An Illustrated Guide to Prog Rock Instruments (new

AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO PROG ROCK INSTRUMENTS

In this article I am reviewing some of the most relevant instruments frequently used in Prog Rock from an historical point of view, especially focusing in those more widely used in the classic Prog Rock period of the 1970’s, although I have also included some more modern interesting instruments.

For sure a more precise title for this article should be something like “An illustrated guide to some of the instruments frequently used in classic Prog Rock”, since the list does not intend to be comprehensive and all these instruments were of course not “Prog Rock instruments”, they were simply instruments of their period, used in Prog as well as in many other genres during that period, but the title is intended as a practical shortcut.

Most references are made generically (e.g. ‘the Hammond Organ’) but I have also included some particular instrument pieces owned and played by famous Prog musicians (e.g. ‘Chris Squire’s Wal Triple-Neck Bass’).

Traditional instruments like guitars, basses, drums or flutes were nothing new when Prog flourished and have seen limited innovation right up to the present. The development of the synthesizer on the other hand went very much in parallel with the development of Prog Rock itself, for this reason the keyboards and synths are covered with greater historical detail, while entries for traditional instruments such as guitars, basses, flutes etc are limited to a few general comments.

The history of synths is only covered until the rise of digital synths in the early 1980’s, after that the number of different manufacturers and models would become prohibitively long. Moreover, in modern times (since the advent of MIDI in 1983) the keyboard model we see being played by a certain musician does not always tell much, frequently they are used only as controllers and the actual synthesizers or sound patches are located in racks or audio workstations.

THE CHAMBERLIN

When asked about quintessential Prog Rock instruments many will think of the Mellotron, but no reference to the ‘Tron’ would be fair without mentioning its direct precursor the Chamberlin, since the Mellotron was born essentially as an illegal copy of the Chamberlin.

Developed from 1948 onwards by Henry Chamberlin in the US, this keyboard was the first sampler (more precisely the first Rompler since it could only play back sounds, not record them): pressing the keys triggered playback of pre-recorded tapes with recordings of real instruments. The sounds included assorted keyboards, bowed and plucked strings, winds, voices etc (and in some models rhythms loops). For the first time it allowed producing realistic orchestral and vocal sounds from a keyboard. On the model 600, the blueprint for the first Mellotron, each note tape had a maximum duration of 8 seconds and returned to its starting position when the key was released or when reaching the end. 

It was originally designed as a home instrument, not portable (until the release of the M1 model in 1970) which made them delicate and not suitable for Rock bands outside of the studio. The M1 model released in 1970 was compact and portable (even more than the Mellotron M400) but by then the Mellotron had taken over (see the Mellotron entry) and the Chamberlin has unfairly remained rather obscure and unrecognised compared to the Mellotron. Many consider the sound samples of the Chamberlin to be of superior quality than those of the Mellotron.

The 1951 model 200 was the first melodic Chamberlin (the first model 100 from 1948 played only rhythm loops)

Chamberlin 600 1962, the blueprint for the first Mellotron

Chamberlin M1

THE MELLOTRON

 In 1962 a sales employee of Chamberlin Bill Fransen fled to Europe with two Chamberlin 600’s and without Henry Chamberlin’s knowledge he claimed that the instrument was his invention and made a deal with the Bradley brothers from the UK to build upon the design and manufacture the machines. So although the Bradleys introduced some modifications, the Mellotron Mark I was born in 1963 essentially as an illegal copy of the Chamberlin 600, the 3 violin samples were even the same from the Chamberlin (the other instruments were newly recorded).

 Mellotron Mark I

There is a bit of a mess with the different companies involved in producing and selling Mellotrons so to clarify things a bit let's start by saying that the Bradleys original company was called Bradmatic but for the Mellotron business they soon established 2 new companies, the sales and distribution arm was called Mellotronics and the manufacturing arm was called Streetly Electronics. 

Around 1965 Mike Pinder from The Moody Blues worked at Streetly for 18 months as a quality controller and test-player, and he fell in love with the instrument and eventually got himself a Mk II. He introduced the Mellotron to The Beatles who quickly purchased two of them. They used it in Strawberry Fields Forever released in February 1967 and Pinder himself used it extensively in Days Of Future Past released later the same year, and this launched the popularity of the Mellotron in the Pop-Rock music scene. Around one year and a half later the use of the Mellotron by King Crimson in their seminal In The Court Of The Crimson King situated the Tron as a paradigm for the Symphonic Prog sound of the 1970's..

Mike Pinder with The Moody Blues playing his Mk II in 1967

As with the Chamberlin, the first Mellotrons were not designed to be portable (although the 1968 M300 was more compact than the Mk II), but this changed with the release of the M400 model in 1970, by far the most popular and widely used in Prog Rock. Due to its smaller size it could only use 3 different instrument tape sets at a time but it compensated by having the tapes in cartridges (referred to as 'tape frames') which could be replaced rather quickly. EMI also produced 100 units of the M400 under license, named M400S, reportedly of lower quality.

Mellotron M300

Mellotron M400, the archetypal Prog Rock Tron

Due to the tapes playback system (of 8 seconds duration like the Chamberlin) which had to return to their starting position before being able to be played again, they had a slow action not making them suitable for fast playing and the notes did not decay naturally when the key was released, but they were great for slow passages of sustained sounds such as strings, choirs, brass or flutes which were difficult to mimic by synthesizers of the time (besides their big advantage of being polyphonic versus their contemporary synthesizers).

Mellotrons are infamous for being very sensitive and unreliable, the tapes often jammed, the motors and mechanics did not work properly etc. Musicians on tour frequently decided to take two of them in order to have a backup and they had to be repaired in between gigs. Rick Wakeman was so pissed off with their unreliability that when he could start using more advanced instruments such as the RMI Keyboard Computer and the Birotron prototype, he took two of his Mellotrons to a field and set them on fire.

A picture of one of the very few occasions in which ELP used a Mellotron live (an M400, here topped by a Minimoog). It was played by Greg Lake in the Trilogy tour for Abaddon’s Bolero but they used also some pre-recorded tapes and a click-track for Palmer on his headphones, and they had many problems with the synchronisation and reliability of the whole set-up and after a couple of gigs they decided to drop the song from the set list. Emerson never liked the Mellotron, because of its unreliability and because you could not play fast with it.

In 1975 the Mk V was released which was basically two M400's put together in a single cabinet. The development of the Mk V was possibly inspired by the custom instrument assembled by Rick Wakeman, who had put two M400’s together in a single cabinet in order to have 6 different sounds available at once. Wakeman's double M400 got stolen but it was recently recovered by a guy in the US who plans to restore it, Wakeman told him that he could keep it.

Mellotron Mk V

Rick Wakeman circa 1974. On his left we can see his custom double Mellotron M400 topped by two Minimoogs.

Notice that this instrument had the knobs on the top like the M400 while the genuine Mk V had them below the manuals. In front of Rick the Hammond C-3 organ topped by an RMI Electra-Piano and a Hohner Clavinet C6. On his right a piano topped by an Elka ElkaPiano 88 and a third Minimoog. Behind him stands the keyboard of his portable Mander pipe organ (see the Pipe Organ entry).

Around 1976 there were some legal disputes regarding the name Mellotron, which had been licensed to the US distributor DMI (Dallas Musical Instruments) which went quickly bankrupt and was then re-established as Sound Sales (retaining the Mellotron name licence and also referred to as “Mellotron USA”) to continue producing and selling Mellotrons.

Streetly continued also producing Mellotrons but had to sell them under the name Novatron. In 1981 Streetly released the rare Novatron T550 which was packed in a flight case for touring convenience, but only 4 of them were made.

Novatron T550

From their side Sound Sales developed the also very rare Mellotron 4-Track which could play the 4 tracks simultaneously (each track with independent EQ, panning and mix volume), of which only 4 units were produced in 1981 (to add to the names mess, the manufacturing company of the 4-Track was Bomar Fabricators).

