Synth recordings in "rock" music from the 60s

Ha ha ha, I think I know why you ask.

The liner notes to my copy of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. say it was released on November 14, 1967, and that Paul Beaver and Micky Dolenz plays the Moog on it. But it looks like the Doors beat them by at least a couple weeks: multiple online sources say the Doors' Strange Days was released on October 1967, and like PAC&JL, it's got Paul Beaver and his Moog. The book Analog Days says: "On the title track "Strange Days" Jim Morrison's vocal is created by the filter and envelope, triggered by Jim himself hitting the keyboard on the vocal..." And it's also detectable in the white noise of "Horse Latitudes." But but but give the Monkees this: they beat the Beatles on Moog-use bragging rights by nearly two years (nearly a year and a half if you count George Harrison's Electronic Sound), and the synth bit in "Star Collector" is easily much weirder than the synth bits on Strange Days. Mickey actually bought, too, I think.

There are a few others that may have beat the Doors, but we get into less verifiable territory here. There's the Electric Flag (with Paul Beaver) and their soundtrack to Roger Corman's The Trip, can't say I know when the accompanying album was released, but imdb.com says the movie premiered August 23, 1967. The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds LP (with Paul Beaver) is often cited as the THE first album with a Moog, rock or otherwise, but I'm seeing contradictory release dates online, either May or November 1967. Emil Richards, who played on that, claims his New Sound Element: Stones (with Paul Beaver, probably) MAY have been before that, but I can't verify. And then there some uses in commercials and other kinds of "ephemeral music" prior to THAT, but whether they made it wax is anybody's guess.

I think that's a bit reductive. I think what makes a synthesizer a synthesizer isn't that it has an oscillator so much as that an oscillator's output goes through a number of other different modules -- amplifiers, envelopes, filters, sequencers -- which shape and control it.

To save you googling, here's a page with information about it and some(fuckign AWESOME) mp3s:

http://discretesynthesizers.com/nova/intro.htm

Also, the Moog is the instrument that gets used on all these early "1st synthesiser2 recordings, what about the buchla syntheisier? Best-known, I guess from Morton Subotnick's recordings, did that appear on any rock rekkids in the '60's?

More of a head record than anything with dated "trippiness" well intact. This one is often compared to the United States of America album, but the United States of America album is way better.

(x-post, yeah, the appearance of the thing in 1960's TV soundtracks is what makes me imagine that one of them might have turned up on some rock record - did you listen to p cirocco's improv pieces? Incredible - it sounds like Vangelis' CS80!)

I'm not implying the USA was one of these, just that often the trashier, crasser stuff of the sixties beats the USA's well-intentioned and well-informed avant-dabblings, by and large.

Jesus, I would kill to hear this.

(Also agree about "Wooden Wife"--though its awfulness has nothing to do with synthesizer use.)

I know it's reductive...but it's true. There's subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and about a thousand other kinds, no need for a filter necessarily, an oscilator, played melodically, is a synthesizer.

Rather, USA used ring modulators and oscilators; the latter are the primary signal generator in synthesizers and were readily available. They supposedly had a primitive synthesizer built for them by Richard(?) Durrett. I have never seen much info on the Durrett though.

Stockhausen (at least his classic 50s and 60s recordings) used oscilators as a sound source that he recorded to tape and then manipulated by editing, pitching up and down and layering.

I think this is true also. The vocals for example on "Love Song for the Dead Che" are really lovely. This is helped by the fact though that lyrics are for the most part the only passable ones on the record...

I'm not understanding the emphasis on "melodically."

I guess that is why you define the electronic tools USA used as synthesizers then.

The Moog was the first ever synthetic instrument that was able to play melodies.

Never mind the fact that the RCA could damned well play melodies too, if you're gonna go with that really rather partial definition.

geir doesn't really read

-- Michael Daddino, February 19th, 2006.

And indeed, you'd be right. :) Thanks for the info; at the very least I owe you a drink in Seattle if you'll be up there for the EMP.

Definitely sounds like Moog at the end of "Sing This All Together (See What Happens)" (actually sequenced as the beginning of "She's a Rainbow" on the CD). Someone mentioned "2,000 Light Years from Home" upthread, too - main keyboard part is Mellotron, but there's Moog in the instrumental section.

Weren't snthesizers big old room sized thingies back in the 1960's

??? I thought you said above "a synthesizer is is an oscillator", oscillator being singular rather than plural. I'm also not sure the above clarifies anything regarding your use of "melodically" to define a synthesizer, as opposed to, say, rhythmically. And uh I said USA used a Durrett.

Shamefully, I've never listened to a whole Jefferson Airplane record, but based on an admittedly sketchy listening of the After Bathing at Baxter's (via er iTunes snippets) I hear maybe a clavinet on "Two Heads" and possibly "A Small Package" unless that's a real harpsichord.

After doing some Slsk research I also hear possible Moog action on "2,000 Light Years from Home" and would love to get some independent confirmation via liner notes or what have you.

also not sure where Mother Mallard fits in, later? But always mentioned in this context, perhaps as much because they were a rock band who came out of arty synthesizer backgrounds and not the opposite?

Sure. But to be pedantic, that tune wasn't really released until the 90s, even though it was recorded in 1967.

Geir: Sure. But to be pedantic, that tune wasn't really released until the 90s, even though it was recorded in 1967.

Geir, what part of "not-released-in-its-time" do you not understand?

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), Today. (later) (link) (admin) (userip)

Oh come on Geir, I'm sure I saw a pic of you on your site playing a synthesiser, so there's no excuse for this! Surely you have heard of the Ondes Martenot, aptented 1928?

http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/martenot/

It's not that obscure! Orchestral works by Messiaen, Hohenegger, maurice jarre. It had an equal-tempered keyboard, so you could, if you wanted to, play melodies on it. Beautiful, haunting "singing" tone as well.

Not rock or "rock" of course but, since this seems to be the main thread the Novachord is mentioned on, came here to note its use on Vera Lynn's 1939 recording of "We'll Meet Again." I think the one used in Dr. Strangelove is later, maybe the one from the film of the same name.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1xrofiEa4w