What are the most iconic "looking" (not sounding) keyboards?

[zukskywalker]

22 hours ago, Legatoboy said:

Note the knee-pedal-wah just under the right side of the lower case. Only farfisa and only on this model I think.

[bill bosco]

23 hours ago, Legatoboy said:

had one these , played it through 147 for a couple of years . bought myself my first Hammond in '72 , never touched the Compact again  , no fond memories

[ABECK]

1 hour ago, AnotherScott said:

To nitpick your comment, I'm not sure I'd see the DX7 as an iconic design. It's an iconic instrument, for sure, but I don't find anything so distinctive about its visual design. It's almost distinctive in its lack of distinctiveness. 

Funny, now I definitely see it as iconic.  The color scheme, the sleek profile, the membrane switches, the instructional graphics.  Much more so than the DX7-II, when they went to the pushbutton design.  It certainly defines a specific time, and in many cases, a specific sound.

[RABid]

12 hours ago, Synthaholic said:

I don't know about iconic, but I ran across this the other day. I couldn't find any identifiers as to what it was.

My cousin has a dual manual that I used to play when I was young. It is a pump organ. How fast you pedal can affect the overall volume to a limited amount. You always end up pumping to the rhythm of the song. Each pedal is a billow so there is no fast pumping like a bicycle.

[Floyd Tatum]

10 hours ago, 16251 said:

Interesting thread. I guess every keyboard is iconic. 

Threads just go off-topic.   You can try to keep 'em on-topic, but it's like trying to squeeze a wet fish with your wet bare hands 🙂.

[Legatoboy]

3 hours ago, bill bosco said:

had one these , played it through 147 for a couple of years . bought myself my first Hammond in '72 , never touched the Compact again  , no fond memories

Wanted one (Farfisa Combo Compact) badly but never owned one in '67, we played a lot of Doors material then ....eventually bought a more scaled down and cheaper GEM and ran that through a blackface Fender Bassman then to a Whitehall double manual through a 145 Leslie. And eventually, Ha! - A Hammond M3 into the 145..... In about a 3 1/2 year progression ....I know that progression well Bill.  I like playing piano over organ these days ... for a while now!  But I still dig the Hammond organ/Leslie and dig in often ..... 

[Spider76]

5 hours ago, kpl1228 said:

Iconic, not unique or interesting. I keep seeing those here.

Iconic: Vox Continental, Minimoog, DX7, all of the red Nords. Oh, and the Jupiter 8 with the brightly colored switches on the faceplate. So Iconic Roland used that look in its Jupiter re-dos.

Exactly.

As usual in these kind of threads, in a few pages every keyboard ever produced will be mentioned, but the truly iconic ones are just a very selected few: the ones with a striking, distinctive look, seen everywhere onstage and in videos, and maybe even recognizable by non-keyboard players (though this last criteria is not really important).

 

Microkorg surely is at the very top of the list together with Hammond, Rhodes, Vox,  Minimoog, Prophet, Juno, Jupiter, Mellotron...and of course the most iconic of them all: a big black shiny grand piano (the brand is totally irrelevant, nobody knows of Steinways or Yamahas or Bosendorfers outside our small circle)

[Paul Woodward]

Micro Korg wouldn’t have made my top 20 to be honest, but it certainly proves your point.

 

Now the MiniKorg….

[mate stubb]

8 hours ago, RABid said:

My cousin has a dual manual that I used to play when I was young. It is a pump organ. How fast you pedal can affect the overall volume to a limited amount. You always end up pumping to the rhythm of the song. Each pedal is a billow so there is no fast pumping like a bicycle.

 

We called them pump organs or reed organs, but harmonium is the correct name. They were in the parlors of many well to do households in the 1800s.

[David Emm]

49 minutes ago, mate stubb said:

 

We called them pump organs or reed organs, but harmonium is the correct name. They were in the parlors of many well to do households in the 1800s.

