Synths of the father: Making some noise at NAMM 2015

You don't know what it was like, man, you weren't there

How much synth does $35k buy you...?

Tom Oberheim has pursued a similar philosophy with his Marion Systems products in the 1990s and more recently with the SEM line. Sadly, unlike Dave Smith, he has been unable to negotiate the return of the Oberheim brand name from Gibson who bought his company when it got into difficulties around the same time as Sequential.

Tom Oberheim demos the Two Voice Pro

Tom Oberheim was showing a new Pro version of his original Two Voice from the 1970s. This synth also benefits from the addition of memories to make sure that, when you find that perfect unique sound, you can save it for all time, even if you have used patch cables to create it.

Moog Music, on the other hand, clearly thinks that memories are for wimps and that real men should should know the settings of their favourite sounds by heart and be able to get them back blindfold. To prove this was the case, it had legendary synthesist Susanne Cianni prove that real women can do it too.

Yours for $35,000, the Moog System 55 modular synth

Cianni was on the booth daily putting the newly reissued $35,000 Modular System 55 through its paces. The huge “wall of sound” as we used to call it, still sounded as great as it did in the late 1960s, especially when Keith Emerson turned up to give an impromptu performance of Lucky Man (original recording – fun starts at 3'20). But does anyone really want to fight with that much spaghetti any more?

Elsewhere, Roland offered the JD-Xi, a hybrid of all its biggest hits featuring: an analogue SH-101-style monosynth; a digital polysynth for pads; a drum machine offering both TR-808 and TR-909 kits; and a vocoder.

Roland JD-Xi synth workstation has an on-board vocoder

This arsenal of sonic sources combined with the on-board sequencer delivers complete workstation to produce dance music featuring all the classic sounds that inspired the genre. There are certain dance music producers who may think that this is all the music device they will ever need in the future.