Sound Sales Mellotron 4-Track

In the mid-late 1970’s the development of more advanced instruments such as the polyphonic string machines, the RMI Keyboard Computer and the polyphonic synthesizers (see the Polyphonic Synthesizers entry), and the development of digital technology including sampling with the Synclavier and Fairlight caused a quick fade out of the mechanical Mellotron, which suddenly felt like an ancient machine. The revival of Prog in the 1990’s renewed the interest in the Mellotron but before that, in the late 1980's the rights for the name Mellotron were acquired by an American guy called Dave Kean.

A Swedish guy called Marcus Resch who was repairing Mellotrons for bands like Anglagard and Anekdoten teamed with Dave Kean in the 1990's to start producing Mellotron service parts, and as from 2001 with the benefit of owning the name Mellotron they released new and improved analog replicas of the M400 (which they called Mk VI) and of the Mk V (which they called Mk VII). From 2010 they also produce a digital model the Mellotron M4000D.

The German Manikin’s Memotron is another popular digital replica and of course sample patches are available in other keyboards or for uploading to workstations.

Mellotron M4000D

Memotron (by Manikin)

A son of one of the original Bradley brothers from his side restarted Streetly in the 1990's to repair and restore Mellotrons, and in 2007 Streetly released a completely new model, the M4000, analog but with a completely redesigned tapes system which allows 24 sounds in the machine at once, eliminating the need for removable cartridges. This was not marketed as Novatron but simply as 'M4000 by Streetly Electronics'.

Streetly M4000

THE BIROTRON

The brief existence of the Birotron is anecdotical but worth mentioning due to the involvement of Rick Wakeman and to its extreme rarity. It was developed by Dave Biro in late 1974 as an attempt to solve the Mellotron’s weak points, and on paper it delivered. Instead of tapes of 8 seconds duration the Birotron used closed tape loops which could hold the sound indefinitely, this gave it also a much quicker action allowing playing of faster phrases (according to Wakeman you could play it “as fast as you like” which coming from him is quite something), it had note attack and decay settings (basically a must requirement when operating with closed tape loops without any attack or decay by themselves) and a pitch shifter knob. Regarding reliability nobody knows, it disappeared before anyone could tell.

Rick Wakeman was so impressed by the concept that he decided to co-fund the project, some prototype machines were built and advertisement started in 1976, and the company Birotronics received over 1000 orders from customers like Keith Emerson, Elton John, John Paul Jones or Patrick Moraz. Unfortunately issues during late pre-mass-production development to ensure high quality and reliability, plus the need to record all the samples with real musicians resulted in increasingly high costs and Rick Wakeman’s finances were going through a deep period, and at the same time advanced polyphonic synthesizers and digital technology were progressing fast, leaving a mechanical tapes machine outdated, and the project was finally aborted.

It is unknown how many were built precisely, according to some accounts only 17 complete machines were built and only 2 survive today, which has earned the Birotron the title of rarest modern musical instrument.

It was used by Wakeman in the album ‘Tormato’ and the YesShows tour, and although he owned up to 4 of them he does not have one anymore.

Birotron B90

Rick Wakeman live with Yes in 1978. The two devices on the right top of the picture are two Birotron B90's (atop an RMI Keyboard Computer). On the left of the picture we see a Minimoog atop a Yamaha CP30 electric piano and in front of Rick a Polymoog atop the Hammond.

Tangerine Dream, who were known for modifying or custom-building much of their equipment, were one of the very few to get their ordered Birotron, although before that Chris Franke had already modified one of his Mellotrons to have it work with loop tapes (credited as “Loop Mellotron” in their 1976 album Stratosfear).

Tangerine Dream’s Edgar Froese in his home studio in 1979: at the bottom left of the picture we see the Birotron, topped by a Korg PE-2000 string machine (itself topped by a Roland Micro-Composer MC-8 sequencer) and on their top an Oberheim 4-voice synth. Behind Froese a custom modular Moog with a Korg Vocoder on top of the modules cabinet. On top of the Moog controller keyboard there is an ARP Pro/DGX (an evolution of the Pro-Soloist). At the right of the picture a Fender Rhodes topped by a Solina String Ensemble, a Hohner Clavinet and an Elka Rhapsody 610. On the stool a Gibson Les Paul guitar.

THE HAMMOND ORGAN

An iconic keyboard like few others, the Hammond Organ was invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 as an affordable alternative to pipe organs in churches and upright pianos in middle class family homes. As such it is not just a prominent instrument in Rock music, it has had massive presence in nearly every style of popular music since the late 1930’s, gospel, blues, jazz, soul, pop, prog or hard rock. It generated the notes by mechanical tonewheels rotating in front of an electromagnetic pickup. The mix of the different harmonic components could be altered in real time by its famous drawbars providing a very rich range of possible organ timbres, from soft church-like sounds to aggressive and fierce Hard Rock tones. This versatility surely contributed to its huge success in such a wide range of music styles (mathematically the drawbars provide around 235,000,000 possible different sound combinations). The Percussion function provided a very distinctive percussive attack to the sound, which can be clearly noticed for example in many parts of ELP's Tarkus. 

A very frequent companion to the Hammond was the Leslie Speaker cabinet, which amplified and released the sound via two rotating speakers. The rotation produces an oscilating doppler effect which creates a very unique sound, like a combination of vibrato, tremolo and phaser effects all in one.

In the times when bands still had to play without PA systems, the Hammond with Leslie was the first organ powerful enough to allow keyboardists to play live alongside rock electric guitarists without having to feel ‘in the background’.

Many different models have been built but from a Prog Rock perspective the console B-3 and C-3 and the simpler spinet L-100 were probably the most widely used (Tony Banks used a T-102 which was a model very similar to the L-100 but working with transistors instead of vacuum tubes). Technically the B-3 and C-3 were basically the same, the B-3 had an open lower section with 4 legs while the C-3’s cabinet was closed at the front and sides.

Virtually every respectable keyboardist in the 1970’s Prog Rock scene had a Hammond, but we may mention Jon Lord and Keith Emerson as particularly notable users. Keith Emerson’s live performances stabbing knives on his L-100 to hold the sustain or playing it upside-down from the floor became iconic (although his regular playing was done on a C-3 placed below the Modular Moog).

Hammond B-3 and Leslie Cabinet

Uriah Heep’s Ken Hensley playing a B-3 (topped by Moog keyboard and ribbon controllers)

Deep Purple’s Jon Lord playing a C-3 topped by a Hohner Clavinet (with Glenn Hughes on the bass)

Hammond L-100

Keith Emerson abusing his L-100

Pink Floyd's Rick Wright playing his Hammond RT-3 (although he was not an archetypal Hammond player, since he used also extensively the Farfisa organ)

A variation are the custom Hammonds by Goff (a renowned US Hammond distributor), frequently with the lower part of the organ chopped in order to make them more portable.

Keith Emerson with a chopped Goff Hammond (topped by a Korg Oasys)

THE MOOG MODULAR SYNTHESIZER

Robert (Bob) Moog was the most prominent pioneer in the development of the modern analog synthesizers utilized in Rock music.

The precise division between ‘Electric or Electronic Organ’ and ‘Synthesizer’ (if there should be any at all) is controversial with early devices such as the Telharmonium, the Trautonium or the Ondes Martenot dividing opinions, but often the first really fully-functional musical synthesizer is considered to be the vacuum-tube Hammond Novachord from 1939 (which incidentally was fully polyphonic!) but it was way too ahead of its time, very complex and costly, and WW2 quickly interrupted its production before people could really understand it, and it remained mostly used to generate eerie sounds for movies and TV shows rather than actual music. If you have watched classic sci-fi movies from the 1940's and 1950's, chances are you have listened to a Novachord generating the sounds of flying saucers or energy rays. 

Hammond Novachord

The Buchla synthesizers from the early 1960’s also predated the Moogs but they were also oriented to universities or the cinema, TV and electronic music industry rather than to live performing musicians (one of their characteristic features was a touch-plate keyboard instead of a real musical keyboard).

