At university, we has a Synclavier II, but it did not have any sampling capabilities. Our professor had also modified the low pass filter on the output to make it brighter (seemed good for additive but not so much FM). One of my classmates worked for a company that had a 0 voice Synclavier for music publishing. These were in the days just before Finale came out. Fun memories of days gone by.
It absolutely was. This was actually invented at a time when small computer systems like that were a brand new technology, and synthesizer/sampling technology wasn't really used that much. I mean the first version of Synclavier was released in 1977-78, so it was an entirely different era. No one had this kind of technology unless you were a major record label that could afford it ...and it was so high tech that most bands didn't have much use for it. Keep in mind, disco was still big when the Synclavier I was invented.
I was so lucky to have my hands on this beauty 24/7 for 10 years in the 90s - the best sounding, most reliable and smartest "DAW" evva!! I want her back!!!
Played a real Synclavier today. Without looking at a manual, I was able to load sounds and figured out how to build a pattern in the internal sequencer with little effort. It was fun and easy to use and it sounded like nothing else really. It is a Rolls Royce.
Back in the 80s, I used to think "Huh, if I had a Synclavier or a Fairlight like Trevor Horn, I'd make hit records too". Well, now I have both of those inside my computer as plug-ins and guess what? I'm still not making hit records.
Génial, quelle machine extra-ordinaire. Nettement en avance sur son temps, sa puissance n'avait d'égale que son tarif exorbitant. Et dire qu'aujourd'hui elle tient dans un ipad! Cela dit, les Synclaviers m'ont fait rêver. Bravo de remettre en ligne ces vidéos.
I just learned a few days ago, linked from a YT video by Pat Metheny in 1986, the Synclavier was designed and made in Norwich,VT, then White River Junction, VT. Yay! I live in WRJ, just over border from Norwich. And several relatives have lived in / are from Norwich. The Arp Synth, used by Pete Towshend on Who's Next, was made in Newton-Needham Mass, my 1st hometown.
@@oholm09 I tracked music in an iPhone. Moved it over to the main system Garage Band at the time), added vocals, and there was a complete song. It's still the musician that brings it to life. Frank Zappa had the largest system.
Amazing that today with the cheapest computer,basic soundcard, 88 weighted keyboard,and the most basic software you have infinitely much more possibilities than with a 250K synclavier back in the day that only Sting and the like could afford.
Fer Abra Have you ever used or heard a real Synclavier to be vindictive ? The electronics of the Fairlight and Synclavier has nothing to do with the current samplers and PC /Mac audio cards. Extremely important thing a first for each voix you have one converter, no multiplexing, output levels are very high !
Can a Synclavier record 100 24bit tracks?can a Synclavier play 50 synths/samplers? can a synclavier mix those tracks with EQ,compression,effects?Can a synclavier burn a CD? I'm talking about audio possibilities,not technical specs. However great the AD DA stage on a Synclavier is, it surely isn't worth those 250K nowadays. Even if the sound quality is pristine,and fat and warm and whatever, if given 250K I would get a great converter (Prism,Burl),ProTools,and a selection of the best hardware/software, and possibly still would have money left to buy a house. Back in the day it might have been the Rolls Royce of audio. Now it's not. Not vindictive. Just think about it.
This guy looks like a young Ralf Hutter (Kraftwerk), who had owned this monster of a keyboard, ir a least an earlier model of it. Karl Bartos the ex drummer had stated that it's manual was the size of a phone book and Ralf and Florian would spend hours on end studying the thing. Notable albums: Trans Europe Express 1977 The Man Machine 1978. (Although not sure if they still used it here).
The person in the video was the official demonstrator from NED (the brand that made the various Synclavier models). For Kraftwerk you've got it all wrong ;) it was Ralf Hütter who ordered a Synclavier after Electric Café (it was during the recording of this album at Right Track studio in New York). Kraftwerk's (white) Synclavier was delivered to the Kling Klang studio in January 1987. And it was used thereafter (mostly for recording, not really as a synthesizer).
