Excerpts of Steely Dan’s Donald Fagan and Walter Becker talking about synths on their 1977 album, Aja. Was listening to the record the other day. Aja, the eight-minute-long title track, features a pretty neat little synth part when you get to the seven-minute mark (which I recommend checking out if you haven’t). There’s some synth scattered throughout the record actually - and “Synthesizer played by Donald Fagan” is in the liner notes for Aja, Home At Last, Josie, Deacon Blues, etc. In terms of the specific synths used - apart from the ARP String Ensemble (which they mention above) in an interview with Sound on Sound, Donald mentions using the Odyssey. Here’s an excerpt from that one: "I experimented with all sorts of synthesizers at the time [1970s]. I recall that my first synthesizer was an ARP Odyssey, which I used on the early Steely Dan records. Somebody gave me a Synergy and that had some interesting sounds that I used on The Nightfly.” Steely Dan, called by Rolling Stone as "the perfect musical antiheroes for the seventies", recorded with nearly 40 musicians for the album, including legendary drummer Steve Gadd and legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter. References: Classic Albums - Aja (excerpts edited by Synth History), Discogs, Sound on Sound, Wiki, Rolling Stone.