Two years ago, already being fed up with the then-16 year long trend of everyone re-releasing classic analog synths, I predicted a new trend of digital hardware machines, and in particular, the return of wavetable synthesis, as the next phase of idea-recycling. It is now reality.
Synthesis revival in the 21st Century: New Analogs
In 2002, Robert Moog released the Moog Voyager, a recreation of his famous original, the Minimoog (Model D). It was, and is, a fantastic instrument, which did more than just bringing back the classic sound with a familiar layout: it added more oscillator stability, more performance control, more convenience and more instantaneous feedback for the player. What most don’t realize is that it was the Voyager that started a revival of analog synths, which I call “new analogs”, on a larger scale, turning the electronic music instrument industry upside down (or rather, downside up), ultimately undeniably effecting the culture of electronic music.
Bob Moog was working out of passion. Whether the timing of the Voyager release was a proper celebration of him reclaiming his company’s name and kicking off a new era of Moog Music, or it was responding to a rapidly growing need for true analog sound, it had a profound effect on the electronic musical instrument industry. Why transition back to analog from the late ’90s-early 2000s super-capable and convenient VA (virtual analog) gear? On one hand, the retro aesthetic started coming back in areas outside of music: fashion, dance, photography. The sounds of virtual analogs were fat, warm, diverse, however very precise and therefore not retro in any way. Bands started using classic analog synths – even bringing them on the stage. Releases with the ’80s retro aesthetic, but offering a new and original sound (such as Ladytron’s 604, to mention one of the most brilliant albums) got the attention of electronic music fans and producers alike. Unstable, dirty-sounding leads and basses starting to become cool again, at least in various local scenes, primarily in the UK and in some parts of Europe. At the same time, used prices of vintage synths have already reached questionably reasonable levels on eBay – it has become a dream (and a perceived way to reach originality) for many to own a vintage MS-20, Model D or Prophet 5.
While Moog wasn’t the first one to release a new analog (for example, Studio Electronics has never stopped since the early ’90s), the visibility and prestige of the Moog name signaled to other brands: new analog is the best of both words: it is real, stable and convenient. Some were fast to follow, some already had products that the Voyager justified putting more promotion behind. Some lagged and took a decade to come out with new analog models. Brand new companies were launched exclusively making new analog synthesizers.
Synthesizers of the 2010’s: New Analogs in New Markets
Fast-forward a decade. Electronic music steps out of the underground in the United States; EDM is suddenly on mainstream platforms and on the charts, everyone wants to incorporate the electronic sound. Manufacturers and distributors are happy: a brand new market opens up for them, in the land of hobby musicians with disposable income, where technology is cheap, “money buys creativity” is a rarely-questioned belief, and where the role of tech in culture is high: the United States.
Around the middle of the decade, mainstream bands proudly use analog synths again, the dubstep phase passes by – fortunately relatively quickly, like a nightmare that screams “modern electronic music equals aggressive sounds (and who cares about harmony)”. After the pixel-dust of un-musicality settles, day-dreaming Gen X musicians (not in small part thank to Vaporwave) bring back the sound of the ’80s. First it’s cool, and then, as it usually happens with anything that can be sold based on nostalgia to two generations, it becomes commonplace; television shows promote the retro aesthetic: synthwave takes off. The music instrument industry is now ecstatic: modular synths are on the rise, instrument product catalogs now offer more new analog synths than ever before in history (and actually more analogs than digital synths). Why? Because “real synthwave is supposed to be real analog” – so they say. So naturally, everybody needs a 303 synth – and not just any synth, but an analog one! Because they are “better than anything digital” (so are the newcomers told). Musical sound design becomes a must-do for anyone who wants to be taken even semi-seriously; using preset sounds starts to become a sin in the electronic music scene (not surprisingly also in the US, where getting lost in the technical wizardry typically wins over emotional content anyway, and in this rare case, it wins even over convenience).
So what’s wrong with this picture? It’s a trend, driven by technology and instrument marketing, celebrating the idea of re-production of the familiar past, rather than by originality and the celebration of creation (except for the modular world, where, for the most part, the truly original and truly unlistenable stuff happens). Ironically, despite of the overly technology-focused approach, almost all analogs use subtractive synthesis!It’s not hard to put the two together: one of the most limited synthesis methods is now heavily influencing where electronic music is going in 2010, after 70 years of history! And, America being the very best when it comes to exporting anything that’s well wrapped in trends, the changes spread worldwide. But who cares, manufacturers are flooding the new markets with old recipes in shiny packages (even drawing the respect of self-nominated “synth fans”).
New Wave of the 2020s – Wavetable Synths
During the second half of 2010s, astonishingly boring re-releases of classics and degenerated clones of clones promise new sonic worlds, while in reality, they rarely add a feature or two to Robert Moog’s 1968 concept. Manufacturers are making a killing with re-releases – until Behringer enters the game and spells death to an era, with shameless brand-stealing, unoriginal recreations and plastic heaven.
Thinking about it, maybe I should like Behringer after all. With their business model now they are unknowingly forcing the rest of the industry (which is unable to compete with such low prices) to move onto new trends. In 2018 I said: “analog has been the new cool thing in electronic music production for all too long now; this drawn-out phase of telling sheep users [referring to the mass mentality of easy-to-influence tech-focused buyers] that analog is the “best” will be soon replaced by digital, again; probably wavetables”. I doubted that any influential player in the industry would dare to release products with a new type of synthesis, but bringing back a short but often-praised era of wavetables seemed like an easy to promote contrast, therefore a less risky option. Just by looking at the used price trends of PPGs, Waldorf (Micro)waves, Wavestations and Fizmos, and the relatively short attention that they enjoyed while romplers and VAs took over, one could see how the desire for something lesser known was bound to create a new trend. It took the industry two years to do it – with the usual exception of pioneering Waldorf, who not only moved fast with the Quantum, but had a great advantage in wavetable design to begin with.
