The closest analogue I could think of is Roland’s habit of doing something similar with drum machines and I guess some editing desks and keyboards do this a bit. But I’ve never seen anything this extreme.
So to answer R.D.’s question in part, here’s a list of colorful synthesizers I found, none quite approaching the extreme and some doing a better job than others. I think a large part of the problem is having to do such a tasteful job so your equipment doesn’t look like a Fisher-Price play set (more on this later). I did this because over the last few weeks I’ve been trolling vintagesynth.com anyway. Might as well do the job right and read them all, eh?
Arp Quadra
Buchla 200 & the modern day Buchla 200e. Visit Buchla.com to see exactly how much craziness you can actually get up to in building one of these things. I want that touch-board-thing pattern tattooed on me now. They also need a new web designer. 2 massive image homepage? Hello 1997! Also of note is their historical section, which has the well colorful 500 series (hybrid synth / minicomputer) and the truly whack ass Music Easel
Buchla Touche -- if you find one for sale, buy it. Only four were ever made, and apparently sound amazing.
Chimera Synthesis bC16
Con Brio ADS 200 This reportedly sold for $30k, and only two were made. It looks like you could fly a spaceship with it.
This one isn’t here for the color, it’s here for the sheer sci-fi weirdness of its construction. Similar circular layouts have been implemented on Buchla and other modular systems, but this is fairly unique despite being a re-implementation of the venerable Roland TB-303.
Korg KP3 (Kaoss Pad)
Moog Source
Roland CR-78 CompuRhythm
Roland Jupiter 8
Roland SH-1000 & its boring cousin Roland SH-2000
Yamaha CS-50 & Yamaha CS-60 & Yamaha CS-80
Yamaha SU-700 Loop Factory
Yamaha SY-1 / SY-2 Yamaha’s first keyboard synth!
And now as for why we fear color in our instrumentation?
There were a few more with a little color here and there, but not worth mentioning. I viewed perhaps hundreds of synths in the past couple days coming up with this list. The verdict? Most are highly derivative. And adding color will either make an outstanding product, or make it stand out like a sore thumb. My Alesis Micron has some nice color, and just by luck matches its red with my Edirol breakout box AND the anodized metal trim of my mousepad. Too much color and you’d run the risk of clashing with something else in the studio/on stage. In 2010 it helps that everything was designed to match a specific theme. With disparate gear you’re not going to come across that, so monochrome is the safest bet. It’s also hard to match up colors to ideas -- it would be neat, for instance, to have all your VCA controls be red, the VCF be green, VCOs blue & so on, on a monster synth with a ton of knobs, so you could reach for sections by color at a glance… but with all the aforementioned potential aesthetic issues, it’s better to just know via muscle memory and long habit where to reach.
And just to prove that this art isn’t totally lost one in these modern times, just not very desirable for some reason, there is this brand-new Rane mixer with some colorful buttons. But, of course, the buttons are small and unobtrusive, and the rest of the instrument is basic club black.
There’s also this awesome thing my BFF bought me as a wedding gift, the Akai APC-40, with appropriate sci-fi drone intro. It’s pretty colorful, but the button colors change to indicate multiple states which is awesome. Otherwise, if they were just static colors, there would be no real point other than grouping.
And now for where I explain why we didn’t see control panels like those in 2010 -- the lights. They burn out all the f-cking time. Nowdays you could get away with LED, but back then, they were power hogging, need-an-extra-shuttle-full-of-spares incandescents. I only know this because I utilize ancient electron microscopes at school and those friggen lights are ALWAYS burnt out. “Oh, the light on this button is out so you can’t tell if the valve is locked or not. You just have to remember pushed in is safe; pushed out isn’t and you open the chamber and you’re going to destroy the multi-thousand-dollar filament that is the heart of the system without which it will not work. GOOD LUCK!” There’s probably a small fortune to be made selling LEDs that fit into those bulb sockets.
I’ll leave you with a Buchla in action. Because the photos just don’t do those blinky, color-ridden sci-fi monsters any sort of justice. It is madness in motion (and apparently damn hard to wring non-sci-fi craziness tones out of it, I really had to dig to find something enjoyable to listen to as well as watch).
Tags: 2010, buchla, colorful interfaces, moog, roland, russell davies, synths, vintagesynth.com, yamaha