Please discuss among yourselves.

Modular Synth Epics

After 40+ years, does Switched-On Bach still represent the pinnacle of multitracking an analog modular synth?

The success of Switched-On Bach naturally spawned huge numbers of novelty Moog records by imitators eager to cash in on the craze. The success was good for Moog, but somewhat of a hinderance to Wendy as I imagine there was a great deal of pressure for her to create another hit album, exactly like her previous hit album. The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (1969), Switched-On Bach II (1974), By Request (1975) and Switched-On Brandenburgs (1979) followed.

Inside of that time period, Wendy stretched out with the double LP, Sonic Seasonings. Also, tucked within the Clockwork Orange soundtrack was a piece called Timesteps, an original composition that more fully demonstrated what Wendy was capable of as a composer unshackled by the expectations of imitative synthesis. Timesteps made a brief appearance in the film, and an edited version was included on the original soundtrack. The full version was released by Wendy on the 1998 remastered version.

It is interesting that none of the imitators are remembered today. Wendy was the first, and also the most skillful, sort of like the Well Tempered Clavier itself. In essence, Wendy's deconstruction of the form was so complete, it left little for those who came after to explore.

Technology moves on, and it seems that as the world transitioned from the 1970s to the 1980s, the art-form of building a monumental piece of music out of layers of painstakingly-tracked modular synthesizer died. This was progress. Wendy herself, frustrated by the unstable nature of the modular, eagerly moved on to more flexible and precise digital platforms, eventually creating the beautiful, monumental work, Beauty in the Beast (1986).

The death of epic analog modular tracks has its roots in the introduction of the Prophet-5 in 1977. While the architecture is necessarily far more limited compared to a modular, the Prophet-5 could do something amazing: store patches. The idea was a sensible and useful one that addressed one of the primary complaints at the time: I have a sound, and I would like to store it and recall it at any time. This was a huge time saver. The Prophet-5 also introduced the concept of presets. It wouldn't have made any sense to ship this product with 40 empty program locations, so some useful sounds crafted by John Bowen were included.

The introduction of patch storage and presets caused a schism. What inevitably happened with pre-built sounds was people stopped programming and simply played the instrument. There is nothing inherently wrong or bad about this, it was a much needed technological step forward. However, the idea of building a sound as needed for a composition decayed to relative insignificance. The sound was chosen first, and the music followed. Analog modulars themselves drifted into obscurity with the introduction of MIDI and digital synthesizers like the DX7. Not only were modulars finicky and time-consuming to use, the sound itself was old-fashioned and out of date. Thus followed a dozen years of inactivity - a modular synth dark ages.

In 1991 Alesis leveled the recording industry with the introduction of the ADAT. Prior to the ADAT, musicians made 'demos' on substandard home recording gear which was the only affordable option. Suddenly the line between demo and finished product blurred considerably and the world has never been the same. In 1996, buoyed by the resurgence of analog, Doepfer introduced the A-100 modular system.

Today, there are more modular manufactures than ever (affordable, too) and digital audio workstations have brought cheap/inexpensive/free multitracking and mixing to anyone with a casual interest. The process of creating a work like Switched-On Bach is easier than ever, and available to anyone, and yet, I am unaware of an original work that lives up to the promise of Timesteps. What are your favorite modular synth tracks?

Lego Miniwave

Plan B made a miniwave conversion kit for euro. It is pretty clever, consisting of a face plate that, with minor modifications will fit a miniwave into a euro case. Well... some euro cases. Due to the size of the miniwave board, this conversion will only fit, barely at that, certain euro cases. Not the monster case. You could do as noisesource did, craft floating leads to the front panel and mount the miniwave board inside somehow, but that is a huge project. I needed something temporary until someone comes up with a proper euro miniwave module. That brings us to: the lego enclosure. I started the basic shape and let my son do the rest. The miniwave is mounted on technic pieces with tie wraps. The miniwave kit included an adpater so I can power it off my euro power supply, so all I need to do is snake the cable down.

