Pat Metheny – The Synclavier 1986

August 24, 2015 · Posted in Uncategorized 

Pat Metheny, in 1986, explaining the Synclavier digital synthesizer. 

Along the way, Metheny demonstrates how he uses the Synclavier, composing with it and his thoughts on using a computer for music.

The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation manufactured by New England Digital Corporation of Norwich, Vermont, USA.

The original design and development of the Synclavier prototype occurred at Dartmouth College with the collaboration of Professor Jon Appleton, Professor of Digital Electronics, Sydney A. Alonso, and Cameron Jones, a software programmer and student at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering.

The first version appeared in 1977/78 but was soon replaced by the Synclavier II in 1980 with a new “partial timbre” sound editing feature (it tweaks the harmonics), built-in FM and additive synthesis, sampling, 64 voice polyphony, 32MB of waveform RAM (expandable to 768), 32 outputs, music-notation printing, multitrack sequencing, and digital hard-disk recording. In 1984 a third model was introduced and became the most infamous version of the line-up. The new features included a full sized and weighted keyboard with velocity and aftertouch which replaced the previous model’s plastic keyboard, and 128 voices polyphony. An optional DSP effects package including time compression/expansion was available for the Synclav as well. There was also a standard onboard arpeggiator and a robust sequencer with up to 200 tracks and its sampler had the ability to record and output at up to 100 khz!

The typical Synclavier system consists of a durable 76-note keyboard peppered with 132 illuminated buttons and a single control knob, connected to a rack-mounted CPU running NED’s own 16-bit ABLE operating system plus the nostalgic mid-eighties looking mono-chromatic computer monitor/keyboard. Patches, sound files, sequences and samples are stored to 5.25″ diskette, hard disk or in some models, magneto-optical drives.

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