Synth Wizards

Wendy Carlos for his/her groundbreaking work and ace Bach-reworkings.

Thomas Dolby has made the better music out of all these though.

Tomita because in sixth grade the music teacher had each class create a "modern dance" piece to Tomita's arrangement of "Overture from Tommy" and my class decided on a time machine theme and each of us was designated a historical figure and I was Douglas MacArthur (corncob pipe) and I made sure I stayed home sick on the day we had to appear on stage to perform our dance for the seventh graders. It probably goes without saying that this was 1979. She also made us perform "The Hustle" on tiny xylophones.

Oh, so that's where Animal Collective got it from.

Ruychi Sakamoto ought to have been in here, no?

Well you always forget someone. Amazing how many synth dorks are called Michael.

Are any of these as good as the BAR WIZARDS as seen on Britain's Got Talent?

Rick Wakeman? Almost literally a synth wizard...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/79/Rick_wakeman_on_stage_with_cape.jpg/200px-Rick_wakeman_on_stage_with_cape.jpg

I know he comes from prog and is disqualified from this poll, but I couldn't resist mentioning him because of the "wizard" part.

my dad loves kitaro!

for me it's klaus schulze vs. one of the tangerine dream dudes (i don't know which one's which when i listen to them, though froese is kinda the frontman, no?) vs steve roach. though roach comes off more as a bit more subtle than some of the other synth wizards. i've only heard a few roach albums, though.

Christoph Franke was the main sequencer/percussion guy in T.Dream I believe. I'd have voted for him out of all the T.Dream guys, as they really lost it when he quit.

I voted for Michael Stearns, because of his albums "Planetary Unfolding" and "Chronos", both of which are just amazingly good. Actually, "M'Ocean" is pretty great too. Tim Blake a very close second.

Curious where the list came from, as there's a few unusual choices up there, Ian Boddy (who is v v good, esp live) and Mark J3nkins, (who stinks, having seen him live more times than I ever wanted to)

...neither of whom are exactly well-known, outside the little cult following that old-school EM has. Likewise Mark Shreeve.

It's between Vangelis and Jarre for me -- very, very hard to choose.

Christoph Franke was the main sequencer/percussion guy in T.Dream I believe. I'd have voted for him out of all the T.Dream guys, as they really lost it when he quit.

ah yes. i didn't know this. he might get my vote then.

Curious where the list came from

Oh I just put down all the synth guys I could think of, with a bit of help from http://www.synthmusicdirect.com/index.htm

Yeah I saw Mark J3nk1ns once playing A Rainbow In Curved Air, not great.

The trouble with synth wizards these days is that they look like this

http://www.sweetrice.com/news/wp-content/news/uploads/2007/05/cimg2250.jpg

When they should be looking like this

http://www.audiomastermind.us/wp-content/images/gabriel77.jpg

Or this

http://www.monolake.de/files_images/interviews/logos.jpg

Or even this

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/binary/fcf0b066/atl_music_feature1_20060426.jpg

http://www.soweirdproductions.com/wp-images/blog-images/030723_tomita_studio.jpg

http://blog.tilos.hu/irodalmile2/030723_tomita_MC8.jpg

http://www.echoes.org/graphics/Kitaro.jpg

What score do I get, I wonder:

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k139/filby22/HJJ%202007/hjj25.jpg

No Bruce Haacke?

From the list I'm going with Dr. Patrick Gleeson on the basis of Sextant alone.

Robert Rich:

http://www.progressiveworld.net/jpg/nf07_rich07_sm.jpg

http://bp0.blogger.com/_FxZ3ZD5bOUE/RohURITu63I/AAAAAAAAAB0/ytQALrmomlU/s320/RobRich.JPG

What an incredibly random list.

Lots of greats but my love for Wendy Carlos knows no bounds!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

http://fg.forum.free.fr/images/stearns_planetaryW.jpg

Given the criteria, which rule out Eno and Kraftwerk (and by extension other brilliant introverts like David Gamson of Scritti Politti), this poll should be titled Synth Wankers.

Passing over the worst of the wankers, I have a great deal of respect for Larry Fast (more for his work on Peter Gabriel 3 and 4 than for his solo stuff), but I've got to vote for Thomas Dolby.

(I realize someone can now undermine my whole argument by posting a picture or video of Dolby in full-on wanker mode at the 1985 Grammies.)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/people/images/synthesizer_patel.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I've been listening to a lot of Tomita lately: "Firebird", "Snowflakes are Dancing" and "Kosmos" (check the Star Wars theme version, and his crazy take on "Pacific 231"). Tomita is awesome.

http://tubular.net/instruments/photos/Fairlight_Series3.jpg

"Snowflakes are Dancing" is great. But for Japanese Star Wars interpretations, I'm a huge fan of the Meco "empire strikes back" single. So so so good.

seems relevant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgNo5Smino&feature=youtu.be