In this video, I visit and talk with former New England Digital Synclavier Product Specialist Kevin Maloney while surrounded by his two Synclavier Digital Music Systems.
Together, we present a complete history of the Synclavier with a stories and examples of how we used it on some massive hit records and films.
First, we listen to a track on the the original blue vinyl record titled
"The Incredible Sounds of the Synclavier II Demonstration Record"
that was the original source sound for the intro to Michael Jackson's "Beat It".Kevin's talks about sitting next to Michael while working on the Bad" album.He'll show us a complete breakdown of the components that make up the "Smooth Criminal" bass sound and a recreation of the sampled drum part.Then you'll see, in real time, how Synclavier's unique sequencer can drastically and quickly manipulate (or even transform) the recreated "Smooth Criminal" track.Kevin tells us how he worked closely with producer Quincy Jones to create the intro to "We Are the World". Quincy wasn't satisfied with silver bells, so Kevin turned silver bells into gold bells. Quincy said, he wanted to “send out bells to call all the people of the world to come and hear this song”. We delve into the Synclavier's one-of-a-kind ability to analyze samples (recordings of instruments or sounds) in order to create a series of short frames that each consist of a static wavetable. By cross fading the frames the user is able to recreate the complexity of a sample with a synthesizer sound. This process is called Resynthesis. The user is now able to manipulate the synthesizer sound in many more ways than can ever be done with a sample. We then heavily distort some vocal sounds that were generated using Resynthesis to show the level of control that is possible. We take a look at some preset sampled sounds from the original Synclavier Orchestral library including the string sounds used by Mark Knopfler in Rob Reiner's "The Princess Bride". Anthony talks about how he created a flute sound generated from Resynthesis and later used it to perform practically every cue in the film "Stand by Me" which is another Rob Reiner hit. We take you through the evolution of the Synclavier that includes: The Synclavier I, the Synclavier II with it's original keyboard, the addition of the velocity and polyphonic keyboard, The expanded track sequencer, the addition of more buttons and secondary functions accessed by double clicking the buttons to send them into "blinking mode". BTW - These buttons were originally designed for the B-52 bomber.
We cover MIDI, SMPTE, polyphonic sampling voices and more memory (at a cost of $4500 per megabyte) that were available to add to your system.
We highlight the reason why the Synclavier cost so much and how New England Digital managed to integrate cutting edge 3rd party technology that all worked perfectly together in one unified music system. Finally we review the far more accessible versions of the Synclavier like the Synclavier V by Arturia, Synclavier Go! and Synclavier Pocket! and the most recent addition to the family - Synclavier Regen which actually has unlimited FM synthesis and sampler voices along with the long awaited... resonant Multimode FILTERS!!! The evolution of Synclavier is filled with a plethora of breath-taking features that were nowhere to be found on any other single instrument and it includes a discography of legendary proportion. It's also a history that's deeply personal to me because it ran parallel with my evolution as a composer, songwriter, arranger and programmer. The Synclavier is alive and well in 2023!

00:00 Introduction
00:55 "The Incredible Sounds of the Synclavier II" Demonstration Record
06:42 "Smooth Criminal"
17:25 "We Are the World"
31:30 Resynthesis
34:08 "The Princess Bride".
37:14 Early Evolution of the Synclavier
41:14 Synclavier Additional Features (MIDI, SMPTE, polyphonic sampling voices and more memory)
42:38 Reason for Synclavier's High Cost
44:19 Later Version of the Synclavier
49:45 Conclusion
51:30 Thank You

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