Wavetables, Wavescanning – Already Dripping from Popularity
Wavetables have always been with us, integrated into digital synths like the Virus TI and plugins NI Massive, Serum and more recently Arturia’s Pigments. Some companies ventured into augmenting their analog synths with a wavetable osc option like DSI’s Prophet 3 with its scannable wavetable source, or adding wavetables as an extension to their software packages, like Ableton 10’s Wavetable plugin. (Again, kudos to Arturia for jumping ahead of the trends with no history in wavetables, but instead of copying Waldorf, giving birth to an original concept, the Microfreak). In the months before the 2020 NAMM Show, no less than five companies suddenly introduced their dedicated wavetable synths to the masses: Modal’s Argon8, Softube’s Parallels, Udo’s Super 6, the ASM Hydrasynth, and of course, Korg’s Wavestate. Why do we need to recycle old sound synthesis concepts? Actually, why do we need trends in instrument design at all?
Will manufacturers and distributors try to convince everyone now that wavetable synthesis is the best? Will they market them with the “most unique” and “most flexible” message? They already kind of do. But, who cares. Talking with Brian Transeau (aka BT, who actually well understands the power of inner ideas) yesterday I got the impression that almost noone seems to mind the fact that manufacturers are dictating the trends now, and thus, heavily influencing the styles and trends in (electronic) music. I, for one, do mind. Even as a sound synthesist who’s been preaching about the importance of sound design for 25 years, I wish true creativity that originates from new experiences and unique concepts would primarily influence music, and synth players would use whatever technology as a tool of expression once again, not the other way around. What BT and I agreed on was that those of us who want to express ideas free from industry trends, will always find the tools to convey such ideas with authenticity. Just like we always did when we needed them, regardless of the trends in technology. But it’s not so easy to ignore the heavy marketing and influence of trendy new instrument design by those who are new to electronic music.
So, dear fans of electronic music: get ready for the new wave of wavetables, and with that, a lot of wavetable music hits. Korg has done its part to add easy-to-impress presets in the Wavestate (I bet Dr. Luke pre-ordered it or has already put them into a dozen of mainstream pop songs), but come on, Roland, Moog, Yamaha – add those Wavetable OSC buttons quickly… before NI blankets the world with a PPG library and Behringer makes a $199 Prophet VS clone! Then you all have to recycle something else and tell us what’s the new cool in music. (Additive synths in 2024, anyone?)
A quick summary of my personal impressions of the new wavetable gear:
ASM Hydrasynth: amazing control and expression, easy to set up modulation… I almost bought one. But the more I heard it, the more fake it sounded. That plastic-y, predictable, trying-too-hard-to-impress, too-perfect, too-shiney over-packaged character turned me off and left me quite disappointed.
Modal Argon8: beautifully designed instrument with smooth and rich sound, but not a whole lot of extremes, a held-back character that promises a relatively limited sonic world with not many surprises to explore. I wish it could get more raw, more real.
Korg Wavestate: an impressive and capable preset-machine with so much happening in its sound, that it can be easily a turn-off. It sounds fun since a lot of movement, loops, performances are “printed” into the waveform or use the sequencer: too easy to get sidetracked and more inspiring to play than to create with. Sound designers with tons of time to initialize patches might take its sound elsewhere, but since it’s going to be the most commercially successful synth of 2020 (mark my words!), Wavestate sounds will be showing up in productions all over the world – which is exactly why I’d never want one.
Waldorf Quantum: this is the only one here I personally have not tried yet. What I heard sounded worthy of the Waldorf name, though, even if a bit too silky. I’m personally turned off by the touch-screen display; give me more buttons with direct access to parameters instead.
Final verdict: pick up a Prophet VS or a Microwave for rawness and flexibility.
Soft Synths, Analog Emulations, Noise Machines, Modular Synths – many choices of tools these days. I was humbled when a friend pointed out that my article Analog vs. Digital Synthesizers – My Take on the Old Debate made it to the very top of Google searches for “analog vs digital synths” (a Bob Moog interview was second – not a bad company to be in…). Sure enough, I have received tons of emails asking for my opinion on synth choices, creative synthesis approaches and about Studio CS gear during the past years. The article was cited in forums, in education, re-published on various websites, and visitors shared their great points and stories in the comments. Now we’re here in 2019, about six years later; a lot has changed on the electronic musical instrument landscape – or has it? The evolution of electronic musical instruments isn’t an exception from Moore’s Law from a technical aspect, but how about the evolution of their musicality? Certainly not doubling every two years; nevertheless, a topic interesting enough to explore in a sequel article. So, let the synthesis begin!
Even the emulation plugins are now sounding good – really good! But…
Thank to the increase of the average household computer’s processing power, to the greater efficiency of code and the hard work of dedicated R&D teams (fueled by a much-increased competition), we have reached the point where analog modelling plugins can actually sound damn good. Not only they provide high-quality sounds (like static sample-based rompler plugins already did 15 years ago), but now they act well, too: finally, some of the filter designs have gotten so convincing that it’s hard to distinguish a “sweep of the saw” happening in the box or via voltage in the transistor or diode. It’s impressive how close their sonic action has gotten to the classics they are often modeled after; just recently, I was beta-testing and creating presets for Brainworx’ brand new bx_oberhausen plugin (an Oberheim SEM emulation with expanded-functionality), and it really is super hard, if not impossible, to distinguish its sound and modulation behavior from my classic analog Oberheim synths. It was quite easy, and (for a plugin), unusually enjoyable to create uber-convincing presets for it – just listen to the character of the arp and the warm filter-action in this sample that I made exclusively from three of my own oberhausen presets (aside from reverb, no additional effects were used):
More and more software companies realize that the analog character is as much in the behavior, as it is in the emulation of the sound itself. Meanwhile, new plugins that are not meant to imitate a classic sound come out every day, and are just as good and exciting as they have ever been (I can’t wait to see what Magnus Lidstrom is cooking up next). So far so good!
