Setting the Tone: The Evolution of the Synthesizer Over Time

The synth prototype: the SY-1, the first portable analog synthesizer by Yamaha, tackled everything from 1974. It was rather plain in a somewhat outdated wood design, yet it already had plenty of different sounds. In a presentation, Yamaha praised the solo synthesizer for its unique combination of easy usability and almost limitless versatility. The SY-1 was actually easy to handle and simple to understand.

14 buttons for the 28 preset tones were arranged centrally above the keyboard. Each button had two tones. On the far-left is Flute (above) and Clarinet (below), and on the far-right is Double (above) and Reed (below). A black switch directly to the right was used to switch between the upper and lower tones. Using the four transposition flip switches to the right, the musician could adjust the pitch an octave lower to two octaves higher.

On the far-right were an additional three flip switches set in the down position. Here, vibrato, wah-wah, and volume effects…

... could be adjusted by the touch control sensitivity knob (second from left)

In 1976, Yamaha then released the CS-80. The instrument cost a lofty 6,900 US dollars at the time and was one of the first synthesizers which, similar to an organ, could be played polyphonically. That means multiple tones could be heard if multiple keys were pressed on the keyboard.

Above the keyboard were two rows with a total of 28 red, yellow, green, and white buttons. There were preset tones above and below for each of the first 11 buttons—seen from left to right. Individual tone sequences could be stored above and below on the right three buttons.

The controls occupying the top part of the instrument offered a great deal of variation in sound generation. The green controls, for example, could be used to adjust the high-pass filter (HPF) and low-pass filter (LPF). As an explanation, the HPF eliminates all signals under a frequency, while the LPF eliminates all signals above a certain frequency. The same applies for HPF and LPF here: the more the green control was toward HIGH, the more the signals could be heard. The more it was toward LOW, the less the signals could be heard.

Using the VCA—the voltage-controlled amplifier—switch, the musician could adjust the VCF level, i.e., how much the section filtered by the VCF should feed into the last-heard tone. The control directly to the right affected the section of the sinus curve generated by the VCO—the voltage-controlled oscillator—which didn't pass through the filter and passed separately into the amplifier. Letters A, D, S and R described the four time phases of a sound: attack, decay, sustain and release. These were also individually adjustable.

Workstations then became established in the new millennium. All-in-one synthesizers consisted of an electronic sound generator, a keyboard, and various other components, like sequencers, effects devices, samplers, and drum computers. This allowed musicians to produce electronic music on a single device. The Motif series synthesizers available from 2001 onward, like model ES7 from 2003 pictured here, were hugely successful.

One of the trademarks of the devices were both wheels on the left lower side. The left wheel—the pitch bend wheel—bent the pitch, adjusting the pitch seamlessly from one tone in the direction of another tone. The modulation wheel to the right also created vibrato and other sound effects, depending on how far it was pushed up.

The Motif became an experimentation station and a big toy for musicians. The instrument allowed for a multitude of possible variations, like the editing of saved samples. In this example, 18 functions were available such as time stretch, which could be used to change the tempo of a sample while keeping the same pitch, or convert pitch which did exactly the opposite: change the pitch of the tone but not the tempo.

The more Motif series models that offered playing and programming possibilities, the more overwhelming and overloaded these high-end workstations appeared with their many switches and slides, knobs, controls and displays. In response to this, the four Reface series models came out in 2014 to celebrate the 40th birthday of the first synthesizers and looked completely different. The models were based on the legendary synthesizer series from the past four decades according to their first two letters. There was a DX, VC, CP and CS Reface as seen here. The Reface series was reduced to the essentials.

Despite the analog-looking old-school appearance, the Reface naturally used state-of-the-art technology. Using the Looper—pictured here just to the right of the octave control—multiple overlapping loop phrases with a maximum of 2,000 notes or 10 minutes duration could be recorded at once.

Thankfully, the compact Reface was easy to use and more comprehensible than many complicated, complex models at the time, and was a handheld and also very worthwhile instrument. Even the switch functions for the oscillator, for example, were very logically explained. The following could be switched between (from bottom to top): multiple sawtooth waveform, square waveform, ring modulation, oscillator sync and frequency modulation that could generate sounds by connecting two oscillators.