Projecting

One difference between art and communication is the element of ambiguity. If you want to communicate something, you want to eliminate the noise. The goal is to be understood as directly and clearly as possible.

Art communicates, yes, but it is ambiguity that distinguishes it from pure communication. You can invoke archetypes with your music, but they get mixed and filtered by the audiences own experiences, making the art a personal experience.

Audience participation is one of the reasons black and white photography is compelling. The resulting image gives the viewer's mind something to do. I habitually fill in obvious 'missing' harmony parts to my favorite songs. I'm not alone in this. I had a vocalist friend who would routinely get upset at me for singing 'her' harmony parts.

So, if we project little bits of ourselves into the art, sometimes we overshoot and project onto the artist as well. One nice thing about being an unknown artist is I don't have any issues with fans. Trent Reznor apparently has a number of fan problems, which is understandable due to the scale of his popularity. It was admirable that Trent opened up a personal dialog with fans via a number of points, but disappointing (and, sadly, predictable) that his twitter conduit is closed down to an announce-only, non-interactive point of contact.

This dialog was more than just marketing, it helped raise $850,000 for a fan who needed a heart transplant.

One of the reasons Trent gave for this decision was his actual personality revealed on Twitter clashed with the personality fans projected on him. (Arguably, a persona he himself built and capitalized on.)

I really don't think this is such a big deal. It was certainly inevitable given the combination of trent+projecting+twitter+general internet stupidity. Actually, I don't understand this whole rabid fandom thing in general. I may be really into an artist's music, but I don't care much beyond that. It certainly must be strange for famous artists as fans who are close to their work may feel like they know the person behind the art (which may or may not be true to various degrees), but this connection is one way. Maybe it this participatory aspect of art that makes the connection feel more personal than it actually is - and contribute to the increasing false sense of entitlement that permeates our culture.

Doin' it for the exposure

Are you aware of how important music is to film? This is actually what brought me to Berklee. I enjoyed composing music, and music for film and television seemed to be the most practical application of that desire. During that time, I learned a lot about the psychology of music for picture. Something interesting happens to your brain when you watch a movie. Your mind is occupied by the images and dialog, but the music is experienced more subconsciously. This gives composers access to a little guarded back door to tug at your emotions. It is quite powerful.

It is easy to experience this for yourself. Take your favorite horror film and turn the sound off, or replace the soundtrack with something inappropriate. What was once terrifying is now satire. Just like that. Can you imagine Star Wars without the John Williams score? Would it have had the same impact?

Or, try this. Start the Black Hole title theme here.



Then start this Step Brothers trailer, but mute the audio.



Yet, most filmmakers I've worked with seem to be unaware of how important music is. Or, at least, they don't seem to budget for it. Most seem to expect that you'll do it for the exposure. I've done this. I've even worked very hard on a production and then the film itself is never released. That is like being mugged. (also like being mugged are people who sell cutouts on Amazon, so you're actually paying for the privilege of competing against yourself for sales)

Zoe Keating (zoecello) commented on the recent New York Times article about Google inviting artists to create new Chrome skins without reimbursement. You know, for the exposure. It isn't like Google is hurting for cash. Throw these people some money for crying out loud. This is to be expected. Google has an established anti-artist history.

Also, check out this video of Zoe talking about how glamorous life on the road is.



Zoe, if you're reading this, I'd love to record a project with you. I can't pay you, of course, but think of all the exposure you'll get.

A Dialogue Between Grandpa and Nephew

New Buchla video from blindoldfreak

Element 112

Man, am I happy to have my modular home. This is the first time I've really had a chance to leisurely mess around with Volta. All the synth sounds you hear are from the modular and prophet 5. The drums are programmed, using BPM as a sound source. Everything was created and edited inside DP. Oh, and Eos is the only reverb I used on this track. I'm not sure this helps them or hurts them, but I personally like the sound very much. I also used AD's Dubstation delay all over the place.

I had so much fun.

