Just as electric guitarists covet their 1950s Les Pauls and Stratocasters, and classical violinists their 18th century Stradivariuses, it's probably not that surprising that synthesizer players also have a yen for the instruments of the past.

In their case, as Mark Vail of Keyboard magazine writes in Vintage Synthesizers, these vintage instruments include Farfisa organs and Fender Rhodes electric pianos from the 1960s, ARP and Minimoog synths from the 1970s, and instruments such as the Synclavier and Prophet-5 from the 1980s.

In a shot from 1998, Pete Townshend describes the features
of the ARP synthesizer he used on 1971's Who's Next.
(Captured from the DVD, Classic Albums--The Who: Who's Next.)

In The Court of the Prog Rock King

And of course, the Mellotron, which the entire genre of progressive rock is built on. John Lennon of the Beatles was among the first musicians to acquire one of these beasts, which today is considered the first sampling instrument. But unlike today's samplers, which use digital technology to capture and play back the sounds of instruments, the Mellotron used analog tape: each key trigged an individual eight-second spool of 3/8-inch wide tape of an instrument's notes.

The strings on Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song", and on lots of Moody Blues and King Crimson songs, and the flutes on the opening of the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" all were played on the Mellotron, and there are still several collectors of the instrument today, despite how fragile it is. (As Vail writes, those tapes break and jam awfully easily.)

For The Beatles Anthology, Paul McCartney recreated the opening notes
he played on the Mellotron, on 1967's "Strawberry Fields Forver".

I Want My MTV-era Synthesizers!

If the Mellotron was the sound of progressive rock, then the Fairlight CMI was one of the key instruments of the early days of MTV, driving the music of Thomas Dolby, Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder, and Jan Hammer. As Vail describes it, "by today's standards, the 8-bit sample resolution of the Fairlight Computer Music Instrument, or CMI, sounds pitiful. But it was good enough for them".

Vail also has chapters devoted to Roland's pioneering drum machines (think Phil Collins) and the Linn Drum Machine (think every other hit single of the 1980s). Surprisingly though, while he has photos of the Yamaha DX-7, which was also on seemingly every record made in the 1980s, he devotes his chapter on Yamaha's synthesizers to an earlier instrument, the CS-80. Which is too bad--I would have liked to have read a bit about the DX-7's history. But that's an awful small nit to pick with an otherwise detailed and well-researched book. (Robert Moog--yes that Moog--and several other writers from Keyboard magazine also contributed chapters.)