i’ve compared the softsynth version of the minimoog with the real thing side-by-side (with identical knob settings on each), and its really quite amazing how close they get. that feeling in yer stomach that you get from the uber-low bass the mini can output is almost akin to motion sickness, and the plugin was pretty close in terms of both sound and that ‘ill’ feeling…

as far as the 80′s synth invasion goes, i think that some things got better (analog synths and digitally controlled analog synths for example), but proliferation of some other means of synthesis (ie FM synthesis) that wasn’t quite up to the same quality kinda ruined it imho. i dunno. i can’t completely badmouth FM synthesis because i like some of the things the DX7 can do as sad as that sounds (especially when abused/misprogrammed), but i think FM synthesis was largely responsible for synths being viewed as cheesy…

i’ve heard some amazing softsynths, but, to paraphrase what you said … nothing comes close to the real thing.

–dee!

As for War, IMO the definitive War song is Low Rider. It still kicks hard today, after all these years.

–dee!

Which makes this program a great accompanyment as well for Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdirve”…

Hey, I do love me my Nihon electronics. And synths and samplers did make it easier for a keyboard player to travel – my early ’70s rig consisted of an flight-cased acoustic upright piano (with the sounding board removed and pickups installed, and of course a road crew to carry it), Hammond B3 with HUGE mutha Leslies, and Hohner clavi, which by the mid-’80s I’d replaced with a pair of (also flight-cased) synths that I could carry by myself – but it took me a long, long time to accept the trade-off (less realistic sounds versus a greater variety of sounds *and* total portability) and I still prefer the old-fashioned rig. And I’m soooo glad to see that sensible young rock keyboardists still go for the latter whenever they can…

I’ve never quite taken digital recording – including software packages of an orchestra-worth of samples – into my heart. I can drive it, and I’m very good at it, but there’s something far more physical and ‘immediate’ and REAL-feeling about watching those big two-inch tape reels go round and round

A little relevant science fiction trivia: the Stones’ 2,000 Light Years from Home inspired the title of brilliant SF writer James Tiptree junior’s first anthology of stories, which was originally published in the early mid-’70′s (very good; I used to have a copy) as 10,000 Light Years from Home – and one might say that Tiptree and Bud had ~cough cough~ something in common…

Although I’m not a huge fan of Lenny Kravitz, the dude agrees with you here. He proudly does everything on his albums old-school. I read an article once where he said that if a musical technology was invented after 1980 or so, he won’t use it on his albums. I suspect he employs digital recording, but the instrumentation is all ’50s-’70s vintage.