If you asked me I would say mine are instruments, but honestly I think I treat them more like sound modules.
I often think of this clip at about the 8 minute mark where they start shredding the Moogs and think damn, they’re really playing those synths. They’re instruments.
But then it makes me think that as much as I love synths I never really aspire to play like that (keyboard shredding, tuning oscillators as part of the live performance). I like to try and play guitar like that, but synths I just want to make a sound and send it some midi notes.
But then, if you’re just playing notes from a midi controller or sequencer into a synth, which one becomes the instrument? The thing that makes sound or the thing that you touch?
Feel free to share any vids of folks going to town on their synths for my enjoyment. Although I’m a fan of players like Jordan Rudess, that style of ‘workstation’ shred is not really what I’m thinking about with this topic.
You know, there’s a fine line between a stradivarius and a paperweight depending on the way it’s being used, and fundamentally, a synthesizer is really no different.
i view myself more as a composer. i also have little interest in being virtuostic and crazy shredding. i dont have the practice discipline nor the coordination to be that person. but i do have a lot of musical ideas that are important for me to immortalize in the form of programming. if i can perfect it and listen back i get more satisfaction than being able to play it live off the top of my head if that makes sense. but its defintely not as cool to a viewer/listener lol. i think we all know an amazing guitarist who says they started playing guitar because it made them look cool haha
instruments.
to be more precise – chromatic percussive instruments, since i’m a drummer, and 80% of synth sounds i ever use are plucks / mallets / bells / other stuff well suited for 16th notes
i just don’t mind to play only one part myself, and let the sequencer to take care about the rest.
Both roles I’d say. My modules (and DAW plugins) are sound design / sound source units. I also have a bunch of keyboard synths, which I’ll typically play as instruments.
I think of synths as composition and performance tools. Any sound design I do is for either purpose but never for its own sake. Of course, I think many of us enjoy sweeping a nice filter, whereas most non-keyboardists actually don’t enjoy this
Efficient use of synths on stage
There is also a great deal to be learned about Jordan Rudess’s efficient use of synthesizers and technology in general during live performance, that is of course unless you adore shlepping around a lot of gear.
His master skill is that he can play things with one hand or with one synth where other keyboardists need several. His video Keyboard Madness illustrates some of those ideas when it comes to sound design:
“Shredding” and “noodling” play a prominent role in classical music and jazz. Beethoven was an ubershredder/-noodler, dueling other pianists to the ground until they burst into tears. Pianos broke in the process. Luckily, he did not have a fuzz pedal at his disposal!
In metal music, which is a heavy take on Bach’s baroque music, shredding takes a more aggressive shape, thanks to the predominance of distorted guitars.
As a sound designer, some of my best sounds utilise expression, nuanced stuff that’s often impractical to program, so I have various tools to ‘play’ my synths and get interesting and organic parameter changes.
On the other hand, one of my favourite things is sending a bunch of midi to my prophet 5, and then just turning its knobs gently to give things more life, that’s when the machine feels like an instrument to me. I like the push/pull of playing a machine/instrument. Sometimes that results in interesting sound, sometimes it’s more musically structured results.
I think I think of the sequencer/controller a bit more as the instrument. But that’s because my mentality is to buy desktop/rack synths I guess.
Also, once I really, really like a synth (hello Virus Ti Snow) I start thinking of it more as an instrument. which makes no sense, but there you go.
I guess the other thing to say is that if you set up a robot to play bass guitar in your band, the bass is still an instrument. So. I don’t think it matters how you’re playing it maybe?
Handy summary. It helped me articulate my view: I often think of the sounds made by synths as instruments. I focus more on the sound, and less on the playing surface because, although I do play keys and pads, I do so really badly. Sometimes I make sounds for for a functional place in a track, with minimal articulation; sometimes I make sounds with broad expressivity. Depends on need, mood, and gear features. I often call all my boxes “instruments”, but most of them could be multiple instruments in one unit, and those instruments change by configuration.
All my gear are instruments, because they enable me to jam/perform live with it. It’s the main point of using hardware to me. If I wanted just a sound module, I would use software - more flexible, easier to manage, much more portable and for just sending midi notes, it sounds the same (or better).
I think that’s Cory Henry on the Moog at around the 8 minute mark. That dude could shred on a kazoo. He is an absolute genius. So some it (actually, most of it) is down to the player not simply what’s being played.
To answer the question: almost everything in my music space is an instrument for me. If it doesn’t feel like an instrument, then it has to be a tool that I need in order for my instruments to have an even broader sonic palette (ie effects), or to capture what I’m playing (eg audio interface, mixer) or to serve some kind of important ‘back office’ purpose like a Kenton MIDI Thru box.
A MIDI controller keyboard for a soft synth in a DAW is like the strings on my bass guitar in a way… part of the component of the overall sound (and an important part) but no more than that.
Hardware synths (including my Elektron digi boxes) aren’t like a MIDI controller in that sense, they’re instruments that can also do other clever stuff (like control other instruments in the case of the DT/DN/ST). And they all have huge character.
I love the process of learning the gear and tweaking the hell out of it all through experimenting and just goofing around with ideas. Elektron stuff is great for that, as is my Hydrasynth and - beyond synths - my basses and saxes.
None of them feel like sound modules (ie just a big bag of presets that I scroll through hour after hour). Personally I hate preset diving. Just kills the vibe. If I can’t work out how to mess around with an instrument and start to make my own sounds that work for me, I’m much less likely to hold onto that instrument.
Sound design on synths (or in the case of an acoustic or electric instrument, different playing techniques, tonal nuances and melodic ideas) is a massive part of the joy of it all. I could never go back to the early days of romplers like the JV-1080 that were full of great patches but a total PITA to program.
I think I was thinking a similar thought reading people’s responses. Is a synth the instrument or is the patch the instrument?
Given a patch can put you in bass, strings, brass or lead territory…
But then the question becomes more fundamental: is the instrument the sound or the tool to make the sound?
The question or distinction I posed wasn’t intended as a value statement, it was just genuine curiosity about why I physically interact with some synths in a certain way and others in a completely different way, and wondering how others saw it.
I think I get where you’re coming from. I was just more curious in myself about why I didn’t feel motivated to be able to play synth like the guy in the vid (the performance nature of it rather than the virtuosic nature) - and why my ambition seems to top out at being able to play some chord progressions or bass lines into a sequencer. It’s weird because you get to the piano solo later in that track and dang I wish I could play like that.
I like this take as well. Playing my 106 from my weighted key controller is a fairly different experience to playing it direct. Likewise playing my Perfourmer via a keyboard is a completely different experience to sequencing it and tweaking it. As is playing the Toraiz AS1 from its capacitive keyboard and touchstrip vs from a controller or sequencer.
I agree with you man, my synths are sound modules. Having said that, I think my Monotron Delay is by far the most instrument like device I have. That thing put through a bunch of effects is amazing. Basically because its easy to be really expressive with it.
