Sleeve notes
For anyone old enough to remember cassettes, CDs and vinyl, and thankfully vinyl's made its comeback, there used to be so much worth reading on the sleeve and inside the case. These are the sleeve notes I find interesting. Top tens, odd stories, things I went and looked up.
History
A short history of the synthesiser
From a 200-tonne dynamo to motorised knobs: the synths that changed things, in date order, with what each one added and what the jargon (voltage control, FM, wavetables, virtual analogue) actually means.
21 instruments
Listening
30 famous synth hooks and the synths that played them
From 'Jump' to 'Thriller' to 'Levels': the synth parts everyone knows, the instrument behind each one, where it sits in synth history and which plug-ins and keyboards get you the sound today.
29 to listen6 instruments
People
The people who invented the synthesiser
Profiles of the engineers behind the instruments: Moog, Buchla, Oberheim, Dave Smith, Kakehashi, Chowning and more. Who they were, what they built, and what we still use because of them.
15 instruments18 people
People
Forty players who shaped the sound
Ten each in bass, piano, synth and keys, and production: the session musicians, sidemen and producers behind records you already know, what they actually played, and what you can hear.
10 instruments40 people
Listening
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a Rhodes?
How to tell a Rhodes from a Wurlitzer, a clavinet from a guitar and a Hammond from a Vox or a Farfisa by ear: what each one sounds like, what to listen for, and the songs and players that made them famous.
31 to listen9 instruments
History
The Rhodes story: from a hospital bed to the MK8
How a piano teacher's lap instrument for wounded airmen became the electric piano on half the records of the 1970s, lost its name, got it back and came home as the MK8: every Rhodes model in order, how the tines make the sound, and where to hear it.
28 instruments
Instrument story
The DX7: the sound of the eighties
Yamaha's DX7 put FM synthesis into a keyboard most bands could afford in 1983, and its presets ended up on a remarkable share of the decade's hits. How it came about, why nobody could program it, and eleven records to hear it on.
11 to listen8 instruments
Songwriting
10 songs you might not know who wrote
From 'Thriller' to 'Umbrella': the songwriters behind records you know by heart and the musicians hiding in the credits.
15 to listen4 instruments
Songwriting
Covers that buried the original
Ten songs where the famous version is not the first one: who had it first, who took it over and what changed in between. Both recordings on every card, so you can hear what the cover did.
27 to listen6 instruments
Looking for the other sort of reading? Guides — how-tos that join the dots between categories: what to buy, how it plugs together and what goes wrong.