Buchla has a Mind of it's Own...

I've been traveling for work and was home for a few days in between. I went to the studio where the main modulars are and flipped the switch to turn them on. 

This is what greeted me:



What I think was going on was the synth was patched up to the last demo I did of FM into the new Mike Peake (of Ebolatone fame) custom 258 module I received last month. 

However, the 200e has a preset manager and it seemed to recall a different preset. So when I turned it on it was patched for one thing and sent info to play another. This falls under the category of "happy accidents" I've talked about before. Ok, so perhaps not so happy but, well...  I was sufficiently amused to document it in this short clip. 

Enjoy as much and you can and bleep (carefully) on...

Classic Synthesist, Old Technology, Modern Times.

I'm linking this very cool blog post  from Seth @ Boxoftextures.blogspot.com with permission. The past weekend he traveled to the wilds of West Orange NJ to see famed synthesist Larry Fast make a recording on a wax cylinder. 

Yes you read that correctly. Synth fans will freak at the name Larry Fast of Synergy fame (as well as incarnations of Peter Gabriel's and Tony Levin's live touring bands). Historical recording geeks will freak at the next best thing to a wire recorder, a working Wax Cylinder recorder maintained and run at the Thomas Edison National Historic Park.

People who might not know either (for shame!) can catch up on this ridiculously amazing and cool moment with pictures and a great write up at:  http://boxoftextures.blogspot.com/2014/06/larry-fast-cuts-some-wax-tracks-no.html

Finally, readers may note I've been adding a few new sites to this Blogs "Other Cool Synth Blogs" list. Please welcome Boxoftextures.blogspot.com and DIY master MikePeake's http://ebolatone.blogspot.com/.

Check 'em out and bleep on and on!

And now I shall say nothing more...

I recently came across an interview with actor Bryan Cranston where he commented on fame vs: acting. Among other insights he said that ever since he was 25 he had been making a living -  as and actor-  without ever having to do anything else. As far as he was concerned that was the pinnacle of success. The fact that he could continue to do what he loved made all other factors (fame, money, even recognition) irrelevant.

Many  artists don't make a living doing what inspires them, yet they continue all the same. There certainly are as many factors for this as there are people. In some cases artists don't even try to make a living or get paid for their "work. In others, attempts to do so don't work out. In almost all the cases where someone continues to create- with or without external encouragement - it's because they truly get their reward from the process itself.  It didn't need to be labeled and commodified but the whole "outsider art" movement is based on people with little or no formal training who create, seemingly in a vacuum, simply because they feel inspired to.

Then there are true artists like Eliane Radigue. She has formal training but it didn't come easy. She was a pioneer that most people never heard of . She knew exactly what she heard in her "mind's ear" and set out with her tools and determination to make it a reality.

I came across this fantastic documentary of her recently and believe it not only illustrates the intricacies of using a modular synthesizer (in this case the Arp 2500) but also show how these boxes are instruments and how and artist creates with one.  I've often used the terms "aural sculpture when trying to explain how modular synthesists  carve an piece from various sounds and sequences so I found it especially refreshing to see Mademoiselle Radigue mention the building of her sound is literally done in pieces within a frame of sound "like an architect who needs a scaffolding". She also explains that she uses scores and timing to perform her pieces. So much electronic music is done free form and improvised we tend to forget one can approach it with the same discipline and skill set as a classical composer.

Radigue describes taking months or even years to create a piece painstakingly building and taking away elements until it matched the piece in her head. She mentions how she spent ten years away from electronic composition and then when she returned she took another three months throwing out every conventional sound she knew until a tiny scrap of sound came to light and then, Voila! she built on that.

This kind of dedication (some might call obsession) can be found among all cultures and generations of artists. We are fortunate to have such an eloquent example to learn from and, most of all, enjoy.

#Firstlove Arp Odyssey

The first synthesizer I ever saw was in Jr high school in the late 1970s.  It was an Arp Odyssey in music class and the teacher was Charles Terry. To say, in retrospect, he was ahead of his time doesn't do service to the man, I will forever be grateful to him for thinking it was a good idea to show a bunch of fidgeting pre-teenagers what an analog oscillator was and what sample and hold did.

He also played us some "Moog" records including one that was an all instrumental version of The Beatles. I was so damn sheltered and green I actually thought that WAS the Beatles at the time and remember him kindly telling me, no, the Beatles were something else quite entirely. I didn't care, I wanted to hear more of the "Moog" album.

(I'm going to guess and say it was probably this Dick Hyman recording but honestly I have no idea:)


After school band students could use the sound proof practice rooms to rehearse in.  I played clarinet so I used my guile to make sure I was around when the synth was out. Eventually I just asked if I could play it and, God bless his soul, he set it up and let me go to town. I didn't have the first clue what those sliders and switches did and at times there was NO sound and other times there was an INSANE NOISE but, again, it didn't matter. I was mesmerized. Never in my short life had I heard - let alone seen - anything like that before. If I knew what it meant back then I would say I was intoxicated by that magical machine.