Element 112 by stretta

I started this piece two weeks ago and kept working on it in a fairly obsessive manner each night after the kids were put to bed. OK, so I watched some baseball too. But, this is a fun process - I can set everything up with Volta, then set DP to record the output while I watch a little bit of the game. Then I can make a second pass for stereo and all the modulations are still in phase. I've notated some relevant areas of what gear I used in the soundcloud timeline. Then, I would make some slight variations to the sound and record another pair of takes and edit between them. Rinse. Repeat.

The basic process of setting up a patch on the modular isn't any different from the Switched On Bach days. Every individual sound you hear is a patch designed from scratch, with knobs and patchcords, etc. However, I don't have to worry about tuning, and now we have available a very precise degree of control and timing. If you listen carefully, you should be able to detect an unusual combination of digital control and analog sound.

No drum loops or sample libraries were used beyond the three basic, unprocessed single-hit drum samples from BPM (1 kick, 1 snare, 1 hat) everything else you hear is from the modular.

Meaningful Differences

Humans love schadenfreude. There is something wired into our being that backs up traffic at the scene of an accident. While (I hope) most people never specifically wish specific upon anyone, we can't help vicariously living the misfortune of others simply because we feel relieved it isn't us.

So, we love the drama llama. We love it when tech bloggers go at each other's throats:



This is, like, meta-drama. Reviewers bashing each over review units plays above the undercurrent of iPhone killer drama. Reviewers know that their readers want to know one thing: does the Pre stand up to the iPhone?

The iPhone is a product that was dramatically different from anything that had come before and changed the entire cell phone market in the process. It was peerless. The best the Palm Pre can hope for is to make a product as good as the iPhone.

So, there may be some minor technical details that distinguish the Pre, but let's face it, the major distinguishing feature of the Pre is that it isn't made by Apple. It isn't a game changer. It isn't new and exiting, they just managed to make a decent product after Apple showed the world how it is done. See also: Zune.

As consumers, competition is a good thing, but let's not magnify the differences between the Pre and the iPhone and turn it into a holy crusade. Can we take a step back and be amused at how we tend to 'be' our purchase decisions? (even to the point of tattooing brands on our bodies) How sad is that? The voracity with which we defend our chosen product at brand is... non-linear. It feels personal because we we've gotten to the point where our products define who we are. Just... wow.

The world of analog synths is not without its share of drama. *cough*

The recent introduction of Tom Oberheim's SEM re-issue sparked a spirited debate on the sonic differences between surface mount and through hole components. I found the discussion mildly amusing - not just because of all the half-truths, flawed premises and mis-information, but due to the psychology behind the discussion itself.

We spend so much time discussing the technical differences because we CAN talk about the technical differences. We can't talk about the sound or usefulness because this is entirely subjective. Those debates pretty much go like this:

"I think the re-issue sounds just like the vintage version."
"I think your ears are full of poop."
And so on.

Technology is concrete, exacting. We can zero in on some minute aspect and obsess about it. We can claim a re-issue isn't going to be EXACTLY the same as the original because the traces are too long, or make sharp 90 degree turns or a SMT chip package was used. The existence of these differences, whether or not they actually contribute something meaningful to the sound, nonetheless exist and can be endlessly debated.

Meanwhile, this generates a lot of noise, the issue is magnified and weighs disproportionately in our minds.

At what point is a difference a meaningful one?

Tom Oberheim and the new SEM

It looks like the SEM itself can function as a drop-in replacement for an existing SEM, provided you're adapting to the new connectors. Tom says this was his goal - or at least his intention, and it doesn't sound at all like he has tried such a thing. The packaging around the SEM adds a rather fully-specified MIDI interface, which makes sense.

However, as Tom has only been aware of the analog resurgence for about six months or so, I'm not sure he is fully aware of the current market conditions. If you look at the pictures, the MIDI panel is completely separate from the SEM. I would like to see Tom sell this product in three versions:

• The current desktop package consisting of an SEM, MIDI interface and case
  
• An additional desktop package that replaces the MIDI panel with CV patch points
  
• The bare SEM without the desktop package - for those replacing a voice in 2/4/8-voice systems, with adapter cable

Here is the video. Don't worry, after about a minute the focus settles down. I wanted to capture the two units next to each other. The light was horrible (backlit, with no direct light on Tom) so sorry about the overall quality.