Buchla 100 1963

Touch-Plate Keyboard in a Buchla

Robert Moog on the other hand set out to develop the synthesizer for actual performing musicians. Based on ideas first proposed by Harold Bode and the work of Buchla, in the mid 1960’s he further developed the technology of voltage-controlled sound synthesis based on transistors (compared to previous vacuum-tube technologies like in the Novachord) and a sort of road-map for standardising sound electric signals manipulation using voltage changes as the controlling mechanism. So for example, he devised how to generate a basic sound wave from a voltage-controlled oscillator, but also a systematic method for modifying that original signal through subsequent ‘modules’ before releasing it to the amp and speakers. So the original signal could be processed through different modules such as signal amplifiers, envelope generator, filters, modulators etc until it got the final shape. The modern musical analog modular synthesizer was born, with his first complete operating machine being ready in 1964.

The instrument received a lot of exposure when Wendy Carlos recorded the album Switched On Bach in 1968, a selection of JS Bach pieces played entirely on Moog synth (which considering that the synth was monophonic represented an impressive work of overdubbing).

Keith Emerson had also been closely following the Moog development and cooperated with Robert Moog in improving the instrument and popularized the new synth from his band The Nice and later on ELP, being the first to take one in live rock concerts.

The Modular Moog was not a definite machine but rather a flexible concept, frequently custom assembled with different modules according to each musician’s desires so each unit might look bigger or smaller or slightly different. Originally there were two main choices for the cabinet structure, the C series cabinets were more horizontally laid and intended more for static operation such as in studios, while the P series were based on more rather squared cabinets more suited to portable use. Keith Emerson's famous rig was based on a 3C unit while other performers such as Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze opted for the P units. It’s also important to realise that the Moog Modular was not ‘a keyboard’ but rather a sound generator-processor system. The musical keyboard was the most convenient user interface to provide input to the system, but other interfaces could be used such as the ribbon controller famously used by Keith Emerson and first seen by many of us in the video of Pictures At An Exhibition (these considerations apply to many other synthesizers as well).

Early Moog with keyboard and ribbon controllers

Keith Emerson playing his customised ribbon controller which released fireworks.

Moog System 55, a configuration derived from and very similar to the earlier 3C originally used by Keith Emerson

The different modules had to be connected with patch cables which provided a powerful visual sense of huge complexity. Keith Emerson’s Moog array even included a CRT oscilloscope.

Keith Emerson’s Modular Moog 3C array (on top of his Hammond C-3 organ)

Even in more modern times the paraphernalia of the patch cables continues providing visual effect, even if possibly his patches are now programmed.

The Moog Modular was monophonic, in 1975 Moog released the Polymoog as their polyphonic synth alternative.

Moog also conceived a 3-piece Synth Ensemble which they called “The Constellation” consisting of a polyphonic synth called Apollo (which would become the Polymoog), a monophonic solo synth called Lyra (basically a bigger and upgraded Minimoog, some of which technology would be used in the 1978 Multimoog) and a foot pedals bass synth called Taurus (which would become the famous Taurus bass pedals). The Apollo and Lyra prototypes were played by Keith Emerson in the Brain Salad Surgery album and the 1973-1974 ELP tour including the famous California Jam gig but the Constellation Ensemble was never actually marketed, yet it paved the way to two important new instruments the Polymoog and the Taurus bass pedals.

The Moog Constellation Ensemble concept

The Lyra prototype

The Apollo prototype

The ensemble of Apollo plus Lyra

Keith Emerson playing the Apollo and Lyra at the 1974 California Jam

Other notable users of the Modular Moog were Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze or Tomita, and more recently Erik Norlander (Rocket Scientists, Lana Lane, Asia featuring John Payne and solo) has also regularly used a Moog Modular.

Tangerine Dream's Chris Franke in 1975. Behind him the modular Moog (P series cabinets), in front of him an Elka Rhapsody 610 on top of a Mellotron M400, and on the top right of the picture we see (not completely) an EMS Synthi A.

Perhaps ironically, in some sense the bold Constellation Ensemble concept foreshadowed the demise of the original Moog Music Company, since what it proposed was actually never delivered by them but by another manufacturer. By that time Bob Moog was getting himself distanced from the company’s product development, the Constellation was not brought into production and instead it was Yamaha who released a similar instrument, the GX-1 in 1975 (see the polyphonic synthesizers entry), which while having limited polyphony, not having the modular structure of the Constellation and being very expensive produced a great, very fat and full synth sound.

On the other hand the Apollo / Polymoog, the polyphonic synth module which had to be the true technological innovation of the Constellation Ensemble leading to high expectations (with most people expecting some sort of polyphonic Minimoog) failed to deliver in many aspects. Its development was not led by Bob Moog but by David Luce, and in seeking for full polyphony he opted for the divide-down technology associated with string machines (see the ARP Synthesizers entry), which could not produce the fat sounds of the Modular Moog or the Minimoog. The resulting Polymoog (see the polyphonic synths entry), while having many good features had rather thin sounds and limited programmability, it suffered from disastrous unreliability (a 200% failure rate) and it frustrated many musicians who had been expecting the usual Moog sounds in polyphonic mode.

Yamaha on the other hand quickly adapted the technology of the very expensive GX-1 into a more affordable polysynth, the 1976 CS-80 (see the Polyphonic Synthesizers entry), which while again being only 8-voice polyphonic had a great full sound and was reliable. And soon after in 1978 Sequential Circuits released their iconic 5-voice polyphonic Prophet 5 which besides great sound and programmability also included good memory storage for user-programmed sounds. In comparison Moog remained rather still, in 1978 they released a stripped-down, mostly-preset version called the Polymoog Keyboard (280a model) which did not add anything in terms of performance, so again it was actually Yamaha and Sequential Circuits who delivered what people had expected from the Moog Apollo / Polymoog, a high performance and reliable polyphonic synthesizer.

In the meantime Bob Moog had left his company in 1977 (which was acquired by Norlin) and it took them until 1982 to release a proper rival to the CS-80 and Prophet 5, the Memorymoog, which by limiting polyphony to 6 voices achieved finally a nice full synth sound with good programmability (although puzzlingly for its time it still lacked a velocity-sensitive keyboard, which the Polymoog did have). Much too late with the digital Yamaha DX-7 about to hit the streets. Moog had fallen very far behind the competition, they still presented the SL-8 digital-analogue hybrid prototype in 1983 which looked quite promising, but the iconic DX-7 and its followers quickly sent analogue synths to oblivion for the next decade. The SL-8 never reached production and Moog Music finally closed by bankruptcy in 1993, but Bob Moog eventually recovered the rights for the Moog name and re-launched the company in 2002 (see the Minimoog entry). 

POLYPHONIC ANALOG SYNTHESIZERS

All the early 1970’s synths were monophonic (they could only play one note at a time, not chords). In most monophonic synths, if more than one note was played only the last one sounded. Some exceptions like the ARP Odyssey, the EMS Synthi 100 or E-mu Modular achieved duophonic polyphony by actually combining two synths one for each note played, and some complex setups could achieve higher polyphony (for example with the E-mu one could in principle combine up to 10 synths to obtain 10-voice polyphony) but early polyphony methods were not practical and musicians wanted to be able to play chords with their synths.

E-mu Modular 1973

Although not used in classic Prog strictly speaking, when talking about early polyphonic synths it is probably worth mentioning TONTO (standing for The Original New Timbral Orchestra, I don’t know if any pun was intended or not but ‘tonto’ in Spanish means ‘dumb’), the mega-synthesizer assembled and handled by engineers / producers / electronic musicians Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff and used most famously in the four Stevie Wonder albums from 1971 to 1974 (from Music Of My Mind to Fulfillingness’ First Finale) producing many of the sounds featured in hits such as Superstition or Living For The City. Its main configuration was gradually assembled between 1968 and 1972 and it consisted of 3 controller stations surrounded by a hemicycle of modules panels including components from Moog, ARP, Serge, Oberheim, EMS, Roland, Yamaha, and purpose-built ones. It is still considered the biggest analog musical synthesizer ever assembled (it still exists). TONTO was not only polyphonic but also multitimbral, meaning that not only multiple notes but also multiple patch sounds could be played simultaneously from its controller keyboard stations. Cecil and Margouleff released also 2 albums of electronic music with it under the name Tonto’s Expanding Head Band, in 1971 and 1974.

