Synthesizer

The mod wheel is broken on this synthesizer, but the pitch bend still works.

Dr. Hawking communicates with the aid of a speech synthesizer and a portable computer.

Pop music in the 1980's relied heavily on electronic synthesizers to create music and digitally mimic acoustic instruments. The instruments' sounds were all copied from recordings and later manipulated by the synthesizer. A little computing power can affect the pitch, the duration of a note and in some cases, its quality.