These days when sampling a piano you have to press every key multiple times at different velocities and uses a huge amount of memory but with something like a NED Synclavier or Kurzweil K250 samples a few notes then generates the whole piano by modelling it and yet it sounds more realistic.
What i mean by that is you can hear the resonance from the strings alot more and sounds really good especially at the low end and with the chorus effect on too. Ive heard alot of modern day digital piano's but they just can't get that sound like the NED Synclavier or a Kurzweil K250. I wonder what they would sound like through an interface.
Having both ( Synclavier and K250) and also a real piano Petrof 131 , I also have two "digital pianos": K1200 and Yamaha p80. And they all sound differently without suprise.
I used to have a Yamaha PSR 450 it sounded good and all that but it could never match sounds like the older synths could do. Samplers were really ahead of their time.
It was a crazy instrument in those days... but the price... wasn't it 100.000 buyeah... well the digital version is 80 bucks I guess... Somet things do make progress ;-)
I extracted this sequence from a VHS videocassette (number 3) dating from 1985. These videos have been converted to DVD. videocassette 1, Velocity/Pressure sensitive Keyboard : 37'08" videocassette 2, Terminal support options: 32"49 videocassette 3, The Sample-to-disk system : 45'25"
It is really hard to comprehend how difficult it must be today to have purchased one of these monstrosities way back when to , who was it, New England Digital that make these cheap sounding massive units that the cabinet would not have fit in a walk in closet and of which you could buy the comparable unit today for a buck ninety nine(A Casio CLT series for $199.00 at Walmart). Fishy, below said 250 grand and he is quite correct. Good lord, and I remember reading about this pile of junk in the early eighty's and thinking how I would give my life for one of these things. Smart kid I was, wanting to kill myself to own a mass of circuitry that I would never play because I was dead. And imagine what you would have to do if it malfunctioned. Well, it went the way of that blue guitar that Lee Ritenour wrote Earth Run on. The huge E-trash heap that grows more and more like Space Junk everyday.
Let's not exaggerate, a Synclavier doesn't sound like a cheap machine that you can find in supermarkets ... I know a bunch of young people who are completely amazed at the quality of sound that comes out of a synclavier. And yet some of them have beautiful modern machines. This video is of historical interest, but not sonorous ;)
@@jbfairlight I think what I was trying to convey was the huge dichotomy of what is available at much cheaper prices and abilities today than that of the NED at a quarter of a million dollars. It was very limited in dynamic range and modalities. Your point, however, is well taken from an Historical or antiquated perspective in that, that machine was the epitome of synthetic music production at that time but only the rich and production companies could afford. Maybe we both are explaining the same thing from different perspectives, which is admirable from your part and well received on this end. But to hear one of these things is almost akin to a Lowery Organ that someone's pigtailed daughter would play at a family gathering. (Really, you really think I exaggerate? No Idea where that comes from....LOL!!)I do need to thank you though, that is THE word of the year..."Sonorous" and very well used, Sir. I am assuming you are a keyboardist and I wish you were a friend. Happy New Year, buddy!
@@jbfairlight , Let that guy know! The NED sample rate was 50kHz as opposed to the 44.1kHz that was (and still is to this day) standard with other samplers. Another cool thing that most people don't know is that the Synclavier was not only a sampling system, but an FM synthesizer as well. That sound at the start of Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' is an FM sound created by the NED programmer MJ had on hand for the Thriller sessions. It's annoying to hear commenters on here trashing the Synclavier and talking about things they know nothing about. The system to this day is still being used by many musicians and producers, because even now, you cannot get a similar system with such high resolution and singular character.
Think how terrified orchestra players would have been of this.
That string section was fantastic
There was nothing like it when it came out. It was like an alien instrument. The Fairlight was not on its level, but fantastic too.
back in the day the demo guys were real musicians.