Why am I reminiscing this week about the good old innocent days of sliders and filter sweeps? Well Korg (a Japanese company)  has announced they are reissuing the original Arp Odysessy this year and even pulled in David Friend. Friend, along with Alan R. Pearlman (the A.R.P. in ARP), was one of the founders of the company and worked on the Odyssey design.  As far as I know this is the first time a foreign modern company is reissuing a classic American synthesizer. It just sounds insane but this is the same Korg that brought back their own more obscure MS20 last year. It's kind of a dream come true for synthnerds.

The Press release is here:  http://www.korg.com/us/news/2014/0217/

I've written about analog reissues and new synths in this blog before. Hell, I bought a Novation BassStation2 last year and even used it live over some of my trusty vintage pieces due to it's memory, midi sync, and internal arpeggiator. The past month music forums and mailing lists have been flooded with Uber Hype by Roland about their new not-analog-but-the-next-thing synths that are supposedly based on the classic TR808, TR909, and TB303 line up from the 80s. For an intriguing write up of the old "Analog Vs: Digital" question readers may be interested in checking out this post by Geeky Disco which I found somewhat refreshing: http://geekydisco.tumblr.com/post/76988292224/analog-vs-digital-hardware-vs-software-revisited.

But these debates, discussions, and diatribes all pale in comparison to what the reality is here:  In a few months the first electronic instrument that started a life long sound obsession will be seen again in the wild. I don't know if Mr. Terry knew what he started and in this day an age of taking music classes out of schools it might not seem like such a big deal but, well, you're reading these words because over 35 years ago a creative teacher showed a child something new. Something different.

Something Amazing.

Enough of us remember such moments and the sounds that came with them to convince an industrial giant decades later to bring it back so new generations can experience that  magic all over again.

Bleep on kids.

 Really...  Bleep ON.

Classic 1970s Modular Synthesizer "Demo"...

I recently came across this brilliantly dated Modular Synth demo: 

This is no other than the infamous EMS VCS3 "Putney" - a self contained analog sound studio. The Putney and it's sister instrument the SynthiA (a portable suitcase version) have been famously used by space rock pioneers like Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, new wave and underground heros like Pere Ubu, electronic whiz kids like Richard James (Aphex Twin) and more. Brian Eno's insistence on using multiple units in the early Roxy Music days brought about both brilliance and strife as everything (drums, guitars, vocals) were processed like crazy - quite an original application for a pop band back then. I used to use one live in the freak Philadelphia  hard rock band Muscle Factory in the early 2000s until I wised up about bringing delicate vintage instruments into sweaty rock clubs.

God help us the Putney even played the title role in the Music For Isolation Tanks album, "The Feedback Machine". Skip around the tracks to feel the Noize:

What is remarkable about the Putney and this video demo isn't that it was an analog or a fickle beast (most modulars were in the 1970s) but that over the years it's been known more and more as solely a  "noise" machine. The drifting oscillators and raspy tone of it's filter and ring modulation sections as well as the unconventional "trapezoid" envelope generator and joystick - Hello! - all added up to experimentation and buzzing, whirring, exploding sounds rather than Moogish thick bass lines or soaring leads. Hell, even the "preset" system (connector cards with soldered resistors and components than snapped into the "presto-patch" section) had a card labeled simply "Battle".

Who can resist dancing to "Battle"!

But that is today long after the industrial music revolution and acceptable use of distortion on guitars. Back in the early 1970s Modular synths were sold to professional sound designers and musicians who made their living scoring industrials, commercials, and sound tracks and they needed them to mimic acoustic instruments and pretty sounds. This video, a product demo by sound designer and composer Tony Luisi, is a prefect example of how these now accepted infernal freak machines were marketed and it gives us a rare glimpse not only into the history of electronic music and sound, but shows that there are more ways to make the tone  of skinning a cat.

I highly recommend curious listeners pay close attention to his description starting at around 6 minutes in the video of a car chase, shootout with police, and subsequent crash. Yes, a VCS3  can do strings and horns but really you should buy it for the explosions!

Battle on!

A Synthesizer for Christmas...

I suppose it was only a matter of time but the geeks have won:


Happy Bleeping holidays

This is What Happens Live...

I've been recording what, for me, is the most "commercial" material I believe I've done in my 20+ years of making electronic music. The result is a hybrid of my industrial, noise, and experimental routes with my love of Acid and hard beat driven music. The result is MegoDETH and the Album is Spanner in the Works

Now, if that wasn't bad enough I specifically recorded and envisioned this project to be performed live. And earlier this month that is exactly what I did. During the recording phase I used whatever instrument (and as many) as I felt made the track the best it could possibly be. But live one needs to economize and simplify. I don't use pre-recorded tracks or laptops and outside of drum machine patterns which I programmed I wanted everything to be played live. I eventually streamlined the main setup to one drum machine, one ultra-flexible analog monosynth, and a TB303 clone (the FR-Revolution) which stored it's own sequences but could be easily played live and remixed on the fly. 

