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History of Synthesizers + Progressive Rock

How Synthesizers Shaped the Prog Sound in the 1970s

Robin Vincent · 09/28/24

When we talk about synthesizers in music, one image that often comes to mind is of a long-haired guy on stage playing a colossal stack of keyboards bathed in the lights of a progressive rock concert. The long-hair in question will probably be Rick Wakeman of Yes or Keith Emerson from Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Those photos are pervasive and tantalizing; they give the impression that the synth player could be almost as crucial to the band as the guitarist. They certainly had more gear.

How did the synthesizer find itself to be so important in progressive rock? To answer that question, we'll have to dig into what Prog Rock was all about.

The Birth of Prog

Progressive rock emerged from the late 1960s and early 1970s rock scene. It was perhaps a reaction against the simplicity of popular music, fueled by a desire to explore the more complex and avant-garde ideas found in classical and jazz. The context was coming from the emotional chaos and loudness of the electric guitars and drums of rock music. So, serving the complexity and intelligence of these new ideas required new sounds and ways of expressing them. This is where keyboard instruments began to assert themselves.

By the late 1960s, rock music was already full of electric pianos and organs. You can pull in influences from Booker T & the MGs and Ray Manzarek from The Doors, amongst many others, who brought keyboard sounds out of the background and lay a foundation for progressive extensions. But talk of origins nearly always points to Keith Emerson. In 1967, he was touring his band The Nice around the UK, supporting Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Move, and Amen Corner. The heady mix of creative vapors floating around in that tour bus must have been extraordinary. We can only imagine how far their minds were blown. At this time, Emerson's instrument of choice and object of abuse was the Hammond L-100 organ. His wild performances dragged strange sounds out of the machine while he beat in classical influences and symphonic themes. The fusion of classical complexity, jazz's freedom, and rock's ferociousness was an intoxicating mix. Or, as we like to call it, Progressive Rock.

Everything changed in 1968 with the release of Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach. Performed entirely on a Moog Synthesizer, it introduced an electronic flamboyance, otherworldliness, and musical complexity that fed right into everything Emerson was doing. He fought so hard with the organ to get more tonal variation, but with the Moog, using simple oscillators and filters, it was possible to create any sound you could dream of. This was the one-man orchestra, this was the programmable ensemble, and this was the future of sound.

[Above: Dr. Robert Moog and Keith Emerson in front of Emerson's Moog modular system.]

The Moog Synthesizer was an epic modular system of individual synthesizer modules that were patched together manually with 1/4" jack cables. Emerson's Moog started as the Model I-CA lead synthesizer, but evolved so much over time that it's impossible to pinpoint exactly what it contained. However, in 2014 Moog decided to recreate Emerson's 400lb Moog with a few tweaks along the way. Modules included the 902 VCA, 911 Envelope, 904B high pass, 914 fixed filter bank, CP3A mixers, 921 Oscillator Drivers and 921B VCOs, the 903A Random Signal Generator, 905 Reverb and 904A Low Pass filter. There were multiples of each across different control panels run by the 960 Sequential Controllers. There was no end of unique Keith Emerson modules and panels, including some Programmer Preset Modules that could switch between sounds.

Ironically, The Nice had been working with real orchestras on various projects at the time. But Emersion was highly taken with the Moog Synthesizer and had one shipped from the States to be part of a performance at the Royal Festival Hall along with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on the 6th of March 1970. With the help of fellow musician Mike Vickers patching in the background, Emerson played Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra on it, which had been made famous by its use in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Sci-fi and fantasy were core concepts of many prog-rock bands. You were more likely to find them writing songs about adventures in impossible realms, enchanted forests, and beyond the stars than drab subjects of love or political unrest. And for those flights of fancy, the synthesizer was the perfect instrument. Everything about it was futuristic, from the sound to the technology and the stunning physical presence.

And so the Moog Synthesizser found its way into the hands of all sorts of experimental musicians. It was fiddled with by the likes of the Byrds, The Doors, the Beatles, Yes, Tangerine Dream, and even the Monkees. The manipulation of electronic sound through voltage and modulation offered vast potential to these tonally and melodically thirsty musicians. At their fingertips was a huge diversity of sounds, from the emulation of traditional instruments through to the sci-fi outpourings of things never before heard. Experimentation was at the machine's heart, bringing new creative meanings to music production. Add a few more synths and you could layer sounds and produce huge soundscapes that fed into cinematic ideas of story telling and concept albums that thrilled the prog-rock scene. The synth brought complexity, intelligence, technology, musicology and new ideas into the trembling hands of these experimental musicians.

It's interesting to note that while Bob Moog was building walls of modular synths for rock stars, Don Buchla was developing a Modular Electronic Music System in a different direction. It may feel simplistic, but the obvious reason why prog rock and other popular music leant into the Moog more than the Buchla was the presence of the piano keyboard. Moog Synthesizers were instantly playable, whereas Buchla required investigating a new approach. Buchla was favoured more by composers such as Morton Subotnick and Suzanne Ciani, people coming from a "classical electronic music" or "tape music" background, and perhaps suggests how the appeal of the two different schools of electronic music depended on where you came from.

Evolution of Synthesizers in Prog

Meanwhile, back in the Prog-Rock of the 1970s, bands were trying to find electronic instruments that were more realistically gigable than a huge modular Moog Synthesizer. ARP had their own approach to modular with the ARP 2500 but suffered from the same problems of being unwieldy on stage. It was the compact ARP 2600 that arrived in 1971 and the Odyssey in 1972 that really captured the Zeitgeist of what the all new synth players were after. They were sturdy, reliable, portable and relatively easy to maintain. (See Edgar Winter soloing viciously on a 2600, above.)