Panoramic view of TONTO

Malcolm Cecil handling his creature

In proper Prog, the first appearance of a polysynth in a studio album was in ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery, with Emerson playing the prototype of the Polymoog, still called Apollo by then and credited in the album as the "Moog Polyphonic Synth Ensemble" since it included also the monophonic solo synth Lyra. Patrick Moraz was another one whom Bob Moog gave the privilege of having a Polymoog prototype. 

At any rate the first commercial polyphonic analog synths were Moog’s Polymoog and the huge 3-manual Yamaha GX-1 (evolved from the Yamaha Electone EX-42 organ and the Yamaha CSY-1 combo of organ plus monophonic synth), both released in 1975. The GX-1 was adopted by Keith Emerson producing a significant change of sound for the band (and divided reactions to it) and seen by many of us in the Works Live tour video, and John Paul Jones and Stevie Wonder were other notable users.

Moog Polymoog 203a

Yamaha GX-1

Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones playing the GX-1 at Knebworth in 1979

The ARP Omni (1975) was polyphonic but only on two preset sounds Violin and Viola (similar case with the Farfisa Synthorchestra). Other competitors soon followed, the Oberheim 4-Voice (1975), the Korg PE-1000 / 2000 (1976), Yamaha CS-80 (1976), Korg PS-3100 (1977) and notably the hugely successful Prophet-5 by Sequential Circuits (1978, for which Rick Wakeman actively participated in the design of the user interface).

Here it is convenient to point out that in the mid 1970's a particular family of instruments was developed which blurred the until-then generally accepted concept of the difference between an Electronic Organ or Keyboard and a Synthesizer: the Preset Synthesizers, and particularly the sub-set which became known as 'String Machines'. Up to that point the general wisdom said that an instrument providing only preset sounds without any possibilities for editing them and with fixed pitch generation was 'an electronic organ or keyboard', while synthesizers allowed the musician to build the sound from scratch and control every parameter, from the basic sound wave shape (traditionally organs could only produce square waves while synths could also produce sine, sawtooth and triangle) to the envelope and filters, and their tone generators could produce any pitch not just the fixed tone pitches of the chromatic scale keys of the keyboard.

Preset Synthesizers were a sort of hybrid, they generated and shaped the sounds as a synth but the patching and settings determining a sound were pre-programmed, and some of them allowed editing of some parameters, some more than others. Moreover traditional Organ-like instruments started to have variable pitch tools such as portamento and pitch-bend and increasingly advanced features, further blurring the previous concepts. The ARP Soloist / Pro-Soloist were actually preset synths with a few possibilities for editing the sound. Focusing on preset sounds and sacrificing editing possibilities made it easier for the manufacturer to make them polyphonic. Many of these instruments focused on strings sounds and therefore became known as 'String Machines', or as 'Poly Ensembles' when they included other sounds such as brass, winds, pianos, percussions etc. The ARP Omni mentioned above was such an instrument, as well as the Korgs PE-1000 and PE-2000 (PE standing for Poly Ensemble, the PE-1000 dedicated to percussive sounds and the PE-2000 to strings and sustained sounds, while the true variable Korg synths were the PS family).

The Roland RS202 was one of the String Machines in the mid 1970’s, here in Camel's Pete Bardens rig in 1977, on top of a Honher Clavinet D6 and a Fender Rhodes. At his right a Minimoog which was placed on a (not visible) Hammond.

To distinguish them from Preset Synths, 'true' synths with advanced synthesis and editing capabilities were called 'Variable' or 'Programmable' Synthesizers, although there is no precise dividing line between them.

Until the arrival of digital synths polyphony for variable synths was still limited, for example the iconic Prophet-5 had just 5-voice polyphony, in comparison modern upper-level digital synths have 128-voice polyphony (note that polyphony does not only allow playing ‘with more than one finger’, if that was the case 10-voice polyphony would be the maximum needed for any player with two hands. Extended polyphony allows different sounds to be played simultaneously from a set of notes, for example playing 6 fingers with 3 different simultaneous patches will use 18 voices, or it allows maintaining sustain of sounds even after you have already started playing something else etc).

Understanding that there was no definite dividing line between Preset Synths and Variable Synths, one might say that the only fully polyphonic analog variable synths ever made (besides the Hammond Novachord) were the Polymoog (with 71-voice polyphony for 71 keys) and the Korg PS-3100 / 3200 / 3300 (with 48-voice polyphony for their 48 keys). Incidentally, the Yamaha GX-1 had 8-voice polyphony in its 2 lower manuals and the upper solo manual was monophonic. The Yamaha CS-80 was also 8-voice polyphonic.

Kansas’ Kerry Livgren endorsing the ARP Omni-2 

Oberheim 4-Voice

Korg PS-3100

Yamaha CS-80

Sequential Circuits Prophet-5

Rush's Geddy Lee used to play a custom console keyboard which combined an Oberheim 8-voice synth and a Minimoog. This monster was built for him by his technician Tony Geranios in late 1978, who also built an interface by which Geddy could trigger the Oberheim sounds from his Moog Taurus pedals. As from 1982 Geddy's favourite synth became the PPG Wave 2.2 which he combined with an Oberheim OB-Xa and a Roland Jupiter-8.

Geddy Lee with his 'mashup' of Oberheim 8-voice and Minimoog

Another limitation of the 1970’s analog synths was the lack of memory, which was still a very expensive resource. As mentioned before, some models in the mid 1970’s offered some factory presets which the user could take as a starting point and then modify, but the modified patch could not be stored again, the musician had to reprogram the sound every time and for every song. When the musician or engineer found a sound patch he liked he had to write all the settings down in a so-called patch-sheet so he could recover the very same sound at a later moment. Even a monster like the Yamaha GX-1 or the 1977 Korg PS-3100 did not have any memory, and by as late as 1978 even a top-level synth such as the Korg PS-3200 had only 16 user-storable patches. One of the reasons for the Prophet-5 huge success was that it had 40 patches memory (even more in later versions). Synths produced as from the mid 1980’s (both analog or digital) started to have some decent storage memory, for example the successful 1984 Roland Juno 106 had 128 memory patches.

Korg PS-3200

Example of a Patch-Sheet

THE SYNCLAVIER

Besides the obscure RMI Harmonic Synthesizer (which actually combined digital and analog technology), the Synclavier by NED (New England Digital) was the first commercial fully digital music synth, and one of the first digital samplers. It was essentially a computer rather than a musical instrument in the traditional sense, the first version released in 1977 did not even have a musical keyboard controller but only a computer-like alphanumeric keyboard. Off-the-shelf personal computer components did not exist yet so the company had to produce all the hardware and software in-house. It allowed both digital sound synthesis and (as from 1982) also digital sampling. It pioneered the FM synthesis method later popularized by the Yamaha DX-7.

A musical keyboard interface was eventually offered in 1979, but the sounds could be triggered from other devices, Pat Metheny used the Synclavier extensively controlling it from his Roland controller guitar.

They were expensive machines and as such many were owned by music studios and producers rather than individual musicians, although some notable owners included Pat Metheny, Tony Banks or Frank Zappa.

Synclavier I

Frank Zappa with a Synclavier II

THE FAIRLIGHT

The Australian Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) was very much a product of the 1980’s and therefore not prominent in classic Prog Rock but it is relevant from an historical perspective as the device, together with the Synclavier, which made the bridge from analog synthesizers and analog samplers like the Mellotron to digital synthesizers and samplers.

Launched in 1979 (same timing as the second generation Synclavier) it was also essentially a computer designed to generate or sample sounds digitally. A characteristic feature was the CRT monochrome screen displaying the sound waveform and patterns, and as from 1982 the 'R page', a primitive graphical multi-track sequencer precursor to modern DAW (Digital Audio Workstations) user interfaces, and including a light pen for selecting and editing the items on display (the Synclavier had also a CRT monitor but with simpler display features).

It is fair to say that the Fairlight was a major revolution in the music scene (the Musicians Union tried to get it banned because of fear that it would put many musicians out of job!), and many artists used the Fairlight in the 1980’s including Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder, Geoff Downes, Klaus Schulze, Kate Bush or Queen, but the fast development of digital sound technology caused the expensive Synclavier and Fairlight to gradually decline in favour of more affordable and compact digital synth keyboards such as the Yamaha DX series (1983’s DX-7 was hugely popular and the top-line DX-1, altough expensive was highly regarded), the Roland D-50 or the Korg M1. The Synclavier and Fairlight remained used mainly in studios and also for their sampling capability until more advanced samplers were developed in the mid-late 1980’s.

