| Free music synthesizer |
 |
 |
|
The synthesizer and keyboard producing industry has come a long way since the time of synthesizer pioneers like Robert Moog, Dave Smith and Tom Oberheim. While the first modular synthesizers were just as big as a small apartment, nowadays similar computer based reproductions are plug ins in a software music recording system such as Digidesign's Pro Tools or Steinberg's Cubase and Nuendo. The early synthesizers were priced highly and are still valued by music professionals and connoisseurs, with prices easily surpassing ten thousands of US dollars in twentieth century's seventies. With such amounts of money you could buy a house in the suburbs or drive a Ferrari. Nowadays, some of such software replicas are available as downloads on the internet, free of charge. When the music industry got wind of the new invention, back in the days, the skyrocketing popularity necessitated the demand to be met and many companies tried to jump the bandwagon and provide the needy crowd of musicians and wannabes with synthesizers. This building frenzy culminated with the release of the first workstation synthesizer Korg M-1, after which the whole industry started to fall apart. The market was oversaturated with hundreds of various sound producing keyboards and
companies that have heavily invested in research and development suddenly faced bankruptcy. Oberheim went broke, Moog lost his own company, Sequential Cirquits got bought by Yamaha and the interest fizzled. With the dawn of computers, the MIDI technology and sequencing, people started to transfer the music making to the new technologies, and when audio interfaces became sophisticated enough and digital recording standardized, even the recording industry toppled and analogue recording devices became scarce. While the whole world went digital, the analogue sources of sound and music became nearly extinct in the modern music world. But musicians did not abandon the good pieces of equipment of the early days and suddenly the sounds re-emerged and became popular once again. Most of the former companies are now back in business, producing expensive, modernized versions of their analogue equipment, mostly in a virtual analog version. Needless to say that computer programs, that are being used as recording and sequencing devices, were more than capable of reproducing the sounds of the old, leading to developments of software based replicas of analogue behemoths, mostly sold as add-ons, or rather plug-ins for such recording and sequencing programs. Many new programmers who wanted to make a name for themselves made such plug-ins and provide either fully working versions or limited versions as freebies, to gain market interest. To counteract such moves, established houses released either shareware versions or limited versions of their big instruments, which led to the current situation where plenty of free music synthesizers are available online. |
Discuss this item on the forums. (0 posts)