However, a recently (seemingly) popular idea of software companies is to release emulations of early digital synths. Aside from price, I don’t see the value – why would you buy a basically sample-library-rompler-copy of a digital synth whose character mainly came from the patented (i.e. uncopiable) way you programmed it, interacted with it, and how its (often unrefined) components shaped those compressed waveforms through their efficient algorithms, (usually) cheap reverbs and early D/A converters? The classic Casio-s, the D50, M1…even the Fizmo now come in unofficial plugin forms with fake names, matching colors and font types (reminding me of the Recebok shoes sold in Chinese flee markets for quarter of the price of real Reeboks…).
People don’t seem to understand that it’s not the static samples of a synth that make it special, it’s the way you interact with the instrument. Click on image for more.
What I’m surprised about is that most major companies are still largely ignoring the interface through which we interact with our instruments (read more about the great importance of this here). The default way the majority of people trigger plugins is the mouse (sadly, still alive and well in 2019), or maybe a run-of-the-mill feel-less keyboard, on a better day. Programming music by drawing static notes and linear automation lines in the MIDI editor is still the favorite way of most lazy “producers” – while the point of any musical instrument is to provide the performer with a seamless performance tool through which to express, and sometimes even expand, a musical idea and feel.
There have been some pioneers pushing the boundaries; some even too far off without making enough sense or doing market research (roli blocks, anyone?). By now, I was expecting the larger players of the industry to follow the late Robert Moog’s vision with his theremin: music-making and instrument design to gravitate toward performance. That is, instruments that offer a flexible human interface and sound generator in one, integrating form and function into the same self-contained instrument – or at least connect to a dedicated software (like the Continuum, which has been successfully doing that since 2002!).
At least, there is more hope with controllers; I’m referring to those with usable interfaces, like the various wind controllers, the Seaboard or Enhancia’s Neova Ring (soon we’ll see how naturally it tracks finger movement) – but not referring to gimmicky toys like the AlphaSphere and the wi-fi MIDI gloves that rather belong in the arcade or circus than in the studio (sorry Imogen, you’re great but those are toys, indeed). Interestingly enough, most of the promising controllers and devices transmitting refined musical expressions come from small companies and startups. Sadly Yamaha gave up on developing advanced breath-controllers and I guess Roland had dropped its We design the future slogan for a reason…
An interesting question to debate is whether we need controllers that offer “new ways” to control our sounds, or rather new controllers that translate our well-defined and well-practiced expressions more accurately. While the former has the advantage of inspiring new expressions (therefore new kind of performances, sound design, and potentially even influencing the composition process itself), the latter could get us closer to finally expressing our musical intention and concept the way we naturally imagine it to being with. Are we going to see a split where developers either aim to teach new gestures to sonic experimenters, or learn acoustic instrument playing techniques themselves to create products for the seekers of organic performance gestures?
Either way, when it comes to alternate MIDI controllers, another limitation is the language (protocol) itself that is trying to describe complex and precise gestures: MIDI has changed little since 1982, and while it has been an amazing standard with a major impact on music creation (good and bad alike), its limitations now really get in the way of transferring high-resolution expressions between controller and host / generator. Control voltage came back in the 2000s, but requires the use of physical cables. Therefore, most new controllers opt for wireless (sometimes proprietary) protocols, which then limits their connectivity to the other components of the studio (not counting the option to down-convert to MIDI’s 128-value resolution). I love MIDI but it badly needs to evolve.
The good news is that, even though MIDI 2.0 has been talked about (and rejected) for many years, it seems to be becoming reality during the next year… or two, according to new announcements at NAMM. The new specs look promising (increased resolution, more standardized expressions, system recognition, full backward compatibility, etc.), but so far surprisingly few companies are showing support in form of product development.
Minimalist technology and toys: can simple sound great?
Hack, yeah. The growing circuit bending trends of the 2005-2015 decade (usually with questionably useful results) has been replaced by the “returning to the retro cheap stuff” trend of the recent years: finding new use for old, usually simple gear. Whether it’s a toy synth or a low-bit processor or a super-basic old instrument with a distinctly “bad” sound (i.e. not bad, just grainy, grungy, dull, thin, whatever… character), reaching back to simplicity is often the answer to rewarding new approaches and sometimes even new intent (let this sink for a bit… limitations of old technology driving new compositional approaches today… brilliant!). That simple old Casio sound processed with modern effects, or even just left raw but placed into a new musical context, helped many forgotten models to gain the appreciation of early re-adopters (and that of smart eBay sellers). This isn’t really a new idea; think of the intentional misuse of technology for creative results since the ’40s, or the re-emergence of the TB-303 or the SID chip in the ‘90s. But now the story of rebirth (pun intended) isn’t tied to a particular genre or style, rather to an “it’s so bad that it’s good” aesthetic – which is not a surprise, given the all-too shiny and overly “perfect” sound of today’s productions. What better way to add contrast than by throwing a simple and unrefined sound into the arrangement?
The Junk, the Stupid and the Badass. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference by looks. Click on image to compare.
However, there is another trend gaining popularity, infecting musicians who are often trying too hard to be different for the sake of being perceived different: it’s the “make any noise and convince yourself that it’s cool” disease. Smart companies feed the snobs and bored bedroom sound designers with literally anything that looks unusual and makes any noise – sometimes literally just distorted noise that’s coming from a $300 box (which cost $10 to make). The victims believe that these boxes are ‘freaking-awesome cutting edge stuff’, thank to their clever marketing and nerdy presentation. In reality, these are just boxes with a couple of transistors and pots with esoteric sounding parameter names, and with knobs that actually do nothing special but add distortion, bit crush, white noise. Sometimes I read their specs, written in a pseudo-engineering language, only to amuse myself. As expected, their primary target audience is modular synth fans – but more about this later…
Affordable, educational and badass little synths
Now these developments are amazing. Today’s technology has made hardware synths so affordable to manufacture (while a competitive market has influenced business models to aim for lower profit margins), that the first time in history, anyone can get a POWERFUL sounding synth for under $300 – brand new! This includes true analogs, half-modular synths, classic synth reissues, new concepts and some really great-looking models full of knobs! It’s just astonishing what sort of sounds you can generate with these very capable little instruments. Kudos to Arturia for starting the trend on the large scale. The only drawback in this price range is versatility, but I expect that the new synthesizers of 2019 and 2020 will address that as well.