Along the way during rehearsals with the live setup I came up with some new material. One song that kept presenting itself  had a melodic hook which I could play live and  the more I played it the more it sounded  familiar. Not in a I've-heard-this-before type way but in a hey!-that's-sounds-like... way. Now theoretically as the composer I shouldn't be so damn surprised when I listen to my own music but one of the main reasons I play electronic instruments (and specifically book live shows) is that it puts me in a new creative space. I've said "less is more" before on this blog but that's never been more evident on this ditty I call "Spud Dance" in homage to the group that inspired me to merge rock, synthmusic, pop, and a smart and damn good time well over 30 years ago.

So, without further ado, MegoDETH performing my encore song from the night "Spud Dance".

Devolve on!

Back in the USSR...

Elektro Moskva

A new documentary on Soviet Era Synthesizers is currently making the rounds. Among the more interesting thematic points are a peek into the Russian view of  technology and how it's citizens have come to lower their expectations from what is promised to what is actually delivered and then work with that.

As one of the interviewees brilliantly puts it:

"On a western device, you push a button and get a result. 

On a Soviet instrument, you push a button and get something." – Benzo

Many modern synthesists and gear-hounds will happily show you their piles of instruments and explain how they use each one for it's unique sounds, interface, properties, and abilities. It seems there is more than one way to skin a patch cord though and using weird, fickle, or just plain broken electronic instruments can yield their own equally unique results. Dire economic circumstances and policies left over from the cold war, a changing political climate, and institutionalized views of government and the military all contribute to how technology can be shaped by culture. 

Creative types used to dealing with challenges often develop a different artistic vocabulary so they can get something out of their tools and keep making sound, music, film or whatever they're inspired to do. This film looks to be a fascinating view of how people not only make the most with what they have but use such limitations as part of the process and how the feedback of that process then influences the culture at large.

Check out the trailer and more info here: http://elektromoskva.com/english

Bleep on comrades!

Sweat, Surprise, and a New Track...

Perhaps you have heard the phrase "Creativity is 1% Inspiration and 99% Perspiration". The implication being you shouldn't sit around waiting to create, you need to work at it and be determined to both start and finish something. 

With my project "Sweeping the Noise Floor" it's necessary to focus to complete tracks and albums (let alone live shows which are a lot of work) but I really couldn't define the actual percentages. This is because almost all my tracks come out of a place where I don't have a specific sound or goal in mind at the onset. I assemble what tools I want to use and then  start slowly patching and building until something comes into focus. Once the initial inspirational sound is there I process to trying to mix levels, parts, etc live in a linear fashion to see what I can do with what I've found. If I'm still pleased with what's happening I progress to recording tracks live and then dumping and editing them on the computer doing the panning, levels, and perhaps adding more effects, fades, etc. 

If this sounds very fatalistic that's because, for this project at least, I try to set up an environment where things will fall into place. While it's obvious nothing would happen if I didn't put the effort in, I approach the instruments (and especially the modular synths) as something organic and acting a bit on their own. While I set certain wheels in motion it's also true I am constantly both pushing forward and sitting back at the same time. Does that count as "perspiration"?  I honestly don't know.

The more quantifiable parts of the track (working on the parts, mix, final master) are more rote and similar from any other track by the time I get to those stages. But that initial Something, that Je ne c'est quoi that starts the ball rolling? I would certainly give that a lot more than 1% credit - whereever  it comes from.

I didn't intend to create anything today. Parts of this track go back 3-4 years while the majority of it was composed and recorded all at once in less than an hour after my morning coffee. It's what I like to call a "surprise" in that I wasn't expecting to come up with anything and when I did I just went with the flow. 

Perhaps I'll do a "part 2" to this post where I'll describe the patch and how I came up with this ditty. (By all means please comment or email if you'd find that interesting and/or helpful!) But for now I'll just let the music do the talking. 

Close your eyes, relax,  and float on.

I Dream of Wires - Hardcore Edition...

From:  http://idreamofwires.org/

""I Dream of Wires" (IDOW) is an upcoming, independent documentary film about the phenomenal resurgence of the modular synthesizer — exploring the passions, obsessions and dreams of people who have dedicated part of their lives to this esoteric electronic music machine. "

The I Dream of Wires pre-release "Hardcore Edition" is now shipping to those geeks who supported the Kickstarter campaign for this amazing documentary on Modular Synthesis, it's creators, players, and fans.  The Hardcore edition (or H.E. as the filmmakers call it) is a monstrous 4+ hour opus of extended interviews from the Theatrical release version plus additional a historical documentary and behind the scenes segments.  It was unashamedly marketed as a ridiculously over-the-top amount of freakish synth porn for obsessed fans. I'm thrilled to say my copy arrived in the mail this week.

"I Dream of Wires: Hardcore Edition" 2013 official trailer from I Dream Of Wires on Vimeo.

In keeping with some online memes and encouraging the ridiculous nature of this edition here's a personal picture of the DVD with part of the current LegionUK  modular setup. God help us all...

Where's Waldo? Modular Synth Porn for the Hardcore Geeks...

I Dream of Wires is still working on the original theatrical release version of the documentary and expects to have this in festivals and previews soon. In the meantime keep current on their plans and news on their main site at:  http://idreamofwires.org/

Plug in and Out!