At university, we has a Synclavier II, but it did not have any sampling capabilities. Our professor had also modified the low pass filter on the output to make it brighter (seemed good for additive but not so much FM).
One of my classmates worked for a company that had a 0 voice Synclavier for music publishing. These were in the days just before Finale came out.
Fun memories of days gone by.
great clip - these bloody things were like $250,000 back in the day -
Sounds like my childhood. 80s were so naive,honest and beautiful.
That must have been mindblowing when it first came out.
It absolutely was. This was actually invented at a time when small computer systems like that were a brand new technology, and synthesizer/sampling technology wasn't really used that much. I mean the first version of Synclavier was released in 1977-78, so it was an entirely different era. No one had this kind of technology unless you were a major record label that could afford it ...and it was so high tech that most bands didn't have much use for it. Keep in mind, disco was still big when the Synclavier I was invented.
Working with this whole system was a dream. I spent a ton of time inside SFM and the resynthesizer.
I was so lucky to have my hands on this beauty 24/7 for 10 years in the 90s - the best sounding, most reliable and smartest "DAW" evva!! I want her back!!!
Played a real Synclavier today. Without looking at a manual, I was able to load sounds and figured out how to build a pattern in the internal sequencer with little effort. It was fun and easy to use and it sounded like nothing else really. It is a Rolls Royce.
Where was that?
Where did you play It?
Zappa thought this could be musical perfection.
Back in the 80s, I used to think "Huh, if I had a Synclavier or a Fairlight like Trevor Horn, I'd make hit records too". Well, now I have both of those inside my computer as plug-ins and guess what? I'm still not making hit records.
Wow these strings sound amazing
is not a computer but a DEC VT100 Terminal with VT640 Retro Graphics card ;)
Génial, quelle machine extra-ordinaire. Nettement en avance sur son temps, sa puissance n'avait d'égale que son tarif exorbitant.
Et dire qu'aujourd'hui elle tient dans un ipad! Cela dit, les Synclaviers m'ont fait rêver.
Bravo de remettre en ligne ces vidéos.
Oh my word, so amazing for the time 👍🏻
c est génial ce son , j adore
extra internet points for the VT-101 terminal!
This was used to make the score for The Princess Bride alongside (Possibly) the E-mu Emulator II.
1:13 Those strings are amazing!
I just learned a few days ago, linked from a YT video by Pat Metheny in 1986, the Synclavier was designed and made in Norwich,VT, then White River Junction, VT. Yay! I live in WRJ, just over border from Norwich. And several relatives have lived in / are from Norwich. The Arp Synth, used by Pete Towshend on Who's Next, was made in Newton-Needham Mass, my 1st hometown.
They were made by a company called New England Digital, which went under the name "Digital". Try looking up that name.
E q qualidade de som impressionante
Really works if you know how to play music/compose.
I do I'm a musician
@@oholm09
I tracked music in an iPhone.
Moved it over to the main system Garage Band at the time), added vocals, and there was a complete song.
It's still the musician that brings it to life.
Frank Zappa had the largest system.
I don't do autotune period I only used vocoder and talkbox
The midi organizer!
pure
Amazing that today with the cheapest computer,basic soundcard, 88 weighted keyboard,and the most basic software you have infinitely much more possibilities than with a 250K synclavier back in the day that only Sting and the like could afford.
I do not think so ;)
Think again ;-)
Fer Abra Have you ever used or heard a real Synclavier to be vindictive ? The electronics of the Fairlight and Synclavier has nothing to do with the current samplers and PC /Mac audio cards. Extremely important thing a first for each voix you have one converter, no multiplexing, output levels are very high !
Can a Synclavier record 100 24bit tracks?can a Synclavier play 50 synths/samplers? can a synclavier mix those tracks with EQ,compression,effects?Can a synclavier burn a CD? I'm talking about audio possibilities,not technical specs. However great the AD DA stage on a Synclavier is, it surely isn't worth those 250K nowadays. Even if the sound quality is pristine,and fat and warm and whatever, if given 250K I would get a great converter (Prism,Burl),ProTools,and a selection of the best hardware/software, and possibly still would have money left to buy a house. Back in the day it might have been the Rolls Royce of audio. Now it's not. Not vindictive. Just think about it.
