Pentagon is perfect for 70's type prog rock synthesis. It straight forward subtractive synthesis and it sounds great. For learning subtractive synthesis you can't do better than pick up a Roland Juno 6/60 or 106. Short of that get Tal's Uno LX. It's a fantastic emulation of a Juno 60. Just twiddle the knobs, deconstruct a few presets and you're good to go.

I posted a thread a while back about wanting some Moog-y goodness for certain things. Pentagon was mentioned multiple times (IIRC).
 
I enjoy watching dudes go nuts on old analog synths (and maybe I'll see if I can dig up a live version of Edgar Winters Group going crazy on Frankenstein live if it hasn't been yanked from youtube for copyright issues).
 
To me that is (or was) all magic and evil wizard stuff. Learning a bit about the concepts and how the sounds are acheived is still confusing but I think I can get it. That interface that mimics old school hardware is probably harder to deal with than more visual synths like Zeta and Rapture and likely more limited tonally BUT in other ways maybe simpler and better for building up sounds with my minds eye and getting a better grasp on tone bending terms and procedures.
 
IDK... now I wanna listen to Frankenstein. lol

Here we go...
 
Edgar Winters Group, Frankenstein Live...
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8f-Qb-bwlU
 
 
 

I was 11 years old when I saw Frankenstein played live late Friday night on TV. It was Don Kershner's In Concert or something like that. I'll never forget it. My 11 year old brain could not believe it possible what I was seeing. He was so cool, so beyond genius; I seriously debated the possibility Edgar might be an actual wizard. Lol

Beepster
I posted a thread a while back about wanting some Moog-y goodness for certain things. Pentagon was mentioned multiple times (IIRC).
 
I enjoy watching dudes go nuts on old analog synths (and maybe I'll see if I can dig up a live version of Edgar Winters Group going crazy on Frankenstein live if it hasn't been yanked from youtube for copyright issues).
 
To me that is (or was) all magic and evil wizard stuff. Learning a bit about the concepts and how the sounds are acheived is still confusing but I think I can get it. That interface that mimics old school hardware is probably harder to deal with than more visual synths like Zeta and Rapture and likely more limited tonally BUT in other ways maybe simpler and better for building up sounds with my minds eye and getting a better grasp on tone bending terms and procedures.
 
IDK... now I wanna listen to Frankenstein. lol

You want Moog than its got to be the Moog Modular V by Artutria. It is fantastic! 

There are some pretty nice Moog presets for Rapture. I like GForce's Minimonsta, that said I believe Edgar is playing an ARP 2600 in the video and on the record. GForce makes a nice Odyssey synth too.

Leonard
I was 11 years old when I saw Frankenstein played live late Friday night on TV. It was Don Kershner's In Concert or something like that. I'll never forget it. My 11 year old brain could not believe it possible what I was seeing. He was so cool, so beyond genius; I seriously debated the possibility Edgar might be an actual wizard. Lol

Hehehe... same here.      Not sure what I age I was at the time, but probably similar (52 now).
 
It's one of those things one never forgets.  It was so cool watching him go from instrument to instrument in real time.  Combining that with the white hair certainly left an impression!   I still have They Only Come Out At Night (along with two others) on original vinyl.   The guy was/is a freekin' musical genius IMHO...  If you ever have the chance, listen to some of his jazzier work on the album Jasmine.
 

stevec
It was so cool watching him go from instrument to instrument in real time.  Combining that with the white hair certainly left an impression!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb605jAQUlk
 

scook

Anderton
scook knows all.

scook has a copy of Simon Cann's "Cakewalk Synthesizers" which he used as the source for his answer in this thread.

Part of knowing all is knowing where to find all! 
 
And yes, it is a very useful book.