EMS Synthi 100

Looking at our list of fave gear is heartening to see at least one instrument and company from the UK. It’s even more heartening when you consider that while many other classic names such as ARP, Oberheim & Sequential are in effect lost, Electronic Music Studios are still in business having graced our ears since the 1960s.

Anyone who has listened to any of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s output will have undoubtedly have heard the Synthi 100. However, while legend has it that the Dr Who theme tune contains sounds generated by the Synthi, it seems unlikely. The theme tune was created before the instrument was released and it’s likely the only real link between the program and the instrument is that it was used for incidental music in some episodes. It was however used extensively on the BBC series The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy though.

You won’t find too many users of this monster because there were very few made but Jack Dangers used it extensively on the Meat Beat Manifesto album R.U.O.K? Also Karlheinz Stockhausen also used it on ‘Sirius’ and ‘Zodiac’.



If you have any experience of EMS’ VCS3, if you think of the Synthi 100 as several VCS3 systems you’ll be halfway close to understanding it. It offered 12 Voltage Controlled Oscillators, 4 Lowpass filters, 4 Highpass filters, a three-track monophonic 256 Step Sequencer, a dual-manual keyboard each capable of playing duophonicaly, a 64 x 64 pin patchbay used to make the connection between the various modules. A Spring Reverb, limiters, envelopes and more. However, unlike the VCS3 which has the claim to fame as being the world’s first portable synthesizer, the Synthi 100 was anything but.

At nearly two meters long, it was more a piece of laboratory kit than a playable musical tool. Sure, it excelled at sound effects, complex textures and all manner of bleeps and beeps, but it’s not an instrument you’re going to turn on and play any Wakeman or Emerson solo with.

So why do we love it?

“When we did the opening to the Museum Of Synthesizer Technology one task I had was to run ahead of the cameraman and make sure all the instruments we were filming had a half-decent sound coming out of them. We had people like Rick Smith from Underworld talking about the ARP 2600 and setting up a basic sound, which he could then use as a springboard while talking to camera was easy. But I must have spent at least an hour trying to get the Synthi 100 to make a halfway decent noise and in the end I had to give up and admit defeat - It’s the first and last time a synth has ever got the better of me.”



“Thankfully the person we were filming, Matthias Becker, didn’t fare too much better, otherwise I’d have topped myself” Admits Dave, half-joking

“It takes time to get up and running with the beast but when you hear it being used by someone who really knows what they’re doing it’s just got a vintage depth to it that nothing else, except maybe the VCS3, has. It’s like being immediately transported back in time to the days of Raymond Scott’s fantastic contraptions and when the future was bright, nuclear, all the cool stuff would take place in space.”

Chris adds “I love the 60s honeycomb-style displays which scream old sci-fi and that it’s got its own oscilloscope. Also the sequencer display that shows the remaining memory is simply a pointer on a curved readout - brilliant. Everything about this synth says British and experimental with a capital M.”



For some cool EMS Synthi 100 tones check out the awesome site: www.tapelab.org



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