The first of each type are listed here, and all are featured in my book, ‘ Synthesizer Evolution’.ġ600 - The ‘modern’ discovery of electricity by William Gilbert, who wrote ‘De Magnete’.ġ759 - Clavecin Électrique - the first instrument featured in ‘Synthesizer Evolution’ a kind of bell ringing instrument driven by a Leiden jar.ġ897 - The Telharmonium - early tonewheel instrument, weighing 200 tons.ġ906 - Audion valve - invented by Lee de Forest, used for early ‘heterodyne’ oscillators (beat-frequencies in the audio range of radio-frequency valves).ġ922 - Theremin - invented by Lev Teremin, using the heterodyne effect.ġ928 - Ondes Martenot - also using the heterodyne effect.ġ932 - Electric piano is invented by the Neo-Bechstein company, using electro-static pick-ups on the tines.ġ935 - Hammond Tonewheel Organ - invented by Laurens Hammond.ġ939 - Hammond Novachord - first commercial synthesizer, using valves for oscillators, tone and envelope control.ġ949 - Chamberlin - used tape recordings of instruments and rhythms.ġ951 - RCA Sound Synthesizer - room sized experimental sound lab - which also introduced the word ‘synthesizer’ in the modern sense.ġ954 - Hammond B3 - the all-time classic electric organ.ġ963 - Mellotron - building on the Chamberlin’s technology using tape-recordings of instruments.ġ963 - Moog Modular & Buchla Music Box - Moog and Buchla independently invent the modern transistor based synthesizer and laid the ground work for the first generations of analogue synthesizers.ġ969 - EMS VCS3 - the first portable semi-modular analogue synth - 3 oscillators and a pin-matrix.ġ969 - EML Electrocomp Model 100 - with 4 VCOs was one of the earliest duophonic synths.ġ970 - Moog Minimoog (Model D) - the breakthrough portable analogue classic - 3 oscillators and hard-wired architecture.ġ972 - Eminent 310 Unique - the first string synthesizer, using divide-down oscillators for full polyphony and individual vibrato for a richer sound.ġ974 - RMI Harmonic Synthesizer - early additive synthesizer.ġ977 - New England Digital Synclavier - Introduces digital additive synthesis, ahead of the introduction of its sampling capabilities in 1982.ġ977 - Yamaha CS-80 - the pre-eminent analogue polysynth - eight note polyphony and gorgeous tones.ġ978 - Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 - the first synth with a microprocessor, used for storing patches. That alone removes ANY problems I have ever had with this plugin, and I am serious about that.Here’s a brief summary of electronic instruments and the main synthesis types. The one downside I had when I wrote this was the small size of the plugin, but Korg recently put out updates for all these Legacy Collection plugins, giving them a new coat of paint in the form of a vectorised UI that can be resized as big or small as you want. Really, it's got all the bells and whistles of the real, hardware unit, with added perks of having all cards and expansions at your fingertips and not having to worry about it failing somewhere along the line. It's not just a simple preset thingy either - all sounds are 100% editable, and even add some features not previously seen on the M1, like resonant filters.
This softsynth version basically brings all of that and all the expansions/cards that were made for the M1, at an affordable $100.
It's got a lot of cheesy, but still really pleasant tones, like the organs and pianos being iconic for being used a lot in dance music.
It was used in a LOT of music in the early 90s, a popular example being the Seinfeld slap bass. The Korg M1 is one of those synths that, like the DX7 and D50 from Yamaha and Roland respectively, went on to become extremely popular.