Synthesizers

Onboard effects may seem like a relatively recent synth innovation, but even old modular synths offered analogue effects. Although they were basic, the freely patchable nature of modular synths allowed them to be used to create convincing acoustic instrument sounds — thus effectively physical modelling. Gordon Reid explains how.

Synthesist Ian Boddy steps back in time to report on the classic British sound machine, regularly found haunting the electronic music departments of many a university, and a recent addition to the author's own sonic armoury.