Nous n'avons pas les même valeurs assurément ;)
1:14
And that beast still at high price today😂
But it sound so familiar,i dont know why
I have a synclavier II but the floppy disk drive does not work.
I can not load the sounds.
I live in Miami
who can repair it?
Yes
You can get a replacement floppy or better, get a CF->disk converter so you can use modern flash cards with it.
This guy looks like a young Ralf Hutter (Kraftwerk), who had owned this monster of a keyboard, ir a least an earlier model of it. Karl Bartos the ex drummer had stated that it's manual was the size of a phone book and Ralf and Florian would spend hours on end studying the thing.
Notable albums: Trans Europe Express 1977
The Man Machine 1978. (Although not sure if they still used it here).
The person in the video was the official demonstrator from NED (the brand that made the various Synclavier models). For Kraftwerk you've got it all wrong ;) it was Ralf Hütter who ordered a Synclavier after Electric Café (it was during the recording of this album at Right Track studio in New York). Kraftwerk's (white) Synclavier was delivered to the Kling Klang studio in January 1987. And it was used thereafter (mostly for recording, not really as a synthesizer).
This system put a lot of musicians out of work. Great for saving money in the studio.
These days when sampling a piano you have to press every key multiple times at different velocities and uses a huge amount of memory but with something like a NED Synclavier or Kurzweil K250 samples a few notes then generates the whole piano by modelling it and yet it sounds more realistic.
Realistic, I do not know if we can say that ... but more musical yes ;)
What i mean by that is you can hear the resonance from the strings alot more and sounds really good especially at the low end and with the chorus effect on too. Ive heard alot of modern day digital piano's but they just can't get that sound like the NED Synclavier or a Kurzweil K250. I wonder what they would sound like through an interface.
Having both ( Synclavier and K250) and also a real piano Petrof 131 , I also have two "digital pianos": K1200 and Yamaha p80. And they all sound differently without suprise.
I used to have a Yamaha PSR 450 it sounded good and all that but it could never match sounds like the older synths could do. Samplers were really ahead of their time.
This is awesome! What computer is that on the left?
Looks like one of my old Tandy computers by radio shack 😂❤
It's a VT100 terminal.
Today Synclavier comes standard on every iMac.
You have never used a Synclavier to say that. comic...
@@jbfairlight Unfortunately they were expensive, but who would use one today?
@@fer66 there are still many musicians who use Synclavier. I repair a lot of them, it's still expensive, not for nothing.
Why does it (the video!) stop when does?!
What year was this recorded ??
It seems to me that these cassettes (and therefore the recordings) date from 1984 or 1985.
does anyone know where i can find the full video cassette of this?
look here : th-cam.com/video/c0NVdDAUjn4/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/147NqYSxp3o/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/lPzBFcXC2G8/w-d-xo.html
MuStudio Thanks I love these styles of synth videos!
dudes voice sounds just like kurt cobain.
+Christian Keeton Sounds like Layne Staley to me, but that's just my opinion. Yeah he does sound kind of like Kurt.
Alan Silvestri used one flight of the navigator.
-> th-cam.com/video/Lgczs37WmLU/w-d-xo.html
It was a crazy instrument in those days... but the price... wasn't it 100.000 buyeah... well the digital version is 80 bucks I guess... Somet things do make progress ;-)
1:12 whats the name of this song
just some jazz voicings
F0nkyNinja :(
Le Synclavier, c'était pas un synthé connu de tous. Je crois que Stevie Wonder et Michael Jackson l'ont utilisés
Si il était connu, mais relativement onéreux donc pas a la porté de tous ;)
What year is this?
its 2016 you silly fucker !
I assume 1984-1986.
