Ever since they arrived in popular music in the ’70s, synths have always seemed new and otherworldly. Bristling with strange knobs and controls and emitting weird electronic noises, many synths might seem more at home in the bridge of the Nebuchadnezzar than in your studio or bedroom.
Initially, musicians responded with horror at the arrival of these newfangled music-making machines, fearing being replaced entirely (a sentiment echoed in some of the scepticism surrounding AI’s role in music today).
