The Synclavier, developed by New England Digital between 1980 and 1984, is a digital synthesizer and music workstation known for its advanced capabilities and high-quality sound. It combined FM synthesis with additive synthesis, offering a wide range of tonal possibilities.
The Synclavier was one of the first digital synthesizers to provide extensive sampling capabilities and a built-in sequencer. The only competition in its time came from the Australian made Fairlight CMI. It was used by prominent artists such as Michael Jackson, Frank Zappa, and Stevie Wonder and has also been heard in music from The Cure, New Order, Pat Metheny, Sting, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, Genesis and many other.
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, 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 the third model, the most famous, included a full sized and weighted keyboard with velocity and aftertouch and 128 voices polyphony.
An optional DSP effects package including time compression/expansion was available 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. (Vintagesynth.com)