Used in education, sound synthesis can be finally taught without major investment for the students or the school, and at least with some preservation of performance expression (as opposed to just clicking around with a mouse). Being also a teaching professor of electronic music production myself, I always look forward to hearing the work of students who are completely unexposed to electronic music and suddenly get to interact with real, physical electronic instruments the first time (well, I kind of force them to drop their mouse…:).
The modern analogs keep coming
The comeback of analogs started in the early 2000’s and it has only accelerated since the Moog Voyager. As the owner of several vintage synths, it’s a bittersweet feeling to witness how the old classics are reborn in retro-looking bodies, sometimes with original, sometimes with almost perfectly identical sound (and sometimes not… oh, Behringer…). Often the new cheap versions even de-value the vintage models while diverting the attention from the classics’ real value: their imperfections, which are rarely replicated.
These new imitations are not the same as the vintage models, but the reasons to spend time, money and frustration with keeping the old favorites alive (like my Yamaha CS-60 which is still unmatched by any modern replicant) are getting harder to defend. Dave Smith still keeps putting the magical character into his synths today (and included a wonderful tuning-fluctuation feature that I had been asking for for ages) – his synths have a unique vintage flavor but with the option to sound “modern and clean”. So many companies have gotten into the Modern Analog game recently, that we actually have more new analog synth models to choose from today than ever before in history(!).
For my taste, most modern analogs are still a bit too clean (see why, here), but can sound more powerful than any other synth. As always, there are bad examples, too, riding the waves of reputation, but in fact being cheap reproductions that only hurt the name of the original. My respect goes to the inventors of new and cool little analogs, less so to the businessmen who reverse-engineer and release cheap copies of classic analogs and market them as identical. Why would anyone prefer to cheaply imitate when they could rather create the new (analog) sound of the future?
However, it’s only natural to expect the same character and features of a classic instrument from its modern re-issue, but actually, it’s pointless to compare. Who cares if the OB6 sounds exactly like the OB-XA or if the new and old MS-20s and Odysseys are perfectly identical? Unless you’re in a Journey cover band, you shouldn’t. If it sounds good without a nameplate, just play it.
Modular synths – new tools or just an overhyped trend?
A polarizing topic that’s hard to ignore – but it often makes me think and adjust my views. On one hand, modulars can be seen as cool, tangible variations of csound, pure data and the like, with patch chords and actual knobs taking the role of code, nodes and the mouse in a flexible environment. On the other hand, I’m getting sick of tech snobs who try to convince unsuspecting musicians and coolness-factor & trend-driven sound designers, that modular synths are a brand new way of making music that’s superior in some way… which of course is completely false. What also makes me cringe is when self-proclaimed “synth wizards” talk about “modular synthesis“. Someone please explain to them that such term is nonsense; the choice between assembling a setup from modular elements as opposed to using an already assembled hardwired synth will not effect the type of synthesis (subtractive, additive, fm, etc.) the machine employs. If anything, “modular synthesis” should refer to the practice of using a signal processing chain in which your audio and control voltage can be flexibly routed through blocks of function components – which is a similar idea to what you can do in any Digital Audio Workstation with a few plugins: route with total flexibility.
Are modular synths functionally inferior to non-modulars? Of course, not. They are just different machines, and definitely not meant for everyone. They are (mostly) flexible tools, and when it comes to routing, many consider that flexbility a source of freedom that allows the user to break traditions, expand the sonic possibilities. They enable the user to custom-build their setup, which can look and feel very tech-y and flashy (although often quite gimmicky – a popular choice of aesthetic these days for pseudo-deep live performances). If the setup is in the right hands, I’d agree with most of the benefits, though there are way fewer expert hands than eurorack modules around.
Modular analog synths are far from being a new concept; the first modulars originated technically in the ’50s, and become available to a somewhat wider audience from the ’60s on (a’la Buchla, Modular Moog). Doepfer has been building euroracks for decades… this miniaturized standard has been around since the mid-nineties! The modular synth-building concept itself isn’t very unique either; actually teenagers have been using “modular synthesis:p” in a software form without knowing it: just think about the good old Reason, or its grown-up versions like Reaktor, Nord Modular, VCV rack, etc. These days they’re available for free or cheap (although the Nord G2 is still $2G for other good reasons). These systems allow a completely modular approach to synthesis in the digital domain. Or, you can take the other end of the spectrum with CSound, Pure Data, the Kyma Systems, or the EigenMatrix for pretty insane flexibility – for those with lots of time and patience. Either way, modularity is a neat but old concept. So then what’s my issue with the modular snobbism of today and why had I decided to get out of the modular game just in time before it exploded a few years ago?
Modular synth? Not a new concept, but enjoys a new wave of marketing for sure. Click on the image for more.
The answer is simple: for me, a typical modular setup’s limitations exceed its advantages – when used to create the type of result I consider humane-expressive music. Today’s re-emerged (usually eurorack) analog modulars are somewhat limited when it comes to creating a full musical arrangement: once you have assembled your purest oscillators, special-order filters and trendy-as-of-last-week modulation and effect modules, you can successfully generate one (and often only one) part of your music. You want to hear what the second part sounds like (or perform it live)? Buy a second set of oscillators or signal splitters, filters, and pretty much everything else to play part #2. Have a complex arrangement? You will need deep pockets. (Those of you who are making the clever argument that modules can share multiple input signals and split control voltages… or speak of the creativity in committing to the sound and recording each part without audible context or the ability to modify: I am for limitations, but wait a second… wasn’t flexibility the main point of connecting modules with patchcords to begin with?)