Another manufacturer deserving mention in that transition period is the German PPG, which achieved significant success in the early 1980’s with their Wave series which introduced the wavetable synthesis method. They were used by many German-school musicians and bands but also many others such as David Bowie, Jean Michel Jarre, Geddy Lee or Geoff Downes as well as many New-Wave bands.

Fairlight CMI

Klaus Schulze's gear in the mid 1980's

Geoff Downes was one of the first to tour with a Fairlight in the 1982-1983 tour for Asia's debut album. His rig then was impressive, mounted on a scaffolding above the other 3 band members. At a 1983 gig in Japan for an MTV event his rig won an entry to the Guinness Book of Records for being the largest ever played live by a rock keyboardist, with 28 different keyboards (although I suspect, not with absolute certainty, that instruments with 2 manuals were counted as 2 keyboards).

Asia live 1982

Geoff Downes 1982 rig in a bit more detail (this is not exactly the Guinness winning version but close to it). Honestly I can not tell them all, but I see, from the left: Yamaha CS-80. Next row (which he is playing on), Yamaha CP70 Electric Grand topped by Hammond J-122 and SC Prophet-5. Next row to the right, Mellotron M400 topped by Polymoog, the Fairlight keyboards, 2 Minimoogs and the Fairlight monitor. Next row to the right, Fender Rhodes topped by Hohner Clavinet C6, Solina String Ensemble (with the Fairlight alphanumeric keyboard at its left), and SC Prophet-10. Still further to the right a Hammond B-3 topped by what I think is another Minimoog (but not sure). I know he had somewhere also a Moog Liberation keytar and almost invisible below the CP70 there was also a Moog Taurus. Anecdotically, the arrow shows the hand of some technician adjusting the settings on the Prophet-10.

THE E-MU EMULATOR SAMPLERS

If the release of affordable digital synth keyboards led by the Yamaha DX-7 provided half of the nails for the Fairlight and Synclavier coffins, the other half came from the first affordable samplers, of which the E-mu Emulator series were perhaps the most relevant. The first version was released in 1982 and it was very basic, but the Emulator-II released in 1984 was significantly improved and even with a price tag of around US$ 9,000 it was quite successful (the Fairlight and Synclavier II costed around US$ 25,000). It used 5 ¼ floppy diskettes as memory media. It was used among others by Genesis Tony Banks, Yes Tony Kaye, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and a lot of the 1980’s main New Wave bands.

Tony Banks rig circa 1986: at the bottom an ARP Quadra atop (not visible) Sequential Circuits Prophet-10 (which was basically two Prophet-5’s put together in a dual manual instrument), left: a NED Synclavier II atop Yamaha DX-7, top: an E-mu Emulator II sampler atop Yamaha CP70 Electric Grand

MIDI

MIDI is not an instrument but it’s a technology which radically changed the way music is created and played, and having reached in our journey the point of the development of the first digital synth keyboards it seems appropriate to dedicate some comment to it.

At the end of the 1970’s some manufacturers started to develop ways to connect different devices from their product line-up, so for example playing from one keyboard you could use also a sound patch from another one, but it became quickly evident that if each manufacturer started developing his own non-compatible technology this would give little benefit for the musicians, who commonly used instruments from different manufacturers.

Dave Smith from Sequential Circuits was the main developer of a proposal for a universal interface between electronic music devices, which he introduced at the Audio Engineering Society show in 1981. The proposal was discussed and fine-tuned between several manufacturers and completed in 1983 with the name MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface).

MIDI messages tell the receiving device information about when and how to trigger a sound (for example bank and program number to trigger, pitch, velocity or vibrato parameters, duration, panning setting etc) but nothing about the sound itself, which is up to the receiving device to generate. However MIDI has enabled much more than simply playing one instrument's sound from another one, it has effectively converted music from an audio product into a 'computer commodity', triggering a whole new world of possibilities including the use of sequencers, exchange of modifiable music files, remote programming and many others.

MIDI has revolutionized the way many musicians create and play music and it fueled the development of numerous new devices such as sequencers and workstations, samplers, drum machines, multitude of non-keyboard controller instruments such as the Synthaxe, the Yamaha G10 MIDI Guitar, the Haken Continuum or the more recent Eigenharp, or even the possibility to control the show lights from the controller instrument.

Many of the important pre-MIDI analog synths can be retrofitted with MIDI interface ports.

Scheme of MIDI connected devices: When switched on the same channel, playing the keyboard will produce its piano sound and also the strings and brass sounds from the sound modules.

THE PIANO

It may seem unnecessary and trivial to include such an ubiquotous instrument as the piano in this list, but it would be unfair not to mention it either. The acoustic piano has played a big role in Prog Rock so at least a brief mention is deserved. Many Prog masterpieces owe their magnificence to the delicate yet powerful sound of the acoustic piano, Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman being prime examples. Obviously there are many brands and each keyboardist had his own preferences but pianos by Steinway & Sons seem to have enjoyed much support from the 1970’s Prog keyboard gurus.

Grand pianos undoubtedly deliver the richest and most refined sound but Keith Emerson gave also some relevance to the humble upright piano with his honky-tonk / ragtime tunes such as Jeremy Bender, The Sheriff or Benny The Bouncer.

If one particular piano deserves mentioning it's Keith Emerson's 1973's spinning piano. He used it very few times due to the complexity of installing its mechanism and because once the keyboard lid closed on his fingers while spinning 

Keith Emerson at the Steinway Grand Piano

Keith Emerson's spinning piano

In the mid 1970’s some manufacturers, most notably Yamaha, started to produce electric pianos targeted at reproducing the sound of acoustic pianos as closely as possible, rather than producing the typical electric piano sound of the Fender Rhodes, Wurly etc. The Yamaha CP series was very successful in replacing acoustic pianos in live performances thanks to their convenience and convincing sound, with the CP30 being a very successful compact model (used by Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman among many others) and the CP70 (“Electric Grand Piano”) being a hybrid using actual strings but shorter and with an electric pickup system providing a very convincing reproduction of the sound of a grand piano in a more compact and convenient instrument. The CP70 was part of Tony Banks rig for several years.

Keith Emerson at the Elite Studios in Nassau, The Bahamas, where he recorded ‘Honky’, sitting in front of a Yamaha CP30 electronic piano. At his right a Hammond B-3 topped by a Hohner Clavinet.

The Yamaha CP70 “Electric Grand Piano”

The Dixie Dregs T. Lavitz gear in 1980, left to right: Oberheim OB-X atop Fender Rhodes, Prophet-5 atop Yamaha CP70 Electric Grand, Oberheim OB-1 atop Crumar T1B organ

THE PIPE ORGAN 

Some of the keyboard gurus wanting the top in bombastic and majestic sounds thought that the sound of electric organs was not enough and they wanted to incorporate the sound of the real classical thing, church pipe organs. The first Prog musician to record with a real pipe organ was probably Keith Emerson, playing the Royal Festival Hall organ for 'The Three Fates' (ELP debut album) and later the Flentrop Organ at St. Mark’s Church for ‘The Only Way’ (Tarkus album).

Rick Wakeman followed playing the Mander Pipe Organ at the Church of St. Gilles, Cripplegate, for ‘Close To The Edge’ and later also for ‘Jane Seymour’ (from The Six Wives Of Henry VIII album). This is actually an 18^th century organ originally made by Jordan and Bridge in 1733 but completely reworked and maintained by Mander in the 20^thcentury.

Rick Wakeman also recorded pipe organ parts for ‘Parallels’ (Yes Going For The One album) and ‘Judas Iscariot’ (from his solo album Criminal Record) using the organ at St. Martin's church in Vevey, Switzerland. Curiously, Rick played the organ in Switzerland and the sound was transmitted in real time to the studio in the UK via a leased telephone line and recorded there in the UK.