EMS also contributed with the extraordinary VCS 3 or “Putney” synth, but it was often seen as a source of weird sounds and effects as it initially lacked a keyboard. Nonetheless, it was adopted by out-there musicians like Hawkwind and Brian Eno; its more portable counterpart, the Synthi AKS, was used to great effect by Pink Floyd and others.

However, it was Moog's own Minimoog Model D that reigned supreme as the Prog synth of choice. Most famously it was a favourite of Rick Wakeman from prog rock band Yes. Wakeman was not a fan of the enormity of the Moog Modular Synthesizer, and he didn't relish the idea of re-patching on the fly. When it came to the Minimoog, he found a machine that was not only suitable for gigging but compact enough to have a different one for every patch in his live set. Wakeman's approach was, in a sense, more pragmatic than artistic, choosing instruments based on how they solved problems and fitted into the composition rather than as a source of creative tonal improvisation. But this paid dividends in that the music was much easier to replicate on stage, even though we were still a few years away from the comprehensive patch memory of something like the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5.

Although not technically a synthesizer, it's difficult to talk about prog without mentioning the Mellotron. It became famous through its appearance as the flute sound on the Beatles's "Strawberry Fields Forever," released in 1967. More importantly for prog, it was used extensively on King Crimson's seminal album In the Court of the Crimson King and many albums to follow. King Crimson were a huge influence on the prog movement, and Mellotrons of various kinds ended up all over the scene.

Mellotrons were different from synthesizers in that their sound source was pre-recorded tape loops. These tapes contained recordings of all sorts of real instruments playing single notes, phrases and rhythms. In many ways, the Mellotron was the precursor to the sampler. You could have strings, flutes, choirs and ensembles all available at the touch of a key. Most importantly, they were polyphonic, which synthesizers of the early 1970s were not. However, they were mechanical and temperamental to the point that, as legend has it, Rick Wakeman took his to a field and set them on fire as soon as he found something more reliable.

Early King Crimson also gave us one-third of the prog rock supergroup Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP), which empowered Keith Emerson to realize his ambitions with the Moog Synthesizer. Emerson's use of the Moog Synthesizer was pretty simple, to the point that its huge bulk and bedraggling patch cables seem sort of ridiculous. It would be used for essentially a single lead tone comprising of a pair of detuned oscillators and a low pass filter. Stray too far from that patch, and you'd have to spend hours finding the right sound again.

The Moog Synthesizer represented something more than just a sound to Emerson. It somehow spoke to the avant-garde and exuberant nature of Prog Rock. It was over-the-top, insane, extravagant and probably unnecessary, but in artistic terms, it had a presence and a vibe that was iconically him.

Always Progressing

I think what's interesting about the synthesizer and its appeal in the context of prog rock is that it kept on developing. By the start of the 1970s, Jimi Hendrix had arguably already explored the far crevices of the tonal character of the guitar. It was a fabulously expressive instrument with iconic sounds, but the generation of tone remained tied to the physical properties of a vibrating string. Synthesizers, on the other hand, kept offering new things to explore through the evolution of electronics, innovations behind waveform generation, and the processing of sound. Buying a new guitar wasn't going to radically change the sound of your band; buying a different synthesizer could do that instantly.

Synthesizers stretched deeply into the concepts of experimentation that Prog-Rock artists loved. These were emphasized by virtuoso musicians such as Emerson and Wakeman, who catapulted the keyboard player to the centre stage where the singer was now accompanying the synthesizer rather than the other way around. They could take on the role of the guitar solo but with different tonal textures, innovative intentions and wider soundscapes. It gave the music a distinctiveness that defined a whole era of passionate musical endeavour. Some would say it also became increasingly self-absorbed, elitist, and difficult to listen to. It's no wonder that by the end of the '70s, it was being bulldozed by the anarchy of punk music that remembered that music used to be fun and for everyone.

So, if you wanted to experience some classic synth-laden prog rock tracks, where should you look? There's a lot to choose from, but here are a few that are distinctive for me in terms of style and impact.

Genesis - The Cinema Show (1973): Tony Banks was another guy surrounded by keyboards. In "The Cinema Show" you can easily pick out the obligatory Mellotron, but the huge synth solo was performed on the 1972 ARP Pro Soloist.

Tangerine Dream - Phaedra (1974): More Prog-Electronic than rock Tangerine Dream came from Germany to Shipton-on-Cherwell, England to record this their fifth album. Phaedra leans heavily into synths including the Moog Synthesizer and EMS VCS3 as well as Mellotron, organ, and electric piano.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Fanfare For The Common Man (1977): You'll know it as soon as you hear it, and it's become one of ELP's most popular pieces. Emerson's synth of choice for this track was the huge, three-tiered Yamaha GX1 synthesizer. They recorded a live version at the Montreal Olympic Stadium in the freezing cold—that's dedication.

Yes - Revealing Science of God (1973): Self-indulgent, excessive, complex and extraordinary. Rick Wakeman found the lengthy experience of recording the album rather troublesome, and was more often found at the pub than his keyboard. But at the end of "The Revealing Science of God" is a sublime synthesizer solo that only Wakeman could pull off.