Now, introducing the term music opens up discussions about modular synths to major controversy and debate, as it can be interpreted in as many ways as many people there are on Earth. So let me clarify: I’m referring to the type of electronic music that goes beyond just featuring cool sounds, but also communicates ideas, feelings, thoughts, emotions between the composer and a (hopefully) musically receptive (and typically non-technical) human audience via its deliberately composed notes, rhythms, potentially harmonies, dynamics, structure and performance expressions. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy listening to some musique concrete (and even teach it in my electronic music class), and, I do like the work of several modular synth performers. However, what I’m referring to here is the modular fanboi, creating an interesting sound, then thinking “hm, this sounds like a bird with a diarrhea, so let’s name this composition diabird“. Without any concept, emotions, message, only by recording some random sounds and giving it a weird title, the outcome won’t necessarily gain aesthetic value as music. Here is a typical (even curated!) example of some beautifully emotional, musical modular performance (not!):
If you think this is awesome, you might want to start exploring some actual electronic music.
Even a small modular system can be suitable for creating some beautiful tracks or even emotionally rich pieces. However, while limitations are great for creativity, too essential types of limitations can also seriously limit the potentials and scope of the expression of an idea (such as the structure of musical arrangement, musical nuances of a performance, etc.). If I want to express a feeling with a 5-part harmony, but I only have 4 voices, or if I suddenly feel the urge to add vibrato to a note I’m holding but vibrato isn’t patched in, then technology is not just keeping my work minimalist but is also compromising my creative ideas and expression.
Modular Tinkerers or Composers?
I may sound like someone who’s against modular synths; I’m certainly not. But I am against the unfounded hype that they get these days. Where I see a cool benefit of having a modular setup is a studio that incorporates some modules into a more flexible and capable setup. Controllers will likely expand their musicality in the future, and stand-alone modular performance systems will shatter their current limitations.
Funnily, many users of modular synths produce close to nothing complete with their equipment. Based on my own observations and experience with modular synths, countless conversations with performing colleagues and friends alike (and after having been the co-organizer of a synth meetup that ended up turning into a modular nerdfest), I have found that the combined output of about seven (7) hard-core “modular only” users matches the musical output of one (1) typical electronic music composer / producer. This is not the case because modular work takes more time, rather because exclusive modularists are often rather tinkering enthusiasts without a message, than musicians with something to say. Another major aspect that’s usually missing is performance; not the knob-turning action (the same kind of action that modularists criticize DJs for), but the intimate connection with each and every note of an instrument that you play. With that said, nothing is wrong with having an amazing hobby, like cooking up interesting sounds, tweaking knobs for hours and drive your neighbors insane, showing your patches to like-minded individuals and keep expanding your setup with new toys until it looks like a misplaced Christmas tree. Seriously, modularism is as entertaining of a tech-hobby as assembling computers – but just like putting together computer parts doesn’t make someone a programmer, connecting synth modules with patch cords won’t turn most users into a composer either. There are some notable counter-examples, though, creators who have managed to find their sound without the need for a concept or without much of an expressive interface at all.
Speaking of an “experimental mindset of modular performers” is also a grossly broad generalization. I remember the virtual analogue snobs from my early days of beta-testing new synths and demoing them at trade shows: they swore that their Nords and Waldorf VAs sounded more analogue, warmer, more powerful and had more modulation options than the Roland and Korg romplers of those days. And they were right. However, they were completely wrong about those synths being any better tools for music composition or sound design – they were just different tools. (Back in the mid-’90s I worked with Roland, and watched EDM-loving audiences deeply touched by performances and the lush preset(!) sounds coming out of the JD, MC and XP synths at some major shows, while the Waldorf exhibitors only attracted some nerds and JDs with their thick bass lines that kept looping for hours without any change but a filter sweep. (For the record, I am not taking any stabs at the Waldorf brand; I like Waldorf synths quite a lot.) The same is true for modular synths, which are just another neat tool; however, I believe that due to the less musical, more technical approach to their use, and their limitations in polyphony & multitimbrality, they are not any more inspiring sound synthesis tools than a complex synth, and are actually less capable tools for creating complete pieces of musical arrangements than the average multitimbral hardwired or software synth today. For others, they can be quite inspirational, though.
I can appreciate the freedom you get when picking and choosing the components of your modular setup and keeping the whole thing in a relatively compact form. It’s interesting to note, however, that 9 out of 10 modularists have only basic subtractive synthesis components in their eurorack: VCOs, LFOs, a couple of EGs, VCFs, and a sequencer. Hardcore modularists also use the sound design argument, namely, that you can do more with modular gear than with “conventional” synths. This is another statement that may be true – or may be completely false, depending on the units you’re comparing. While it is true that experimenting with a wall-sized super-modular system can be liberating when I comes to designing new sounds, there are also non-modular synths (both in hardware and software form) that allow you way more flexibility than a base eurorack loaded with conventional synthesis modules (think of the Doepfer A100 vs the Waldorf Quantum – or the Hartman Neuron, for an extreme example).
By the way, connect the output of any synth (or computer) to any guitar effect pedal… congratulations, you have just made your first modular synth! You can get some really neat stomp boxes for $25 on the used market. If you want to keep things flexible and unique, why stop at guitar pedals? Plug your household electronics into your studio (impedance matching advised:) for some truly unique sonics. The idea “the studio is your instrument” comes from the ’60s and still rings true. Heck, turn your entire house into a big modular system!
This forum post shows that some people turn the art of creating music into a tool-collecting competition – how much more sad can culture get?