Wakeman even used a portable Mander pipe organ in the Going For The One tour.

Pipe Organ at St. Gilles, Cripplegate

Rick Wakeman playing the St. Martin’s Church organ in Vevey during the Going For The One sessions, with Jon Anderson playing the harp

THE HAKEN CONTINUUM FINGERBOARD

The Continuum was made popular by Dream Theater’s Jordan Rudess.

Developed by Lippold Haken and marketed as from 2002 the Continuum is a MIDI controller which enables playing continuously changing sounds by sliding one’s fingers through its surface, in some sense it can be considered a descendant of the Trautonium from the 1930’s and the ribbon controller of the Moogs. The interface is a key-less and fret-less neoprene surface with sensors which provide 3-D sensitivity, the position on the X horizontal axis determines pitch and the position on the vertical Y axis and the pressure applied (Z axis) can be programmed to determine for example timbre and amplitude variation. The pitch variation can be programmed to be either really continuum or following the tempered chromatic scale to limit portamento effect. It is 16-voice polyphonic.

Haken Continuum Fingerboard

THE MARCODI HARPEJJI

The Harpejji is another recent instrument embraced by Dream Theater’s Jordan Ruddess, consisting of a stringed flat platform on which the musician can tap with both hands.

Marcodi Harpejji

THE THEREMIN

The Theremin is unique enough to deserve some mentioning. Originally invented in 1928 by the Russian Leon Theremin, it produces sounds without actually touching the instrument. Typically it has two antennas and the performer moves his hands around them, the instrument senses the distance and movement of the hands from the antennas and converts them into sound, one antenna determines pitch and the other determines amplitude (volume).

Robert Moog produced Theremins before his breakthrough work in developing the synthesizer. The Theremin produces eerie sounds and has been used by Jimmy Page, Jean Michel Jarre, Keith Emerson, the Spanish Los Canarios in their album Ciclos and other experimental and electronic music.

Some modern Roland keyboards have a so-called D-Beam Controller which uses the movement of the hand in front of a beam of infrared light to control certain parameters or effects, looking similar to controlling a Theremin, you may see it in modern-era Geoff Downes playing.

Jimmy Page and the Theremin

D-Beam controller in a 2004 Roland Juno-D synth (the infrared beam is actually invisible)

LAP STEEL GUITARS

The Lap Guitar is an evolution of the Steel / Slide playing technique on regular steel-stringed guitars, where a tube of metal or glass (usually put on one’s finger) is slid along the fretboard producing a portamento effect (continuous pitch change opposite to to the quantized chromatic pitch shift of the frets). The tube is called a Steel and the technique uses Slide, thereby the two names are interchangeably used (sometimes it is also called Bottleneck Guitar playing). Steel playing probably started in Hawaii in the 19^th century. One can play with a Steel with the guitar hung in normal position, but players realised that placing the guitar horizontally on one’s lap gave them more control on the fretboard hand movement, placing it from above the neck instead of from below. From there it was only a matter of time that specialized horizontal instruments would be developed, the Lap Steel Guitars. They exist since the early 20^th century and were commonly used in country and bluegrass, and eventually they got electrified same as regular steel-string guitars.

Steve Howe and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour are notable players.

A variation of the Lap Steel Guitar is the Pedal Steel Guitar, which additionally has some pedals and rods which the musician can operate with his feet and knees to produce pitch bend, volume control or other effects.

David Gilmour playing a lap steel guitar

Steve Howe playing a lap steel guitar

John Paul Jones had a curious 8-string steel bass/guitar manufactured by Hugh Manson, the Lapaphone, which is a hybrid between a traditional strapped instrument and a horizontal Lap one, the strings plane is tilted 45 degrees so the performer can play over the top of the neck as in a real Lap but still enjoying the mobility of a strapped instrument (this design is based on the Melobar from the late 1960’s). The squared screen below the strings is a Kaoss 2-D MIDI controller (also included in some guitars Manson has built for Muse’s Matt Bellamy).

John Paul Jones playing the Hugh Manson Lapaphone

THE CORAL ELECTRIC SITAR

The hippie and psychedelic movement in the 1960’s sparked an interest in Eastern mysticism and culture, and notably The Beatles’ George Harrison became a follower of Indian / Buddhist music and fueled an interest in the sitar. Danelectro saw the opportunity and developed the Coral Electric Sitar, released in 1967, which mimicked the peculiar sound of the Indian instrument but was easy for western guitarists to play with its familiar 6 string neck and standard guitar tuning. The sitar-like sound was achieved thanks to a special ‘buzz-bridge’ and 13 sympathetic ‘drone’ strings (all of 0.10 gauge but different lenght) located on top of the regular 6 strings. Danelectro stopped business in 1969 so these instruments became quite sought after in the 2^nd hand market until Jerry Jones Guitars restarted its production in the 1990’s, respecting the Danelectro design but improving a couple of points, mainly the stability of the buzz-effect adjustment and tuning.

Advertisement of the Coral Electric Sitar

Steve Howe playing the Coral Electric Sitar

A very similar concept was used in the custom Gibson acoustic J-200 built for John McLaughlin in 1975 and which he used with the Indian-oriented band Shakti. It had 7 drone strings which could be either strummed or simply allowed to sympathetically vibrate, producing a buzzy sitar-like sound. He had 2 versions, one with body cutaway and one without.

John McLaughlin with his drone-stringed Custom Gibson J-200 (version with cutaway)

THE FENDER PRECISION & JAZZ BASSES

If on the electric guitar camp the main rivalry was between Fender and Gibson, in the camp of bass guitars Gibson was not so strong (although they produced some fine basses such as the Ripper, the Grabber, the Les Paul or the SG / EB series).

In bass guitars the main rivalry was between Fender and Rickenbacker.

Fender’s most popular bass was the Precision Bass (aka P-bass), following the Stratocaster guitar design. They often featured a single-coil split pickup.

Another very successful model was the Fender Jazz Bass (aka J-bass), recognizable because the volume and tone knobs are mounted on a separate guard (usually chromed).

Fender bassists are also countless, Greg Lake, John Wetton or Roger Waters among them.

Roger Waters playing a Fender Precision Bass

Geddy Lee playing a Fender Jazz Bass

THE RICKENBACKER  BASSES

The Fender bass sound was smooth, deep and warm. By contrast the Rickenbacker (commonly referred to as 'Ric') was crisper, with powerful trebble notes great for soloing or lead phrases but also a devastatingly fat bass tone. The most famous models are the 4000 series, mainly the 4001 and 4003. Yes’ Chris Squire, Rush Geddy Lee or Genesis Mike Rutherford played Rickenbackers frequently.

Chris Squire with a Rickenbacker 4001

Rickenbacker 4005 belonging to The Who’s John Entwistle

Several Rickenbacker 4000 basses: a 4003S/8 (8-string), a 4005, a 4004, a 4003S and a 4001 (S standed for Short Scale, a shorter neck)

Rickebacker produced also guitars and they were very popular in the 1960's (not least because The Beatles or The Byrds used them) but they rather fell out of fashion in the 1970's, although some guitarists still used them such as Steve Howe, Mike Rutherford or Phil Manzanera.

The Who's Pete Townshend playing a Rickenbacker model 1993 guitar in the 1960's

Roxy Music Phil Manzanera playing a Rickenbacker 360/12 guitar

FRETLESS BASSES

Some players explored fretless instruments which provided a smoother, portamento-oriented sound probably coming from traditional jazz contrabass influences. Fretless technique is quite demanding on the fretboard hand, not only regarding the accurate fingers position for precise pitch but also the way the finger needs to be pressed against the fretboard for good sustain, legatto's etc.

Jaco Pastorius modified one of his Fender Jazz  basses to make it fretless and was one of the first modern bassists to promote it. Fretless bass was mostly used in Jazz-Rock / Fusion but also several more traditional Prog Rock bassists have used it including Geddy Lee or Roger Waters.

Some instruments are 'lined fretless basses' where the frets are replaced by lines on the fretboard, others may have dot markers on the fretboard although this is unusual (frequently this betrays a bass which has been defretted), usually they have markers only on the top side of the neck.

