Synthesizer Evolution: From Analogue to Digital and Back

Fascinating book for a synth enthusiast, made a great gift, on time in spotless condition

It’s not comprehensive and in no way will ever outclass Pete Forrest seminal work the A-Z of Analogue Synthesizers,but gives you a major run down of most synths drum machines and samplers. The drawings are terrible but I guess it saves money on photos.

Pretty much everything you could want to know about synthesizers in one book! I really liked the hand drawn illustrations and little-known (to me) facts about the individual synths. A beautifully produced book.

If you need an incomplete list of electronic musical instruments, containing typos like "Roland MKS-1000" or errors saying "Roland/Rogers W-50 is a sample playback version of the W-30", go and buy it. Otherwise, consider other books or info from the Web.

Interesting to see the product evolution of the well-known manufacturers but also learn about more obscure ones.

The book arrived in very poor condition but as I had bought it to give as a gift it wasn't possible to return it for a replacement

Saw a few reviews saying the drawings weren’t very good and photos would be better, however I disagree. I bought this as a gift for someone so can’t comment on all the content, but I did look to see the ‘terrible’ drawings and found them actually very charming.

Great ressource for omeone who loves synths like I do!!

Belisimo

First, let me say that I am really happy to have this book in my collection. With that out of the way, here's a little bit about what you should expect from this book - starting with what it isn't...This book IS NOT a comprehensive guide to every synth that has ever been produced. It does not provide a lot of details, it provides no photographs whatsoever, and it is not by any means comprehensive - even for the synths that it does cover. In other words, it is not intended to be an encyclopedia of synthesizers. There are other great resources that serve that purpose, including The A-Z of Analogue Synthesizers by Peter Forrest (currently out of print), or the very comprehensive (and very free) Vintage Synth Explorer website.Instead, what I think this book IS intended to be is a collection of hand drawn sketches of some of the most influential synthesizers ever made. It covers the years from 1963 through 1995, and, in that way, does a really good job of including most every major synth that I can think of that was made within this time period. The information it provides for each synth is very basic - mostly limited to the make, model, year of manufacture, and overall synth architecture (i.e. number of voices, type of synthesis, type of oscillators, etc.). But, honestly, focusing on any of that doesn't really seem to be the point, because, as I said earlier, I don't believe this is meant to be a synth encyclopedia. Instead, I think this book is meant to be a passion project. The author took the time to make a list of every major synth ever made, and sketch each one by hand. That's what is being shared. And that's what I like most about this book. Don't get me wrong - it's not for everyone. But if you love synths and you can appreciate the time and effort that went into making this book, then you likely won't be disappointed.Is it a bit overpriced? If you buy it for the list of synths, then, yes, it is overpriced. But if you buy it as a collection of art and as the passion project that I think it was meant to be, then, like me, you'll probably feel that it was a pretty good purchase. Of course, that means the audience for this book is going to be fairly small - limited mostly to those die-hard synth enthusiasts and collectors who would absolutely love to have something like this on their bookshelves. And I have to say that, without the ability to take a peek beneath the cover, I expect there will be more than a few disappointed buyers here. But, for whatever it's worth, I don't happen to be one of them.

I paid for a “new” product, but when it arrived it was used and all dirty.

I wasn't sure what to expect but I love this book. It's more of a very brief synopsis of many classic synthesizers, samplers and drum machines organized chronologically by brand. There are a few omissions here and there, but it's surprisingly complete.Each device features a cool and artistic (vs. an actual photograph) rendition of each unit with the brief explanation.It's kind of like a bird-watching or trainspotting book for synth nerds. If you collect such things, it's a great book.If you are looking for more fancy pictures and stories, definitely get Mark Vail's book, Vintage Synthesizers. It may be older now, but vintage synths are still vintage synths.