SYNTH GEMS 1 is your guide to an eclectic and amazing collection of synthesizers as art. Experience the history, technology, and sonic innovation of electronic music in a completely new way.
With their widely diverse designs and intentions, synthesizers offer a world of fascination. What thoughts and emotions guided their creators? What do they say about the era when they were created? How do their form and function define one another and the music they make?
As much for serious synth enthusiasts as for newcomers to electronic music, SYNTH GEMS 1 is an enlightening look into this wonderful world of vintage synthesizers.
An art gallery of electronic aesthetics
SYNTH GEMS 1 takes you on a tour of over 60 remarkable keyboards — large and small, famed and rare, elegant, beautiful, and brutal… and ranging from classics that define entire genres to rare oddities that bring their own grace to the world.
Each synthesizer is presented in a series of finely detailed photographs, with a discussion of its origins and importance. From the dawn of commercial synthesis to the close of the Twentieth Century, the lives and times of these unique instruments are chronicled in exquisite pictures and thoughtful stories – mingling music, technology, commerce, and visual art.
Meet the synthesizer
Besides a brief introduction to the basic elements of synthesizer design, as well as a comprehensive Glossary, the book is rounded out by tours of the three museums that opened their collections to be photographed, and a selection of resources for further study: books, films, educational initiatives, online resources – even ways to play with these sounds at home.
Known classics and significant rarities
Explore the designs and read the stories behind instruments from famous brands such as ARP, Casio, Clavia, Korg, Moog, Oberheim, Roland, Sequential, and Yamaha – as well as vintage gems from Crumar, Electronic Dream Plant, Elgam, E-mu, Ensoniq, Fairlight, Kawai, Gleeman, Lord Synthesisers, Steiner-Parker, Technics, Waldorf, and more.
