LCD Soundsystem are an electronic dance-punk group hailing from New York, and their use of synthesizers is unique. Frontman James Murphy is the bands driving force, playing every instrument on their single Daft Punk Is Playing at My House, and the bands synth duties are handled by Murphy and longtime member Nancy Whang. The band have a huge list of gear, and the footnotes for the their 2017 album American Dream listed a Yamaha CS60, Roland SH-101 and System 100m, an EMS Synthi AKS, Korg MS-20 and Trident, and the ARP Odyssey and Omni III as synths used on the album. Quite a collection! Frontman James Murphy has also scored two movies, Greenberg and While We’re Young, both for director Noah Baumbach, and these are worth checking out as they feature plenty of nostalgic synth sounds.

The band are particularly fond of loud, driven bass sounds, usually played in a percussive way with long release times to help notes flow, like plucking a guitar. Most of these are likely from the Roland System 100m, a modular synth with the ability to pick-and-choose modules to craft custom sounds. Although the particular synths that LCD Soundsystem use on their records has a big influence on the sound, the principals behind the sounds can be applied to any synth. I’ll look at their sounds song-by-song and use the software plugin Arturia Mini V, which is a software emulation of the Minimoog. Despite its familiar looking interface, Mini V has lots of advanced capabilities hidden under the hood, allowing it to create a huge range of sounds.