I blame coke, boredom, and the 1980s for the crappy examples. Synthesizers are awesome, I don't even know where to begin: krautrock, Berlin Bowie, post punk, minimal/darkwave/early industrial/etc. I'm not a big techno/house/ambient person but it's just as musically valid as some dumbass playing barre chords. NC, zero waffles.

I am unabashed and unrepentant in this statement:

Carouselambra is my favorite Led Zeppelin song.

jason_from_volo wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 6:58 am A short list of bands/artists to which this has happened: The Who

Some of their best work was made when they were incorporating synthesisers.

Can you imagine Baba O' Reilly or Won't Get Fooled Again without those little sequenced arpeggios and whatnot? Wouldn't be half as epic.

The first Killing Joke album alone merits a vote of NOT CRAP. Major waffles for the 1980s, especially the EEEURRRROOOOOOEERRREEREEWWW sound in "dramatic" synthesizer parts.

Is this just about synths in general? Or rock bands dabbling in them?

Synths are absolutely NC.

Rock bands dabbling in them? Eh, certainly depends on the results. Plenty of good and bad examples.

There have definitely been a lot of rock records where it's cheesy and doesn't really add anything (granted generally their music has been crap as well). Worse though than the occasional Europe or whatever are fusion bands. Man that whole sphere must be responsible for more dumbshit music than any other.

Synths are a hard not crap. Playing them badly is crap, but playing guitar like crap is crap too. Synths rule.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgNo5Smino

Synths and keyboards in rock music, generally better when worked into the music, if you will, than laid on top of of it.

Hope that doesn't sound too didactic/headmaster-y or nebulous.

I vote Not Crap, but it's a case by case sort of thing.

jason_from_volo wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 4:33 pmI remember hearing and/or reading about more than one band in the early '80s finishing a recording only to find out later that their "producer" had added a bunch of synths to it.

I don't envy those bands, if their music was good enough in the first place. But there's a seventies band from New Zealand that I like a lot called Golden Harvest; get the feeling their producer(s) reigned them in a good deal so as to make potential chart hits as there were some Moog parts added (tastefully) to several of their songs in the studio, that might not have been part of their live act, and they sound killer. In that case at least, I'd chalk it up as a win.

Synths > banjos

NOT CRAP