Tom discusses the changes made to the new SEM and the reasons behind them, pricing, and demos a few sounds.

You are here.

The history of electronic music is interesting in that there isn't much of it, time-scale-wise. Most of you reading this have never known a world without synthesizers.

Consider the piano; a fantastic, complicated machine consisting of over 2000 individual compoents. The piano evolved over a long period of time. Early forms appeared in the 1700s around Bach's time. Radical changes occurred in the late 18th (Mozart, American Revolution) and early 19th century and continued to evolve such that by the cusp of the 20th century we arrived a form that is pretty much the grand piano of today.

That is a fairly long stretch of time. Technical evolution occurred at a slower pace back then. While the period of Electronic Music is just a recent blip in the timeline of musical history, advances have been rapid and the time scale of evolution is compressed.

Electronic instruments are largely a 20th century development. The Theremin and Ondes Martenot were introduced in the 1920s. Audio tape recording became practical, thanks to WWII-era German technology, and Musique Concrète flourished. In 1957, Max Matthews hooked a computer up to a digital to analog device and pioneered computer music. In 1964, the principle of voltage control and modular analog synthesis appeared.

These are simply milestones and it is still a long way from labs and research to the hands of users. Only recently has this happened. Yet, because we inhabit in this world, our view of these developments is somewhat jaded, and we take them for granted. Our perspective is constricted.

When we think of a composer, we picture a person arranging patterns of little black dots on a page. These pages are given to an ensemble of musicians, the larger the ensemble, the larger the palette of tone colors. Make no mistake, this palette is a pleasing, time-honored one, but hopelessly limited.

Orchestration is a form of synthesis, yet a crude and limited one. How many composers in history dreamed of a day where they could command a palette as extensive as what the human ear is capable of perceiving? Can you imagine the excitement of Pierre Schaeffer and others in the 1950s at the ability to finally manipulate recorded sound? We have access to tools that generations of human beings have dreamed about. No longer are we limited by notes on a page - we've unlocked all aspects of sound.

This is what I want to get across - the excitement of the ability to control all aspects of audio very precisely, moment to moment and the idea that anything is possible. We're witnessing, and participating in, the birth of a new art form. Go make history.

monome 1

Dog Malfunction - Jazz Version MP3

Over the weekend, the Dog Malfunction video suddenly accumulated 100,000 hits - mostly from Brazil. That probably sounds like small potatoes to some of you, but I've never had something like that happen before, so let me enjoy this.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to serve as an address to distribute the mp3 which was requested by the weirdos erhm, people who want to put it on their iPod or whatever.

And, for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, here it is again.

Truffula

Genetically, human beings are compelled to spam the environment with as many copies of ourselves as possible.

We're the first animals that figured out a way to store infomation externally.

We can project our thoughts into the future.

We're self-aware. We aren't slaves to genes.

Quality of life, not quantity, should be our goal.

Make something.

Strive to live your life in a way that doesn't negatively impact others, including those without a voice, who have yet to exist.

Comparing a monome to the Akai APC40

When the Tenori-on came out, a lot of comparisons were made to the monome, because they were both blinky boxes with buttons. Now that the Akai APC40 is out, comparisons are being made to that device.

This is kind of interesting because the monome, a product that was designed to be opened-ended with no predetermined purpose etched into it, created and serviced the market that the APC40 was specifically designed to address.

A purposed-designed controller developed in conjunction with Ableton is going to outperform the monome. If you want a controller for Live, the APC40 is the product to get for that task.

The 'Ableton Live Controller' aspect of the monome is only one of the monome's many personalities. It isn't, as some comparisons would lead you to believe, the sole reason for the monome's existence. Far from it. It would be very frustrating to single out that usage of the monome and distill it to a simple "APC40>monome" summary.