via Megamule who also notes: "I love my MG-1. Even after acquiring a Voyager, I kept mine around because it is a great performance synth. Another bit of MG-1 trivia. I read in TapeOp mag that all the synth on Ween's "Mollusk" album was done on their producers MG-1."
It's interesting that "realism" was such a selling point for these early synths, while they're now treasured for their uniqueness, rather than accuracy.
ReplyDelete"Realistic" was the radio shack brand name, not a description, but you have a point anyway. This synth was designed by the guy that runs MOTM now, Paul Schreiber.
ReplyDeleteI loved my Realistic Minimus speakers.
ReplyDeleteSniff, I miss Radio Shack. Used to be so cool.
Now they just seem to sell digital clocks.
damn that 450 must have been a nice little stack of cheddar back in the day, dogissimo
ReplyDeleteMG-1 has an asswhupping hard sync sound too - gotta hear to belive, ya herd?
im off like a prom dress, yall - one
To anyonymous:
ReplyDeleteI think Peter is referring to the line of "accurately reproduces the sound of anything from a piccolo to a tuba".
Early synths were often marketed on their capability of producing "life like sounds", despite not sounding anything like acoustic instruments.
It was only with the arrival of FM synthesis that this started to change, as FM produced better realistic sounds. This was completely changed once affordable samplers and ROMplers arrived on the scene.
I bought one when they blew 'em out for $250. I'm sure I saw the add in the flyer back in '83. I remember I had to visit a bunch of Shacks until I found one that had one.
ReplyDeleteOne observation I made at the time. Notice Elton is just holding it. I soon spotted ads for a big Japanese company, maybe Yamaha or possibly Roland. In those adds Elton said that was the only brand he ever played and I thought ah-ha... then it did occur to me that the Shack ad makes no claims to the contrary. You know, "I'll hold any synth for the money"
"I'm not too choosy about picking up synths" -Sir Elton John
ReplyDeleteActually I liked the MG-1 a lot and was really sorry I sold it for many years... until I bought a reasonably priced Memorymoog+ at that point I really didn't miss it.
I remember when rock was young
ReplyDeleteMe and MG1 had so much fun
moving knobs while I was stoned
It had crazy sound like an old minimoog
But the biggest kick I ever got
was doing a thing called the Realistic Hock
While the other kids were Rocking Round the Clock
we were pawning our things just to go buy some rock