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by the Tweakmeister RichThe Evolution of TweakHeadz LabPage 2Gear Notes from the 80'sSo, MIDI was hitting its first stride, and Yamaha, clearly the leader, saw where the money was and a few months later, the TX81Z landed in the rack. And yes, I programmed it too, from the front panel even, though I must say, anyone who does this today should have their tweakhead examined. The TX must have the world's most unfriendly operating system, supported by yet another Yamaha Speak totally incomprehensible manual, seconded only by my next synth, the Roland D110, (whose addendum in their manual probably led many to premature bi-focals with the worlds smallest font ever published.)Roland Speak was even worse than Yamaha Speak, as they had a tendency to change their definitions of words like "patch" depending on which piece of their gear you bought. I gave up after programming one patch on the front panel of this beast, the OS was so ridiculously hard to navigate. My credit card debited 100 bucks for Capture!, an honest to goodness real ed/lib. I made hundreds of sounds. The D110 was the first synth with a demo I remember. The sound was mind blowing. Pan Flutes, Spacey Brasses, even a chirpy Sitar! At this point in time the D50 and M1 were going head to head at the top of the line, and had finally de-throned the DX7, which limped into pool of what are now considered "vintage" synths. Not even Yamaha's heroic efforts to repackage the synth (the DX7IIfd) could save FM. (Cheers from programmers everywhere). Yes, MIDI was hitting adolescence. Finally, enough voices to do something, and there were now "PCM" waves in the boxes--8 bit samples--of real instruments like timpani, brass, strings. They didn't always sound like the real thing but they sounded a lot more realistic than you could get on a Moog, a Casio and even the DX7. Nearly all of these machines can be had inexpensively now. D110s are bottoming out at 150 bucks. If you are new to MIDI pick one up--this synth in particular has "the sound". Sure its a little noisy, but in a day when we are adding noise and grunge to 16-18 bit sounds, the problem is NOT a problem, but more of a welcome relief. Just don't read the manual. (I'll bet within 2 years a manufacturer will sample 8 bit PCMs and put them in a 20 bit synth!) What is "the Sound?""The Sound". What is it? The D110, D50 had it. The TR 808 and 909 clearly had it. The Prophet T8 had it. The mini Moog had it. Its almost as in each of these machines there's a ghost talking to you. You won't find it in modern gear that samples these machines unless its extremely artfully done. All synths have personalities, bit few have ghosts. Lower the pitch of a 909 hihat open and listen to the voice sometime. Either the guys who programmed it were really some _high_ cats, lucky, or extremely philosophical in their choices. Probably all three.I can only conclude after years of doing
this is that the "sound" is a function of output electronics producing the
analog waveform that goes to the speakers, and a unique tonal consistency,
the ability to sound good overdriven (something that is lacking on nearly
every module/keyboard today and finally the ability to speak and trigger
emotions. One thing the whole retro movement is trying to tell
manufacturers is that Sound is the bottom line, and if composers don't
find it in the latest over sampled wonder box, they
Rich's Studio in 1991 now with a 30 meg Hard drive! And it sounded like a vacuum cleaner!
Sampling Hits the StreetIt was 1987 and sampling hit with a force never to be forgotten. My new Akai S-612 held a whopping 64k of sample memory--enough for one sound--that had to be stretched across the keys. But god, the difference in realism, which is what we all wanted, was awesome. Ah, the joys of being on the cutting edge! Then Akai X7000, (among a host of other samplers--the Mirage, s900, S-10, S50, Emulator I) came out, multi timbral, with 16 sample slots and a whopping megabyte. Oh, the untold hours getting every noise in the house sampled, from toilet flushes to tooth brushes. Right behind the X7000 came Soundfiler, a sample editor, where I got my first taste of digital audio editing. Sampling was great, there was no doubt in anyone's mind. The only problem was that you always wanted more samples on board, more memory so you could do multi-samples, more voices. This is how sample-playback modules rose to the heady heights of midi-land. In 1989, the Proteus /1 was unveiled, and it was a shock to Midiphiles. A great piano multisample, a wonderful choir, and acoustic guitar that really sounded like one, an ultimate string ensemble that had a use in nearly every song, big bandish brass and a drum set that almost rivaled the Alesis HR16 (which had managed to outclass nearly every drum box on the market with 16 bit sounds). 16 bit sounds were the rage! It was clean and super accurate, and the sounds didn't have aliasing artifacts as much as our 12 bit samplers did. At the local music store there were 5 or 6 of us standing around impatiently to get a listen of the new Proteus, hoping the dude demoing the box would wipe up his drool before he left. It was not a matter of IF you would buy this box, but how fast you could get the money up. Despite immense MIDI overkill, with XoR talking to 14 midi modules, I heard the Wavestation SR. The music dealers love me in this town. They loved me enough to take 5 machines on consignment to get the SR. Was it worth it? Yes! Though the machine has a horrible OS, in the same class as the TX 81Z IMHO, the sound was there! Luckily, I linked up with the person writing XoR profiles and updating XoR to 2.0 and in exchange for helping him with beta testing, I got me a nice ed/lib for the Wavestation SR. Man, this box is pure sonic power when tweaked. Check out my bank. Now you could save your precious sample memory for the really weird stuff, using the Proteus for all your bread and butter. Being already a self-proclaimed expert in synthesis, I got deep into programming this non-filtered, flat sounding box. About 1200 sounds later, (many on GEnie and CIS) I have to question how many I actually ever used in songs. But it kept me out of the pubs. The next year the Proteus /2 came out and eventually, the Proteus/3. Of course, I had to have these boxes, rounding out my instrument library to cover the whole spectrum. By this time I was getting really good at making the Proteus architecture sing for me. I laid off new synths for a while, though I had a Kawaii K1 and a Casio VZ10m, both of which I moved out quickly, no longer willing to work with bad operating systems to program sounds (though I do have a bank for each floating somewhere in cyberspace.) Then, the keyboard on the x7000 showed signs of old age. Time for the Ensoniq VFX, a joyfully programmable synth engine which I am still far from exhausting. This was the beginning of Vector Synthesis, and it was not about to end.
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will take a
hit and use lo tech boxes that do provide it. What is beginning to be
realized, I hope, is that "the sound" of a box has nothing to do with its
sounds or samples, PCMs, waveforms, envelopes, or even effects (though all
of these, especially FX may help), its really a matter of the analog
waveform that goes to the speakers, a matter of electrons and the way they
organically hang together and force our speakers to disturb the air around
us. Perhaps this is why there is such demand for "real analog filters",
vacuum tube compressors, and what everyone describes as "warmth". Its a
matter of an organicity, fluidity of sound that is welcomed by the soft
matter in our brains as something pleasurable. My one piece of advice to
instrument makers is simply this: Don't scrimp on output electronics.