Oli Freke has started a Wiki site deicated to identifying which synths were used on what track.
It's called SynthTrax and of course I have been over and editted the SS-30 entry - who else could do it?
Who is Oli Freke? When he's not managing BBC's iPlayer he is a writer and musician with a lomg history and interest in synths. See here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olifreke/
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| Yamaha SS-30 - Oli Freke - SynthTrax website |
Synthesizer Evolution
Actually, I was meaning to post about Oli's book Synthesizer Evolution since I got it last year. The book is a kind of directory of synths, drum machines and samplers and covers the period 1963 -1995. Its particular charm comes from the line drawings of each piece of gear listed. Of course the SS-30 is included and there is the lovely drawing of it above.
The book was inspired by posters Oli created showing the evolution of synths.
It doesn't go into great detail on each synth. Even the big beasts get just a couple of lines beyond the basic description of what type of synth it is. Instead most of the text is about the type of gear in each section: synth, drum machine; sampler, and the major companies, like Yamaha.
It's a really great book for the likes of us and there are lot of really obscure machines in there that will send you off in search of them online, as well as reminders of how the market evolved from analogue to digital and then back again. Which is the subtitle of the book!
SynthTrax
SynthTrax was started by Oli early in 2022 and is described best by him on his blog post about here. In summary though, he's trying to create a place where verifed uses of synths on tracks can be collated and the usual heresay and specualtion is left behind. As I have spent time doing that for the SS-30, it makes good sense for me to share what I've researched for this site with that noble endevour.
Each synth on SynthTrax should have two pages. There's the article page with general info about the synth and a section on associated artists. For exmaple Ultravox's heavy use of the SS-30 is well known. Here is the SS-30 page https://synthtrax.net/index.php/Yamaha_SS-30_Article_Page
Then the main effort goes into the track (or song) list. The SS-30 list is here: https://synthtrax.net/index.php/Yamaha_SS-30_Song_List
As I type this I have mostly completed the Article page and there is just one entry on the Song List page for the SS-30 (Ultravox - Vienna).
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