Synclavier

Synclavier I (1977), with HOP box

The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation manufactured by New England Digital Corporation of Norwich, Vermont, USA.

The original design and development of the Synclavier prototype occurred at Dartmouth College with the collaboration of Professor Jon Appleton, Professor of Digital Electronics, Sydney A. Alonso, and Cameron Jones, a software programmer and student at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering.

History

Synclavier II and floppy disc drive

Synclavier I

First released in 1977-78[1][2][3] it proved to be highly influential among both electronic music composers and music producers, including Mike Thorne, an early adopter from the commercial world, due to its versatility, its cutting-edge technology, and distinctive sounds. Frank Zappa also made extensive use of the Synclavier.

The early Synclavier Digital Synthesizer used FM synthesis, and was sold mostly to universities. Some such systems had only a computer and synthesis modules, but no keyboard.

Synclavier II

The system evolved in its next generation of product, the Synclavier II, which was released in early 1980 with the strong influence of master synthesist and music producer Denny Jaeger of Oakland, California. It was originally Jaeger's suggestion that the FM synthesis concept be extended to allow four simultaneous channels or voices of synthesis to be triggered with one key depression to allow the final synthesized sound to have much more harmonic series activity. This change greatly improved the overall sound design of the system and was very noticeable.

Keyboard controller

Display and control wheel on VPK (1984)

Synclavier II models used an on/off type keyboard (called the "ORK") while later models, labeled simply "Synclavier", used a weighted velocity- and pressure-sensitive keyboard (called the "VPK") that was licensed from Sequential Circuits and used in their Prophet-T8 synthesizer.

Digital sampling

STD: Sample-To-Disk interface (c.1982)

The company evolved the system continuously through the early 1980s to integrate the first 16-bit digital sampling system to magnetic disk, and eventually a 16-bit polyphonic sampling system to memory, as well. The company's product was the only digital sampling system that allowed sample rates to go as high as 100 kHz.

Tapeless studio concept

See also: Digital audio workstation and Hard disk recording

Ultimately, the system was referred to as the Synclavier Digital Recording "Tapeless Studio" system among many professionals. It was a pioneer system in revolutionizing movie and television sound effects and Foley effects methods of design and production starting at Glen Glenn Sound. Although pricing made it inaccessible for most musicians, it found widespread use among producers and professional recording studios, competing at times in this market with high-end production systems such as the Fairlight CMI.

Technological achievements

When the company launched and evolved its technology, there were no off-the-shelf computing systems and integrated software and sound cards. Consequently, all of the hardware from the company's main real-time CPU, all input and output cards, analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog cards and all of its memory cards, and more, were all developed internally, as well as all of the software. This was certainly a monumental task at best in those times. In fact, the hardware and software of the company's real-time capability was used in other fields completely remote to music, such as the main Dartmouth College campus computing node computers for one of the USA's first campus-wide computing networks, and in medical data acquisition research projects.

End of manufacture

New England Digital ceased operations in 1993. The bulk of its assets were purchased by Fostex of Japan.

Models and options

Prototype

Processor

Digital Synthesis cards

Black panel models

Synclavier I

On 1970slate 1980s:

Synclavier II
Synclavier PSMT rack (1984)

Ivory panel models

Terminal: Apple Macintosh II (1987)

On late 1980s1993; operated via Macintosh II as terminal.

Notable users

Pat Metheny playing guitar synthesizer; in the 1980s, he played Synclavier with this guitar controller (Roland G-303), in addition to an early Synclavier guitar controller.[10][11]

See also

References

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  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Joel Chadabe (May 1, 2001). "The Electronic Century Part IV: The Seeds of the Future". Electronic Musician. In September 1977, I bought the first Synclavier, although mine came without the special keyboard and control panel ...
  3. "1978 New England Digital Synclavier". Mix (Penton Media). September 1, 2006.
  4. ABLE Series Hardware Reference Manual. New England Digital Corporation, 110pp.
  5. Creating Programs for ABLE Series Computers. New England Digital Corporation, 1978, 39pp.
  6. Scientific XPL for New England Digital Corporation's ABLE Series Computers. New England Digital Corporation, 1978, 74pp.
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  10. 10.0 10.1 Nicholas Webb, "Interview with Roland GR User Pat Metheny", Roland GR-300 Modification and More (Wayne Scott Joness (Composer))
  11. 11.0 11.1 "Roland G-303 Guitar Synthesizer Controller", Roland GR-300 Modification and More (Wayne Scott Joness (Composer))
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  33. Kashif | Biography | AllMusic.com. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved 2014-04-24
  34. "(cover page)" (PDF). Berklee Today (Berklee college of music) 9 (Fall 1997, No.2).
  35. Hagen, Earle (1990). Advanced techniques for film scoring: a complete text. Alfred Music Publishing. p. 61. ISBN 0-88284-447-4.
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External links