Jaco Pastorius playing a fretless Ibanez

Tony Franklin playing a fretless Fender Precision bass

Chris Squire played occasionally a fretless Guild JSII held on a stand

Incidentally, fretless guitars exist as well although they are rare, their sound is damped and technique is very demanding, but some Prog and experimental artists have used them such as Frank Zappa, Adrian Belew, Steve Vai or Andy Summers.

Andy Summers with a Custom Fretless Hamer

Terry Atkins from Parker Guitars proudly showing the Custom Dragonfly Fretless they built for Adrian Belew

5 AND MORE STRING BASSES

Although basses were traditionally 4-string instruments, following the same trend as electric guitars several musicians and manufacturers started experimenting with more strings, and nowadays 5 and 6 string basses are quite common (even some with more strings, whose practical playability is questionable).

Dream Theater's John Myung playing an Earnie Ball Music Man Bongo 6 6-string bass

Rob Van Der Loo (Sun Caged, Epica) with his custom Conklin 9-string bass

A different variation of multi-string basses are the 8-string basses consisting of 4 doubled strings, following the same principle as 12-string guitars, such as the Alembic played by Greg Lake around 1977 or the Rickenbacker played by Chris Squire.

Greg Lake playing his 8-string Alembic bass

Rickenbacker made two prototypes in the early 1970’s for an 8-string 4000 series bass, one for The Who’s John Entwistle and one for Yes' Chris Squire, both with the rare ‘potato’ headstock shape, and the model was eventually produced as the 4008 (also available were the 4001-4003 / 8 which were an adaptation of the standard 4001-4003 to 8 strings, while the 4008 was designed on purpose to be an 8-string). After the Going For The One tour Squire’s 4008 prototype got damaged and he replaced it by an 8-string Ranney, and gave the damaged Ric to Vincent Gallo (who incidentally is godfather to Chris’ son Cameron).

A curiosity for those who like details: Chris Squire wanted the string pattern opposite to Entwistle, that is, in each pair of strings he wanted the fundamental (thick) string below and the octave (thin) string on top, while Entwistle used the standard layout found in 12-string guitars with the fundamental thick string on top and the octave thin string below. The reversed layout favoured by Squire was better for playing bass without a pick, which is usually done with fingertip strokes from below upwards, rather than guitar strumming which is mostly from top downwards, so the first string to be touched and therefore dominant in the sound is in both cases the fundamental. The ‘potato’ headstock of the prototypes had normal bass tuning machines for the fundamentals and smaller guitar-like tuning machines for the octaves. This meant that the headstock tuners layout had to follow the strings order, so Squire’s bass had the opposite tuners layout (starting from top thin-thick-thin-thick etc) compared to Entwistle’s (thick-thin-thick-thin etc). After some production units still with ‘potato’ headstock (but ‘upside-down’ shape compared to the prototypes) and still asymmetric tuners layout, 8-string Rics were fitted with the standard ‘cresting wave’ headstock shape and 8 tuners of the same size which allowed to easily apply any of the two string layouts. Squire’s layout with the fundamental string below is the most common for doubled-string basses.

Chris Squire playing his 4008 prototype. Although the picture is not very clear you may notice the tuners layout in the headstock, clockwise: small-big-small-big-small-big-small-big. The 'bulge' of the 'potato' is at the lower part of the headstock.

A production replica of Squire’s 4008, with his tuners layout order but notice that the ‘potato’ shape is opposite to the prototype, with the longer ‘bulge’ at the top side of the headstock

John Entwistle’s prototype, with the same ‘potato’ shape as Squire’s (longer bulge below) but opposite tuners layout, clockwise: big-small-big-small-big-small-big-small

Later production 4008 with the standard ‘cresting wave’ headstock and 8 equal tuners

Chris Squire with the 8-string Ranney which replaced the Ric 4008 prototype (with Trevor Rabin on guitar)

There are also 12-string basses, either with the 4 standard strings tripled or with 6 doubled strings, and even 18 string basses.

Hamer Quad 12-string bass with 4 triple strings, belonging to Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson

Modulus 18-string bass (6 triple strings), also built for Tom Petersson and subsequently acquired by The Allman Brothers’ Allen Woody

THE MOOG TAURUS BASS PEDALS SYNTH

Evolved from the prototype Taurus from the Constellation Ensemble (see the Moog Modular Synth entry), the Taurus pedals were yet another innovation by Moog. Most organs had always had bass pedals but they got somehow lost with the advent of the electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Moog thought that this needed not be the case and conceived the Taurus, but perhaps it was a bit surprising that after having conceived it as a bass pedals synth module for keyboardists it was actually bassists who enthusiastically embraced it. Most Rock keyboardists played standing up and they frequently moved around different keyboards, and this made it impractical for them to operate pedals. Bassists on the other hand were more free, it was already a standard practice for guitarists to operate multiple effects pedals while the availability of pedals for bassists was more limited, so they had still room to take in some more work, and it was about bass lines anyway.

In any case the Taurus was not really the first instrument of its kind but it was a big step forward compared to previous similar devices. In the late 1960’s a company called Dewtron was producing the Mister Bassman pedals, used by Genesis Mike Rutherford / Tony Banks and Yes Chris Squire / Jon Anderson, but this was more like the detached bass pedalboard from a traditional electric organ, not really a bass synth, and its sound was rather simple and soft. The MusiConics BassMate from the early 1970’s was more advanced but its capabilities were also rather basic compared to what the Taurus would offer.

The Dewtron Mister Bassman pedals

Genesis live in 1975, we see a Mister Bassman in front of Mike Rutherford

Yes Jon Anderson playing a Mister Bassman with his hands in the video performance of Yours Is No Disgrace

The MusiConics BassMate and BassMate II

The Moog Taurus was released in 1975 and many Prog bassists embraced the instrument to complement their sound, as it offered an unbelievably powerful and sustained super-bass tone, unheard of at the time, especially in live playing where it provided a kind of early surround, you felt it more than you heard it.

The Taurus I had 13 pedals, 3 preset sounds and one user programmable sound (without storage memory). In 1981 the Taurus II was launched with 18 pedals and a control panel which could be placed on a stand at waist height for easier programming, but it did not enjoy the success of the Taurus I.

In 2010 Moog released the Taurus 3, again with 13 pedals and attempting to recover the genuine Taurus I sound in an updated machine.

Notable users include Genesis Mike Rutherford, Rush’s Geddy Lee, Yes Chris Squire or Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones.

The Moog Taurus I

Led Zeppelin in 1977, with a Taurus I in front of John Paul Jones

THE CHAPMAN STICK

The Chapman Stick was created by Emmett Chapman in 1974. It consists of a long and wide fretboard where the musician taps with both hands. Several models have been produced with 8, 10 or 12 strings. A particularity of the Chapman Stick is that unlike in a guitar the lowest pitch string is located in the center of the fretboard.

Tony Levin was the pioneer in incorporating it to Prog Rock. Trey Gunn is another notable player.

Tony Levin playing the Chapman Stick

THE WARR GUITAR and NS/STICK

The Warr Guitar is a hybrid of a guitar and a Chapman Stick. It allows playing it like a Chapman tapping with both hands but it also allows other common guitar techniques such as strumming, picking with a plectrum or slapping. Different version exist with different number of strings, typically 8, 10 or 12. Most players use a string setup like in the Chapman with the lowest pitch string in the center of the fretboard although some choose for a standard guitar setup with the lowest pitch string at the top.

Trey Gunn is the most notable Prog Rock player.

Trey Gunn playing the Warr Guitar

A similar instrument is the NS/Stick designed in collaboration by Chapman and Ned Steinberger (yes, the one from the headless basses and guitars), with 8 strings.

Don Schiff from the Rocket Scientists playing an NS/Stick

PAT METHENY’s PIKASSO GUITAR

Another unique and curious string instrument is the Pikasso guitar made by luthier Linda Manzer for Pat Metheny. It has 42 strings. The main 6-string neck is used to play the background chords by tapping (it can control his Synclavier to produce keyboard-like or other sounds) and the melodies are played by plucking other strings as in a harp.

