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By the late 1960s and 1970s, solid-state electronics made analog synthesizers more inexpensive and practical, and Robert Moog in particular developed a series of synthesizers which had keyboards as interfaces and began to attract the attention of musicians. A breakthrough occurred in 1968 when Walter Carlos released ''Switched-on Bach,'' an LP of Bach piece which he "realized" on a specially-built Moog synthesizer. These synthesizers were still not performance instruments; they could only play one part at a time, and Carlos had to assemble his pieces on a multitrack recorder. The genuinely musical quality of his "realizations" took the synthesizer out of the realm of a novelty or a source of sound effects (like the [[Theremin]]) and touched off a wave of synthesizer use.
By the late 1960s and 1970s, solid-state electronics made analog synthesizers more inexpensive and practical, and Robert Moog in particular developed a series of synthesizers which had keyboards as interfaces and began to attract the attention of musicians. A breakthrough occurred in 1968 when Walter Carlos released ''Switched-on Bach,'' an LP of Bach piece which he "realized" on a specially-built Moog synthesizer. These synthesizers were still not performance instruments; they could only play one part at a time, and Carlos had to assemble his pieces on a multitrack recorder. The genuinely musical quality of his "realizations" took the synthesizer out of the realm of a novelty or a source of sound effects (like the [[Theremin]]) and touched off a wave of synthesizer use.
By the 1990s, digital electronics made it possible for synthesizers to be performance instruments, playing chords and supplying effect such as vibrato in real time. Improved synthesis algorithms and the use of "sampled" sounds recorded from real instruments made it possible for synthesizers to produce not only electronic sounds but extremely convincing imitatations of traditional instrument sounds. In performances of works such as musical comedies and operettas, a sole synthesizer player could produce a tolerable rendition of the score all by himself; not as good as a real 15-piece pit band, of course, but far better than a pianist playing a "piano reduction" of the score.
==Notes and references==
==Notes and references==