Missing the Point
There are many examples of over-hyped technology and product development trends that largely miss the point. The worst offenders on the top of my list are specialty mixing headphones (nice try), audiophile cables (waste of money over $10/m/channel), automated mastering algorithms (they should all disappear) and “intelligent” music mixing software (end of creativity)… and for the average user, modular synths. I see a place for the trendy and ever-more-complex tools in the sonic wizardry scene (which, as a sound designer and beta-tester myself, I respect and have been an active part of for decades), though I believe that these tools actually put many users off-track, musically speaking. They are sold as inspiring electronic musical instruments, but most non-professionals end up using them for the enjoyment of a technical process. We do need hobbyists and software engineers who enjoy spending their time with comparing waveforms on oscilloscopes (like those pixel-peeping photographers who take more DSLR sensor test images than actual photos) – even if their work takes place with no musical goal in mind. But for creators and performers, getting wrapped up in the technicalities of the process can easily lead to missing the big picture: the photo, the music, the story.
Technology, including all type of synthesizers, should be the tools not the purpose in the creation of music, sound design, sonic experiences. Cool sounds, textures can be extremely inspiring, and sometimes the more unique, the better. They can become small elements or robust building blocks, and even the main focus of music. But, creating sonic elements that never end up in a piece of music or a concept communicable via audio, is not writing and not performance. In my opinion, sonic experimentation is crucial in today’s electronic music, at the same time, experimentation only, without any intent or feel, remains no more than an act of toying around.
So, before we talk shop about oscillators, synths and music technology, let’s try to answer the most important question: Where is the Music?
The story of Julius’ journey from ’70s electronic music through film work to forgotten future. Hear about the ideas behind the concept in this interview with the leading US electronic music program.
“You might feel like you need a doctorate in philosophy and physics to understand Dobos’ forgotten future. Many of the concepts find him questioning culture, religion and science, including Darwinism.” – John Diliberto
Read about the philosophical and spiritual story that resulted in the birth of forgotten future
“My views don’t contradict these [various] religions: they rather focus on the larger picture than on the well-known stories and characters. I don’t really disagree with science either, I simply expand on (okay, also break) its rules in the name of progression – and in knowing that we actually know very, very little. In my idea of a Multiverse, Nature does have a central role, but it isn’t exclusively governed by the tiny percentage of laws that we have so far established based on documented experiences (i.e. science). But again, all of this doesn’t matter: the goal of forgotten future is to put its listeners in a sonic environment full of emotional details, which trigger personal memories and inspire the listeners to “wake up” and find their own answers to these questions.” – Julius Dobos
I am ready to make a few unusual and some expected commitments for the year 2014. Although these are coming from personal realizations, opinions and circumstances, I’ve decided to share three of them with my audience (with some explanation included), hoping that some of you might find them inspirational (or thought provoking) and applicable for your own life or work. Plus, putting them out for listeners from all over the Planet to read will force me to actually stick to them…
Resolution #1: I will not purchase new software or hardware
This is actually harder than it sounds. Trying to leave my “gearhead” past behind, it might not be possible to simply ignore new developments and cool products. But, even though I won’t unsubscribe from the 20+ music technology related e-newsletters I am receiving on a weekly basis, the real challenge will be making the decision notto purchase the latest and greatest equipment or plugin. Why? I could simply say “I have more than enough gear in Studio CS” (and this would be the truth), but then you would say (if you’re a gearhead): “You can’t ever have too much gear!”. As I used to think the same, it might need some explanation why I think otherwise these days.
The less gear you have, the more you have to try: try to come up with unconventional solutions, try to get more out of what you have, try new and unusual combinations and end up with new and unique outcomes. Less convenience makes you think and work harder. Faster processing and more memory, more software, bigger algorhythm do not mean better music.
There are so many examples to put this in a wider perspective. For instance, think about the computers NASA used in the ’60s and ’70s. Their most complex program was 6 MB and Apollo 11 was guided to the Moon and back to Earth by a computer with 64 KiloBytes of memory and a processor running at 0.05 MHz – about the speed of a pocket calculator. Yet it was enough to assist a mission that changed history. Or, think about the Synclavier or the Fairlight CMI sampler of the early ’80s, with their processor running at around 1 MHz, both were responsible for amazingly realistic sounds in the works of many composers of the day.
I look at software similarly. Typically, what you will find in the newest versions, latest upgrades, is convenience. New features and functions might be marketed as “new capabilities”, but in fact, I have not come across any “new capabilities” for several years now, any features that wouldn’t have been possible to achieve before – usually in more complex but also more flexible ways. Whether we’re talking about new variations of formant synthesis, sequenceable effects processing, automation matrix or other “this will triple your creativity” gimmicks, it’s been all out there for those who choose to go beyond clicking on preset buttons – and it’s been around for a long time. This makes me think of the good old times that I was spending in front of the early version of Cubase (the whole program fit on four 3.5″ floppy discs), being more productive than ever.
I believe that we have passed the point where the advantage of the accelerated technical progress was practically measurable in most fields (the medical profession might be one of the exceptions). While more or less following Moore’s law, technological advancement is accelerating exponentially, in my opinion the benefits are only advancing logarithmically (the pace of change of the effect is decelerating). This brings the latest 64-channel theater surround sound systems to mind – as impressive as it sounds, I wonder how many listeners will perceive and actually enjoy its benefits over today’s 9.2 systems (knowing that most people can’t even distinguish a 5.1 from a 7.1 experience).
So, do we really need GigaByte-sized operating systems and TeraBytes of samples to create amazing sounds and music? (And let’s not even open up the analog can of worms here.) Taking this a step farther in light of the Apollo example: does the world need faster and faster technology to make history? Do we need to run fast to get farther and see less, or rather slow down and enjoy the journey? As for me… using technology as an occasional aid, it’s time to enjoy a healthy mix of the easy-to-miss wonders of yesterday and the creative challenges of tomorrow.
