Early Prog music without synthesizers?

zravkapt wrote: SteveG wrote: JD wrote: I have to admit that I'm surprised by the number of prog albums and groups that did not use synths when they were actually availabe and were able to make all this exceptional music. $$$ talks. If you can't afford a Porsche then you are not going to drive one to work. Whatever prog bands who wanted to use synth tech only did so when they could afford it; the same way some bands used a Mellotron instead of hiring a whole orchestra. In some cases, as in the first Gentle Giant album, a synth will be used on the studio albums (because the studio had one) but the band would not perform live with one (because they didn't own one). So, GG wanted to experiment with synth tech from the get-go but could only afford to tour with a synth in the mid-70s.

Wise words Z and definitely true in the case of many bands.

Michael678 wrote: 70's Queen... don't know about you but definitely for me, period.

It was personally hard for me to ignore a band of Queen's talent regardless of how campy I felt they were at times. Early Queen without Synths produced magic.

richardh wrote: What about Deep Purple? I'm not sure Jon Lord used synths , perhaps he did but nothing springs to mind.

I'm not sure R, but he may have used some in the studio, especialy in the 80s. A few songs sound like like he did to a small extent.

Led Zeppelin's "Song Remains the Same" off Houses of the Holy is "prog rock" disguised as hard rock...Even "Four Sticks" from IV  unless you have to have a keyboard to be "prog rock"  in which case the question is circular.

As a guitarist,  I find Jimmy Page to have probably been the first high-profile rock guitarist to write prog rock without keyboards. I'm sure many people here will disagree...but from a harmonic and rhythmic point of view, I don't see much difference in these two songs from a lot of early 70s prog rock.

SteveG wrote: HackettFan wrote: Genesis' Trespass had no synthesizer and no mellotron. Organs and 12-strings can create big sounds. Organs have quite a range of timbre. Guitars can create all sorts of sounds that do not sound like guitar. Very simple filtering can make a guitar sound like some classic synth sounds. Effects pedals were coming out at the time, and they would simply have been relied upon (even more) without mellotrons and synths and some more fringe effects like ring modulation would have been more thoroughly explored. Use of the e-bow would have been more extensive. Multiple chorus and reverb and delay pedals would have been used to thicken the sound. Great response HF, but were these guitar pedals and effects available at that time or did they come about a little later?

Thank you. Filtering in the form of wah wah pedals was first employed on record by Frank Zappa, if I remember correctly, on his first record, Freak Out. The energy bow (e-bow) was invented in 1969, not bad timing for Prog. Reverb was built into amplifiers starting in the 1950s. This was of course the slap back version of reverb. I'm not certain when the modern "room" or "hall" reverbs came out. Chorus effect pedals came along, if I recall, in 1968. Ring modulation goes back to the 1950s (or maybe the 40s ?). Stockhausen used it in a composition sometime in the 50s. Ring modulation was also used in Dr. Who in the early 60s. Ring mod pedals were available in the Prog era, although they were never a popular item.

There were other pedals available throughout the Prog era that I hadn't mentioned as well (e.g. distortion pedals and octave dividers, phase shifters, and flangers). Nothing digital. Everything was analog. Anyone familiar with effects knows that it's not just individual effects themselves that are really special, but the odd combinations thereof that make things really interesting. They were not just for guitarists. Tony Banks was known to use effects to extend the sounds of his organ.


Edited by HackettFan - July 14 2014 at 23:35