Archives - 1977

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Music Market Canada

October 1977
Synthesizing

As recently as eight years ago, synthesizers were virtually unknown to the majority of the music trade. Since that time though, worldwide sales have expanded to an estimated $15 million, at retail, thanks, in part to acceptance of the instrument by professional musicians such as, Keith Emerson, and Stevie Wonder.
Now there are synthesizers for guitars, woodwinds, percussion, and even the human voice, as well as the original keyboard type, and the range of merchandise available in each category is growing. To help guide you through the twisted paths of synthesizing, Music MARKET CANADA has prepared this special section of articles to help you decide whether you should be in synthesizers. Experts agree that selling synthesizers is not for everyone.

Ready for the Multi-function, standardized, Microprocessed, Polyphonic synthesizers? (and if so, will you be able to fix it?)

It is not often that we are able to witness the birth, growth, and blossoming of a new class of musical instrument. just seven years ago there wasn't a performance synthesizer to be found. According to Bob Moog, the pioneer whose name is almost synonymous with these instruments, the current annual world-wide market is about seventeen million US dollars-worth. Most of that market is in the US and about 85% is in the ever-changing and buoyant worlds of pop and rock music. The balance serves the far-reaching needs of educators and other 'serious' purposes.

Using electronic oscillators as musical instruments is an idea that goes back to the 'twenties (remember the Theremin?) but it wasn't until the sixties and solid state that really practical applications became possible. How it all happened is a frequently-told tale that Moog would have gladly gone through again when we visited him in his Buffalo office. Moog Music is part of Norlin Musical Instruments Ltd. and synthesizers in both standard and custom models flow steadily from its Buffalo factory.
Instead of looking back we asked Bob Moog to look forward and to speculate on what might happen with IC's and with LSI (Large Scale Integration) and what it would mean to the dealer and the user. One immediate illustration of the change that technology makes possible is the polyphonic keyboard. To do this there has to be an integrated circuit for each key, something that would have been impractical when synthesizers began. But coming up on the horizon is a development that is going to have even more impact on synthesizers and how they are used, overshadowing every other foreseeable change. That development is microprocessors.

A microprocessor unit (MPU) is really a baby computer. They've come into being in recent years because it has become possible to get all of the major computer functions on one integrated circuit, like a calculator. This makes the whole MPU about as big as a hi-fi receiver and cost about as much. Already synthesizer engineers all over the place are hooking up systems to see what can be done. "The possibilities are endless" Bob Moog told us "You can increase the control over the performance so that a musician can change the configuration of the sound chain very rapidly. Of course a Mini Moog with an MPU will still sound like a Mini Moog but you would be able to call on five or five hundred or five thousand different sounds as quickly as you could push a button."

While this sounds like a big step forward it raises a whole host of questions. For the musician, does he need all those functions; for the manufac- turer, what is to be supplied? In a generalization that reaches beyond the music business, Bob Moog described one of the central difficulties of making design decisions in the coming microprocessor age-"people are taking away from the manufacturer some of the responsibility for determining what they are going to have."

Developments like this will only compound the problem faced by many dealers getting into synthesizers today. Their central problem, as Bob Moog sees it, is in developing the ability to match the musician's need and the machine's facilities. "Getting a synthesizer in perspective so that you're not giving the customer too much or too little is very important. It happens in stores all the time. One dealer I know will not turn on any switches or play any keys before he has settled that question and then he will only show the one model that will fill the bill."

Moog sees the current synthesizer market as being much more orderly than it has been. "A lot of the problems that existed in the past few years are disappearing by natural processes as the market grows up. The terms used to describe synthesizer performance are becoming standardized and people are beginning to understand what different models do" he said.

That's too bad, because it rather looks as though by the time everyone thinks they've got it all straight, the microprocessor should be along to turn it all upside down again.