Resolution #2: I will use my smartphone less
I do like the “everything at one place” aspect of smartphones. I appreciate the practicality of the minimalistic algorhythm and small application size that runs on them. But I hate that they are leading the way in letting technology drive and schedule our lives, instead of inspiring us to free up time we spend with daily routines, and replace it with real productivity. Everyone knows by now how companies love to provide cellphones to their employees (to effectively extend their work hours without pay). But people are equally at fault. How many times do you check your phone a day? Some statistics say the average user does it 23 times, some research mentions numbers over one-hundred… either way, it’s too often. What’s the point of checking your emails, social networking status, weather, etc. constantly? How come no one felt being left out of the loop 15 years ago when launching your email once in the morning and once in the evening was enough? People still networked, and actually kept relationships more personal and reliable.
I do not want to waste any more time than I must with these routine tasks and I do not want to let technology become the purpose, rather than the tool. If I save only 3 minutes on average by turning on my phone only 10 times less a day, that’s already half an hour a day (over a full week per year!) that I can use my time for more useful activities. Let’s be the smarter one of our phones and ourselves.
Resolution #3: The New Album…. I will finally finish it and it shall be released.
My original plan was that first time in my life, I can spend all the time I want to compose music and sounds for my 8th studio album – one that is especially close to my heart. I even proudly shared my “no deadline” approach with some of my friends and students: “if it takes many years, then it takes many years… I won’t release it until I feel it’s near perfect”. The process started in 2009, and had no planned release date. After I delayed the release date several times, I have come to realize: what sounded good in theory, wouldn’t work in practice, for at least three reasons:
1. I’m never 100% satisfied with the mix of my own works, so technically the album will never be 100% finished. I just have to accept 98%. And due to the nature of music production, it takes about the same amount of time to get form zero to 98% as much it takes to get from 98% to 100% – there is always something to improve. Often I’m not even sure if I’m really improving on a detail or just moving over horizontally to explore another option. So those last 2% just aren’t worth the time.
2. Having been receiving your questions about the release date from all over the Planet at an increasing rate made me finally realize, that I owe it to my listeners to put out the new materials in a reasonable time. Working on my music by myself for too long is not only exponentially less productive (see above) but also exponentially more selfish.
3. Not wrapping up the first album (of my new concept album series of 4 albums) will prevent me from moving on, shifting my thoughts to the second topic and start working on the 2nd album.
I take this opportunity to thank everyone who inquired about the new albums and ensured me of their support. I’ll be proud to have you as a VIP passenger on this musical journey in 2014.
“What’s wrong with not being original?” – asked the celebrity and stepped back into his mansion.
Too Many Options
Brian Eno once said: “What you need are fewer possibilities… that are more interesting. It’s not more options that you want, it’s more useful options”. I think this is more true today than ever, and I might add: those few useful options will often come from the least obvious sources. So you want to be different, express your individuality, your personal message, come up with original content? Think about how you could make your process simpler. Think about how you could use gear that not everyone uses (sorry, NI). Restrict your convenient options – set up rules that prevent you from taking the same route from idea conceptualization to production twice. Work within these new set of rules, then destroy them and create new ones. Give up as much convenience as much you can handle. Let me know what results you have achieved.
When it comes to gear or software, there is a certain temptation for many of us who like diversity in sound generation and processing, to have lots of it. However, the truth is that you have to allow time for yourself to grow up to your gear. It’s kind of like a friendship. To make new friends every week and spend thirty minutes weekly with each new friend will less likely result in a strong friendship, than meeting fewer people and getting to know them better. Which situation do you think will get you farther, a lot of acquaintances or a few close friends? So, after you have gotten to know your gear down to the smallest details, let yourself run out of the obvious options; that’s where the real discovery starts. The reward comes when you start taking different than usual approaches to achieve interesting results. I’m not talking about ignoring the presets here, I’m referring to more or less ignoring the whole system (long live Anonymous!) – the methods by which the instrument or piece of equipment is supposed to be used.
I realize that I am also guilty of surrounding myself with too much gear. I remember the times when I had a very small studio and I was able to operate it with my eyes closed (literally – even navigate in sub-menus of certain equipment). Some of those pieces are still part of Studio CS today, and I keep on finding new and interesting ways of using them. On the other hand, I still have a lot of experimenting to do with my current setup, to venture into the sonic excursions I haven’t taken before. Not only I refrain from using any presets, but I’m rarely satisfied with the results that come from the “normal use” of these pieces of gear. Ultimately, I often gravitate back toward using the equipment I had developed a more in-depth “relationship” with. (A neat example would be my Yamaha PSR-6 synth, which is basically a toy that I had bought on eBay for $20, to bring back the memories of my first childhood keyboard, a PSR-2. Today, it certainly does sound like a toy, yet those sounds are part of game menus and movie soundtracks you might have already heard… yes, a $20 synth in major productions. Other sounds from this “toy” even found their way into my upcoming album [edit: the already released forgotten future], after some multi-tracking and lots of processing. Makes me think of pointless conversations about 192kHz and the need for pristine-sounding elite preamps…
This is not to say that less is always more. Although, if you are a new, aspiring composer or producer, less is definitely more, more becomes more after (many) years of use experience. With the friend analogy, once you have a few really close friends, why not have a couple more who you can get to know just as well? But it definitely takes thousands and thousands of hours to get to the point where one can utilize a studio full of equipment in a truly original ways. Most gearheads think that it would be so cool to take over a professional studio for a week… imagine what would happen if you had all the gear you can imagine at your disposal? There is a great (I believe Hungarian) phrase to describe it: “the abundance of confusion”. Probably you wouldn’t get much interesting music done, unless you resorted to using a couple of pieces of gear.
Reflex meeblip SE – it doesn’t get much simpler than this, you would think. Actually, with an interesting combination of processes, even this simple piece of gear (the simplest equipment in Studio CS) is capable of reaching a wide range of unique sonic territories.
