Aah Soft Machine - Robert Wyatt, Canterbury Prog Rock. However i prefer his albums as Matching Mole. Organ, Mellotron were used on the 1st album of the same name and (Synth on Matching Mole's Little Red Record).

Matching Mole in french is Machine Molle which translated as Soft Machine (a pun on his old band name).