Items17The creator’s order
  1. 1Moog synthesizerMoog synthesizerThe wall of patch cables where electronic music left the laboratory. Robert Moog's modular system was a set of separate modules that a player wired together by hand, and for most listeners it was an oddity until Wendy Carlos used one to record Bach. Switched-On Bach, released by Columbia in 1968,…0
  2. 2MinimoogMinimoogThe synth that made funk basslines squelch. By putting oscillators, filter and keyboard in one portable box, the Minimoog turned the synthesizer into something a band could take on stage, and over its eleven years on sale it sold around 12,000 units. Its heavy, fat low end is the point. Parliament…0
  3. 3Prophet-5Prophet-5Polyphony you could save and recall. Sequential Circuits' Prophet-5 offered five voices, two oscillators per voice, and a patch memory that stored every knob setting, so a sound built in the studio could be called up instantly on stage. That practicality made it a natural chord machine for…0
  4. 4Fairlight CMIFairlight CMIThe instrument that put the word "sampling" into music. Introduced in 1979, the Fairlight CMI recorded real sounds and played them back from a keyboard, at a price only top studios could pay. What it gave pop was sounds lifted from the world rather than synthesized, played like any other keyboard…0
  5. 5Linn LM-1Linn LM-1Roger Linn's drum computer swapped the bleeps of earlier rhythm boxes for sampled drum sounds, and cost $5,000 when it came out. That made it a studio tool for the well-funded, and it shaped the sound of early-1980s pop and funk. Prince is the reason to know it. On "When Doves Cry" he dropped an…0
  6. 6Roland TR-808Roland TR-808The booming kick that never went away. Roland released the TR-808 in 1980, and its synthesized drums sounded nothing like a real kit, which is exactly why producers loved it: a deep, sustained bass drum, a snappy snare and that unmistakable clap and cowbell. Yellow Magic Orchestra used it on "1000…0
  7. 7Oberheim DMXOberheim DMXHarder and punchier than the 808, the Oberheim DMX played sampled drum sounds and sold for around $3,000, a little more accessible than the Linn. It became a New York hip-hop staple: producer Davy DMX took his name from it and used it on his own records and with Run-DMC and Kurtis Blow. The same…0
  8. 8Roland TB-303Roland TB-303Misunderstood at its 1981 launch, then reborn as the sound of acid house. The TB-303 is a small bass synthesizer with its own step sequencer, and its resonant filter produces a rubbery, squelching line that sounds nothing like a bass guitar, which turned out to be its appeal. In Chicago, Phuture's…0
  9. 9Casiotone MT-40Casiotone MT-40A home keyboard that started a genre by accident. The Casiotone MT-40 went on sale in 1981 with preset backing patterns, one of them a "rock" rhythm programmed by Casio engineer Okuda Hiroko. In Jamaica that preset became the Sleng Teng riddim behind Wayne Smith's "Under Mi Sleng Teng", a smash…0
  10. 10Roland TR-909Roland TR-909The four-to-the-floor kick of house and techno. Released in 1983 as the 808's successor, the TR-909 combined analog drum synthesis with digitally sampled cymbals, a first for Roland, and it was no immediate success: Roland stopped after about 10,000 units. Its punchy kick, crisp hats and clap…0