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Synth Icons
🎹 Synth Icons is the podcast where legendary keyboards come back to life. Hosted by producer and synth expert Andy Whitmore, each episode dives into the world’s most iconic synthesizers — from the lush analog power of the Yamaha CS-80, to the digital sparkle of the DX7, to the unmistakable sounds of the Korg M1.
Andy recreates famous riffs, compares hardware to modern software emulations, and reveals the stories, sounds, and production secrets behind the instruments that shaped pop, film, and electronic music.
If you're a synth enthusiast, a producer, or just love classic hits, Synth Icons lets you hear the legends for yourself.
👉 Follow for more synth deep-dives, blind tests, and studio stories.
🎧 Watch the full video versions on YouTube → @AndyWhitmore
Synth Icons
Roland JD-800: Iconic Riffs You Know (But Didn’t Know Were JD-800)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Iconic JD-800 riffs you know—Faithless, Prodigy, Depeche Mode, Prince, Genesis—plus hardware vs plug-in A/B comparisons and patches programmed from scratch.
Take a tour through the punchy, glossy world of the Roland JD-800 with a stack of iconic riffs and signature hooks you’ve definitely heard before… but maybe didn’t realise were JD-800.
You’ll hear Faithless, The Prodigy, Depeche Mode, Prince, Genesis—plus a few deeper cuts. For this episode I programmed most of the sounds from scratch (very few factory presets). My original JD-800 is working great, but the YES/NO buttons are dead, so I can’t easily tweak/save lots of edits on the hardware.
To solve that, I built many parts using a JD-800 plug-in that sounds scarily close to the real thing. And where the track uses a factory preset (unedited), I play it on both so you can compare hardware vs plug-in.
Question for you: Which riff surprised you most—and can you hear a difference in the A/B tests?
🎧 More Synth Icons episodes:
· Hohner Clavinet D6 – Famous Riffs You Instantly Know
· Roland Jupiter-4 – Famous Riffs You Know (But Didn’t Realise Were Jupiter-4)
· Korg M1 – Famous Riffs You Know (But Didn’t Realise Were M1)
🔧 Work with Andy
· Production, mixing & mastering: https://www.andywhitmore.com/
· Studio: https://greystokestudio.com/
📲 Connect with Andy
· YouTube: @AndyWhitmore
· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andywhitmore2014/
· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndyWhitmoreMusic
· TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andywhitmore9583