The Sound Board

"One of the rarest electronic musical instruments on the planet, the NEDC Synclavier performance instrument was the first all-digital instrument to reach commercial production. Production stopped at Serial #13, however, before the much more famous Synclavier II was introduced. The earlier model featured FM synthesis which was previously only heard in labs, notably at Stanford University, long before Yamaha introduced their DX line of synthesizers. It also had 4 outputs for surround sound applications and a whopping 140 dB dynamic range per channel. The distinct raw sound was in part due to the lack of an anti-alias filter. This means you could hear some alias frequencies and artifacts, particularly on low notes.

With more than 1350 samples, root-sounds brings you the original factory presets, plus an assortment of extra sounds that were custom programmed or taken from various compositions and processed so they can be used in a variety of musical applications. In the Kontakt version, these can be further tweaked with filter and envelope controls. All presets in the Kontakt version also have four optional effects to give the sounds more depth."

For only $19.00, you get a taste of the Synclavier in the shape of Root-Sounds' sample library for Kontakt and the Logic EXS format.

there goes $19, no way I could pass this up, even if I never find a musical use - I am fascinated by early workstations like the Synclavier, Fairlight, and Waveframe.

If I'm honest it's the hardware that fascinates with this era more than the sounds, at least for me. One bit of kit that I think has never been sampled or emulated is the MCS Drum Computer MK1, used by the Eurythmics, Thomas Dolby etc - I believe there's only 2 working today. Look at it, a drum machine right out of Terry Gilliam's Brazil:

I am equally fascinated by both the hardware and software - and I left of PARIS... oops