Yes
It seems to me that these cassettes (and therefore the recordings) date from 1984 or 1985.
This was NOT from 2011. When was this from?! 1981?!
I extracted this sequence from a VHS videocassette (number 3) dating from 1985. These videos have been converted to DVD.
videocassette 1, Velocity/Pressure sensitive Keyboard : 37'08"
videocassette 2, Terminal support options: 32"49
videocassette 3, The Sample-to-disk system : 45'25"
Can’t wait for UVI or somebody to make a synclavier sound bank for my DAW
Arturia make a vst of this. Its also included in Analog Lab 4 which is also made by Arturia 👍🏻
Jay Lane and very good it is too!
YEAR?
~1985
Emulator and Synclavier no way, Fairlight was a mess
How could a Steinway grand sample sound light years better (it even captured string resonance) 40 years ago than today’s technology?
16bits 100KHz stereo and without multiplexing ;)
That 13 samples Steinway does not sound great.
Btw, what does 13 samples mean? Anyone with a Synclavier who knows something about Synclavier, can he/she/it explain this to me?
This sounds like a calculator and costed way too money
paul amrod God, if love to have access to your calculator.
He seems so bored
It is really hard to comprehend how difficult it must be today to have purchased one of these monstrosities way back when to , who was it, New England Digital that make these cheap sounding massive units that the cabinet would not have fit in a walk in closet and of which you could buy the comparable unit today for a buck ninety nine(A Casio CLT series for $199.00 at Walmart). Fishy, below said 250 grand and he is quite correct. Good lord, and I remember reading about this pile of junk in the early eighty's and thinking how I would give my life for one of these things. Smart kid I was, wanting to kill myself to own a mass of circuitry that I would never play because I was dead. And imagine what you would have to do if it malfunctioned. Well, it went the way of that blue guitar that Lee Ritenour wrote Earth Run on. The huge E-trash heap that grows more and more like Space Junk everyday.
Let's not exaggerate, a Synclavier doesn't sound like a cheap machine that you can find in supermarkets ... I know a bunch of young people who are completely amazed at the quality of sound that comes out of a synclavier. And yet some of them have beautiful modern machines. This video is of historical interest, but not sonorous ;)
@@jbfairlight I think what I was trying to convey was the huge dichotomy of what is available at much cheaper prices and abilities today than that of the NED at a quarter of a million dollars. It was very limited in dynamic range and modalities. Your point, however, is well taken from an Historical or antiquated perspective in that, that machine was the epitome of synthetic music production at that time but only the rich and production companies could afford. Maybe we both are explaining the same thing from different perspectives, which is admirable from your part and well received on this end. But to hear one of these things is almost akin to a Lowery Organ that someone's pigtailed daughter would play at a family gathering. (Really, you really think I exaggerate? No Idea where that comes from....LOL!!)I do need to thank you though, that is THE word of the year..."Sonorous" and very well used, Sir. I am assuming you are a keyboardist and I wish you were a friend. Happy New Year, buddy!
@@jbfairlight , Let that guy know! The NED sample rate was 50kHz as opposed to the 44.1kHz that was (and still is to this day) standard with other samplers. Another cool thing that most people don't know is that the Synclavier was not only a sampling system, but an FM synthesizer as well. That sound at the start of Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' is an FM sound created by the NED programmer MJ had on hand for the Thriller sessions.
It's annoying to hear commenters on here trashing the Synclavier and talking about things they know nothing about. The system to this day is still being used by many musicians and producers, because even now, you cannot get a similar system with such high resolution and singular character.
@@trevorwoodley3897 In fact, it could reach a maximum of 100KHz in stereo, in the best configuration.
Rich Green God, you’re insufferable.
...and now my iPhone has 1000 times better sounds.
Very funny ... but I'm sure not ;) or we do not have the same ears :P
Never mind iPhone, the cheapest phone you can buy would literally piss on this relic
@@freepadz6241 Typical of your generation... no appreciation for what came before you. A sign of a low class person.