The First Songs to Use a Synth

Published on Sep 27, 2019 David Bennett Piano

"Most pop music today features ample synth, but when did the sound of the synthesizer first start featuring in pop and rock music? I take a look at some of pop music's synth pioneers, including The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Wendy Carlos, Paul Beaver and Max Crook."

Buchla doesn't get mentioned, but still a pretty cool video.

Brian Wilson talking about theramins late 80s-early 90s

Published on Jul 26, 2017 Elizabeth Haney

"This video ruined my life and I have a duty to reupload it"

Max Crook ( Del Shannon's keyboard player on Runaway )

Published on Apr 13, 2017 rockinkb

"Max talks about the musitron and the making of Runaway!"

30 Instruments and Innovations of Roland's Ikutaro Kakehashi on emusician.com

emusician.com has a post up here featuring the top 30 instruments and innovations of Ikutaro Kakehashi.

"With the passing of Roland founder Ikutaro Kakehashi, the synthesizer world lost one of its greatest visionaries.

In celebration of Kakehashi and his lifetime of defining, and redefining, the term 'musical instrument,' we have assembled a list of his most influential products and technologies—items that have had the greatest impact on popular music over the last 50 years— from his early days as the leader of Ace Tone to his legacy as the founder of Roland.

1. Ace Tone Canary S-2 (1962) [pictured] One of Ace Tone’s earliest successes was the Canary S-2 Clavioline. Based on the original Clavioline designed by Constant Martin in 1947, its tube-based architecture was later replaced by transistors in the S-3 model (pictured above). An example of the Clavioline sound can be found in the solo from Del Shannon’s “Runaway” (which for hair-splitters was actually a heavily modified early-model Clavioline unit redubbed the Musitron)."

Click through above for the full list.

Del Shannon - Runaway solo on Alesis Ion

YouTube via adzy31.

Be sure to see this post.

"i love this song... mostly for the eerie solo in the middle. apparently performed on a heavily modified Clavioline the keyboard player dubbed the "musitron". good name...

unsurprisingly i can't get the sound right for this...probably need to get some effects going on."

Max Crook and the "Musitron" Custom Clavioline

Image via Max Cook's website. Max Cook was the man who played the "musitron" lead in Del Shannon's Runaway from 1961. Runaway was one of the first pop songs to feature what could be considered one of the first synthesizers. Comments disabled here to keep them in the previous post.