 

My grandmother had one of these, in fairly playable condition. Too bad it sounded like baboon ass. I generally like reedy instruments more than my fellow primates, but playing that thing made me feel like I was tormenting Clive Barker's idea of a cow. 😬

[DJkeys]

22 hours ago, bill bosco said:

had one these , played it through 147 for a couple of years . bought myself my first Hammond in '72 , never touched the Compact again  , no fond memories

Same here, mine was Gray-

 

-dj

[eric]

Cool thread! When I flash back in time to the time I was coming of age and learning about synthesizers (early '80s), I was drawn to the Roland brand, primarily having seen it in Nick Rhodes' rig and other MTV sightings. I was also very interested in the Fairlight, as the "unobtainable" keyboard of the time. This picture sums it up nicely and I remember being obsessed with getting a Roland keyboard at the time.

 

I remember the "poor man's Jupiter 8" was a Juno or JX...my HS girlfriend had a Juno 106 that she let me borrow and soon thereafter I got my first synth, the JX-8P. Years later, I had two different JP8 units that I carelessly let pass through my hands...I wish I'd kept one of them. I still have the JX-8P. There is something about the way the Roland logo looks on the back of the keyboard...and the Fairlight was just a sexy beast.

 

[mpn_user7629]

 

 

 

[kpl1228]

On 12/15/2023 at 1:07 PM, RABid said:

To me the blue pinstripe Oberheims just edge out the rainbow button's of the Jupiter 8. Whether it is an OB-Xa or a DMX, the look is class.

Agreed. Some guys go crazy if they see a classic Harley or an old red Ferrari: if I see or hear any old polysynth Oberheim from OB-X on I turn into a puddle of goo.

[StickMan393]

Iconic? Okay I'll play:
1. Grand Piano

2. Hammond Organ

3. Accordion

3. Minimoog

 

[Motif88]

On 12/16/2023 at 9:37 AM, Motif88 said:

 

I don’t get the “down” vote on an Oberheim 8 voice…did you own or play one and have a bad experience?

[Shamanzarek]

 The Mellotron Mark 2 is the most iconic model used by The Moody Blues, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones.

 

[AnotherScott]

8 hours ago, Shamanzarek said:

 The Mellotron Mark 2 is the most iconic model used by The Moody Blues, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones.

 

That models is not iconic *looking*, not so widely visually instantly recognizable. The Mellotron 400 (pictured 4 posts above yours) is the "iconic" mellotron, visually.

[Threadslayer]

9 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

The Mellotron 400 (pictured 4 posts above yours) is the "iconic" mellotron, visually.

Funny. In that stark white on black profile, it looks like something Mr. Spock would have played a Vulcan lullaby on.

[mate stubb]

1 hour ago, Threadslayer said:

Funny. In that stark white on black profile, it looks like something Mr. Spock would have played a Vulcan lullaby on.

 

Unfortunately, Spock was not a keyboard man.

 

 

Then again...

 

[Threadslayer]

You beat me to it by nanoseconds

[Spider76]

3 hours ago, Threadslayer said:

You beat me to it by nanoseconds

 

 

Which inevitably leads us to...

 

[Paul Woodward]

Where will it end?

[xp50player]

[RABid]

One more that I will mention without being too specific is a big beautiful black grand piano. Black is the iconic color for a grand. My NHT speakers are even "piano black".

[HammondDave]

Hammond B3 and Mellotron M400

 

 

[jerrythek]

On 12/20/2023 at 4:21 PM, Paul Woodward said:

Where will it end?

 

Here?

[Canoehead]

Since I started playing in bands in the 80s, what is iconic to me isn’t necessarily one keyboard.  For me it was racks full of 19” synth and sampler modules and effects units.

 

[LilyM]

Really?? I’m an outlier on this? The coolest looking keyboard ever. At my level it is rare I have the opportunity to sit at a real piano on stage. But the CP70 came close and in some ways was even cooler. Everything else, (whatever their own benefits), feels like a toy to me.

[BluesB3]

On 12/20/2023 at 8:09 AM, Threadslayer said:

Funny. In that stark white on black profile, it looks like something Mr. Spock would have played a Vulcan lullaby on.

I beg to differ.

 

The Enterprise would have most logically had a Hammond X-66 in the day room for Spock's off duty time.