Several years ago I actually went through a period when I couldn’t get the music in my head realized the way I imagined – for a few months, none of my sessions were productive, at least by an elevated standard of originality. It was quite frustrating: sitting in the studio full of equipment, with ideas in my head (so not a “writer’s block”), yet I wasn’t able to get my idea to the point of solid realization. I thought I was ready to use a great diversity of technology simultaneously – turns out I wasn’t. After many lost session, I solved this issue by temporarily eliminating most of the equipment from my process and using only a couple of pieces. It worked great. Then I would designate a couple of months to work only with a very limited set of equipment, to get the most out of each piece according to my given needs. You would think of this masochist method as restrictive, but it was quite the opposite. After years of working this way, I have almost grown up to Studio CS and developed a really good yet different “connection” with each piece.
Lack of true physical connection
Cables. They’re great. They let you be modular. They let you break rules. They let you hold your sounds and music in your hands while you’re deciding where to send them next. Cables stand for hands-on, physical connections and outboard gear. No plugins, no mouse, no updates, no launch errors, no forced upgrades. They represent the real stuff, something tangible. Virtual connections are just like software – flexible, convenient, but try to grab the ones and zeros they are made of. They don’t exist. Cables definitely do… and have something physical on both ends. A tube compressor. An analog synth. An effect pedal. There is nothing wrong with using virtual connections, but at least, try to combine the best of both words and keep some real cables in the part of your signal path that you wouldn’t even think could be used creatively.
Spare cables with undetermined purpose laying around before my recent studio relocation. I love cables; in my mind, they represent flexibility and provide an experience to music production that’s as far form a mouse pointer as it gets. Sure, they’re messy. So is cooking, as opposed to junk food from the drive-thru.
Speaking of physical connections, I have to mention the very interface we use to input music into our sequencers or recording software. These days we use software for most everything, and from year to year it takes less and less effort to interface with computers. The mouse is going out, leaving space for the one- and more finger-operation of touch screens. While I recognize their advantages and superiority over the mouse, I believe that they can’t yet replace (but rather complement) the act of physically touching actual 3-dimensional objects – in music production, these can be sliders, faders, buttons, knobs, dials, keys, keyboards, strings, sticks… you name it. The expressiveness we can transfer through, and the tactile feedback we receive from these objects is much more diverse than using a flat-surface touch screen for everything. We use a mouse or two fingers for browsing, email, work, shopping online, watching movies online… shouldn’t the process of creation be utilizing some different gestures than those that we use throughout the day anyway? No wonder that some of the electronic music instrument developers see the future of music technology in the way we interface with our instruments, rather than the sound generator itself. Robert Moog realized this early on, and focused on theremins before he re-started his synth manufacturing operation in 2002. Even then, his biggest new addition to the Voyager (relative to the Model D) was the 3-axis control pad. (More about the consequence of diverse interfaces and the advantages of physically generating and performing music in my Analog vs. Digital synths article.)
More analog and digital cables at Studio CS. Some connect synths to effect units, others connect seemingly unmatchable pieces of gear, taking the sound to a new direction.
Templates and signature sounds
Sometimes a computer virus can be a good thing. Of course, they are a curse when they strike just before you wrap up an important project and they wipe out your drive. But when you “only” lose the old files or templates you use for your projects, a virus can be a great benefit and have a healthy cleansing effect on your creativity. Having to re-create things or start from scratch in most cases ensures that you’re going to end up with different, often more interesting results, maybe better ones than what you would have gotten with your trusty templates.
In music, repeating yourself is too easy; it’s for the lazy and those who prefer convenience over originality (see quote on top). Of course, I’m talking about independent work – not industrial production work, like film scoring or mainstream songwriting, where safety, convenience, speed, trends and even imitation can often be more important (and better paid for) factors than originality; it usually doesn’t matter if the composer uses his or her template (or even “borrows” someone else’s), as long as it fits into the process: done as expected, submitted on deadline. For these quick and efficient type of projects, viruses can halt production and cause serious financial damage.
About a decade ago I stopped saving my sounds and settings into the synths and processors I created them with. I decided to deliberately cause this inconvenience for myself, to make sure that even when one of my previously used sounds would work well in a new piece, I would have to create a new, original one. I have not regret it a bit. Just think about the pre-digital times, when sounds, effects, mixing settings couldn’t be saved simply by pushing a button. How much more originality came from that era, when most sounds and most every piece of music was created from scratch, and was often impossible to repeat (perform) the same way. Originality wasn’t a goal artists were forcing, it just happened organically. Even the patch drawings (of settings) didn’t give the composer exactly the same results every time.
The only two exceptions from this practice are performances and signature sounds. If the style of a composer or producer is heavily characterized by the sounds or instruments used, sometimes it’s understandable if s/he wants to re-use these elements; that is, if the reason is not laziness but the desire to evoke the feel of a previous music piece, to create a link to an earlier work (hopefully rather an emotional, than a promotional link), or to perform the music live. For instance, I have kept three of my used-to-be signature sounds (they come from the time of Mountain Flying) but have used them maybe three times in the past 15 years. The main lead sound from Mountain Flying I, II and III had been quietly resting in a sound module for years before I decided to use it again for the lead part of Fly Away (on Transitions). Fans had been asking for a sequel to Mountain Flying, and though I was not intending to create a sequel album, one day in 2004 the track Fly Away was born. My old MF sound not only worked perfectly for the lead, but was largely responsible for bringing back the feel of the windy, snow-covered mountains from 1999’s Mountain Flying.
1999’s Mountain Flying CD Cover (Periferic Records original edition)
Signature sounds and live performances aside, I can only respect and celebrate those composers and producers who sound themselves but do not sound the same over and over again – especially in electronic music, where texture is a major building block of music. I suspect the same applies to painters, sculptors, graphic artists, videographers, animators, writers, poets and most everyone who creates original work – where templates can be the enemy of originality. Convenient, but limiting: they might not let you see different directions, take new approaches, change up the usual process.
Have you discovered some other not-so-obvious enemies of originality? Comment or let me know.