Pat Metheny’s Pikasso guitar

PAT METHENY's ORCHESTRION

Always an experimenter, Metheny's most ambitious project to date is probably the Orchestrion. His fascination for mechanical instruments started as a kid with his grandfather's player piano, and the Orchestrion is the culmination of this fascination. It consists of a huge array of instruments which play mechanically driven by solenoids triggered by Metheny's playing on the guitar and loops / sequencers. So it's a one-man orchestra with which Metheny alone can play complete multi-intrument musical pieces in real time.

It includes piano, marimba, vibraphone, bass, drums, cymbals and various percussion instruments, blown bottles... He recorded the Orchestrion album with it in 2010 and more impressively he dared to tour live with it, with great success.

Pat Metheny with his Orchestrion

ACOUSTIC DRUMS AND PERCUSSIONS

There’s not much to say about traditional acoustic drum kits and percussions except that in 1970’s Prog, size did matter. Again the ‘more is better’ philosophy seemed to call for a race for which drummer would have the biggest and most spectacular drum kit. As usual in Prog though, the great thing is that drummers did really take their skills to the limit to use effectively all those elements (unlike other music styles where sometimes a huge drum kit was present but hardly taken advantage of).

Double bass drums, more than one snare for different nuances, lots of toms, floor toms and cymbals were the norm. Drummers frequently complemented their drum kits with assorted percusssions, chimes, tubular bells, cowbells, gongs, bells, xylophones or glockenspiels…

Up to the present many manufacturers have made good drums but in the 1970’s the most appreciated brands were probably Ludwig, Tama, Pearl and Premier.

Regarding cymbals Paiste, Zildjian and Sabian were the most common.

One of Terry Bozzio’s drum kits (notice the bass drum pedals)

Mike Portnoy with one of his kits

Neil Peart with one of his kits

CARL PALMER’s STAINLESS STEEL DRUM KIT

It’s not the purpose here to go into any detail about particular drum kits, but if one deserves mention is Carl Palmer’s 1973 rotating custom drum kit made of stainless steel (its construction was sponsored by British Steel). The drum shells were of half-inch thick steel sheet and he asked jeweler Paul Raven to manually carve drawings on them using a dentist drill. It featured also the bell on its top which he famously played by pulling the rope with his teeth. The whole thing weighted 2.5 tons and several stages had to be reinforced to hold its weight and in some cases gigs had to be cancelled altogether. Although it was an acoustic kit it included a synthesizer processing the sound from the microphones (the famous effects in the Toccata solo), effectively making it the first electronic drum kit. He didn’t use it for long.

Carl Palmer’s stainless steel drum kit

THE ROTOTOMS

Rototoms (also spelled Roto Toms) are toms consisting only of a drum head held by a circular frame, without shell. Modern Rototoms were first marketed by Remo although the idea is derived from mechanisms applied to bongos and symphonic drums since as early as the 1920’s. The characteristic idea behind Rototoms is quick and precise tuning for melodic percussion. Normal tom heads need tuning by adjusting several tuning bolts in the perimeter of the frame (the number of bolts depending on the tom brand and diameter but typically around 6) and this makes precise melodic / chromatic tuning cumbersome and time-consuming. Rototoms on the other hand are mounted on a threaded central bolt and tuning is adjusted by simply turning the tom frame clockwise or counter-clockwise. This allows very easy and fast precise tuning. The sound of the Rototoms is not deep but rather trebble and percussive, ideal for starting a long fill and then switching to normal lower-pitch toms.

Bill Bruford was an early embracer but many other drummers have used them.

Rototoms in Bill Bruford’s kit

THE TAMA OCTOBAN TOMS

Tama released the Octoban toms in 1978 and although the name is Tama trademark the term Octoban has become generically used for this kind of toms, although they are also sometimes called tube-toms, quarter toms or Rata Toms which is the trademark from another manufacturer DW Drums.

They are deep shell, single-headed toms where the pitch variation comes from change in shell length instead of from change in shell diameter. The diameter is fixed and small (150 mm in the original Tama model).

The term Octoban makes reference to ‘eight’ and ‘octave’ since the original Tama Octobans range consist of a set of 8 different shell lenghts ranging from 280 to 600 mm tuned melodically covering one octave range (frequently drummers installed only 2 or 4 of them in their kits).

Simon Phillips, Bill Bruford or Stewart Copeland have used them frequently.

The complete set of 8 Octobans

Octobans in Stewart Copeland's kit

ELECTRONIC DRUMS

Although some purists may despise electronic drums, they offered a path for innovation in the 1980’s and several great Prog drummers have made excellent use of them including Neil Peart, Bill Bruford, Nick Mason or Phil Collins.

The first commercial electronic drum kit was the Simmons SDS-5 released in 1980, famous for the hexagonal shape of its drums which allowed positioning them in a honeycomb pattern, and Simmons continued releasing upgraded versions until its demise in the late 1990’s when mostly Roland (and to a much lesser extent Yamaha) took over the electronic drums market. A main problem of Simmons drums was that the response of the heads to the drummer’s sticks did not feel natural compared to acoustic drumheads, causing many drummers to not feel entirely comfortable and getting fatigue.

Roland released its first electronic drums called ‘Compact Drum System’ in 1992 and although technically superior to the Simmons in many respects, they still suffered from uncomfortable feedback from the heads to the drummer’s hands. Roland understood that this was the main problem for real success and set out to cooperate with Remo, the top manufacturer of acoustic drum heads, to find a solution. Together they developed a new head material they called ‘mesh drumhead’ which among other properties could be tensioned in the way traditional acoustic heads are tuned but without affecting the pitch, just in order to adjust the feedback to the drummer’s preference. This plus further innovations in the electronics culminated in the V-Drums of 1997. Since then Roland V-Drums have become the most popular electronic drums.

Originally the electronic cymbal sounds were rather poor and even today many professional drummers still use acoustic cymbals even when playing electronic drums, but the sound quality of electronic cymbals has improved a lot and is now fairly realistic.

Drummers who have tastefully integrated acoustic and electronic drums include Bill Bruford, Neil Peart or Nick Mason, sometimes having rotating kits which depending on the orientation are mostly an acoustic kit or mostly an electronic kit.

Simmons Drums in Bill Bruford’s kit

Neil Peart’s kit in the Hold Your Fire period, combining Ludwig acoustic and Simmons electronic drums

OTHER DRUMS

Perhaps worth a short mention is Led Zeppelin John Bonham’s Ludwig ‘Vistalite’ amber translucent kit, one of the first with the shells made of translucent plastic rather than wood or metal (or opaque fiberglass such as the Fibes). The Vistalites were released in 1972 (Fibes would also release their translucent or transparent version ‘Crystalite’ in 1977). Jethro Tull’s Barriemore Barlow had also a Ludwig Vistalite kit, in his case a blue one.

John Bonham’s Ludwig amber ‘Vistalite’ kit

Barriemore Barlow and his blue Vistalite kit

A quirky percussion element were the North drums first released in 1972, with the tom shells made of fiberglass and fitted with a single head. The toms and floor toms had a horn shape with the mouth directed to the front, the idea was to focus the sound projection towards the audience, and indeed these drums sounded very loud to the audience in front of the stage. However this characteristic was probably not too important in the professional world where drum kits were amplified anyway, and on the negative side their sound was not to everyone’s taste (someone described them as sounding like ‘banging on a big Tupperware’) and they were not easy for the sound techs to mic and mix.

Billy Cobham and Yes Alan White used them shortly but North drums never achieved much success, although a similar concept carried on in the Staccato drums released in 1977 and still in production, albeit also with little commercial success.

Yes Alan White’s kit in the 1978 Tormato tour, featuring two red North toms

Billy Cobham pictured with some North toms

A Staccato drum kit

Another very special drum kit was the one played by Utopia’s Willie Wilcox around 1980 and nicknamed ‘Trapparatus’. It was a sort of ‘drumming capsule’ mounted on a frame and with Willie sitting in a car-style seat with his feet leaning forward. The bass drum and toms were very small and triggered electronic drum sounds. In some version he added a sort of exhaust pipes resulting in the whole kit resembling a custom motorbike.

Willie Wilcox and his ‘Trapparatus’ drum kit