Handling – pulse

We are currently living in the seventh decade of electronic musical instruments. Initially, it was the synthesizer that surprised us with its completely new sounds at the time, followed later by samplers and physical models. Synthesizers became increasingly diverse, as the journey went from analog to FM synthesis, phase distortion, wavetables, additive synthesis and other subgroups. While musicians initially had to cope without touch dynamics, knobs and buttons were used instead as a means of dynamization. These were actually intended by the manufacturers for basic creation and provided on the control panels. But as musicians are, they want to express the music. Emotion, drama, fun, aesthetics, atmospheres.

All in the service of the songs, the corresponding lyrics and also in the movie as a suitable background for the scenes. The Filter Cutoff quickly developed into the central color control, because the effect of changing the sound from brilliant to dull is striking and thus the thick brushstroke in the type of musical expression. The so-called controllers such as pitch bend and modulation wheel were also available right at the beginning, so that you could bend the sound like a guitar and play with vibrato like a violin. When velocity sensitivity was added in the 80s, it was a milestone in the construction of electronic keyboard instruments. Pianists were immediately attracted to it, also thanks to the reasonably comfortable polyphony. And when the first samplers came onto the market not much later, pianos were soon digitized. At first they were still very flat with only one dynamic level, usually forte.

But when the velocity switch was invented, it was suddenly possible to play several dynamic levels from pp to ff, even on keyboards with weighted keys. The path to the digital piano was now paved. This digitalization had consequences. Firstly, a lot of musicians turned away from analog synthesizers. Their rediscovery would take a good decade. Samples were the order of the day, across the entire range of acoustic and electric instruments. You could always tell from the 8 and 12 bit sampleplayers that you were dealing with samples. The distance to the sampled models was immediately audible. This was also due to the fact that they were often recorded using very simple means. A dynamic microphone held close to the violin, a few bow strokes later and the thing was in the can. However, some made a special effort to perform the sonic appearance of these actually primitive sounds in such a way that the musical result sounded quite appealing. With volume pedals, wheels and skillful playing techniques typical of the instruments, it was possible to get quite close.

However, you could still hear the difference in sound between the samples and an actual orchestra. This was to change as the sample quality improved, as did the recording techniques used to create them. Expensive recording studios with high-tech microphones and the finest peripheral equipment for refinement made the recordings of orchestral instruments in particular better and better. The know-how of the sound designers who transformed these results into playable presets also made enormous progress in some cases. But there was a catch: Now the musicians had to keep up. And that failed, at least for many of them. Operating systems that were anything but inviting to learn to master certainly played a role in this. Not always, there are virtuosos on the keys who manage to breathe life into these high-quality sounds. Using controllers and appropriate playing skills, where they master the matter with musical ideas and inspiration.

But they are the exception, at least in industrial music. Now that the Golden Age, namely the 80s with its endless number of great songs and bands, is over and the industry is even dictating the assembly line of music and has exploitation chains all the way to supermarkets and petrol stations with their intrusive background sound, things have gradually become lousy for musicians. Why? Well, if you play a fantastically sampled cello on the keyboard and put your hands on the keys lovelessly and cluelessly at the same time, it just sounds pathetically weak. Which you can hear especially in legato passages. Powerless, without any lively emotion, no virtuoso details whatsoever, as any decent cellist can do, whom you have as a role model and somehow imitate. They approach with a great tone, the bowing is perfect and the dynamic range is enormous. A live performance by a cellist is a treat for the listener. The grottily played digital counterpart tends to make the listener fall asleep or run away, there’s no interest in that.

Maybe not for everyone, because there are people with wooden ears who don’t notice. They are numb to the constant bombardment of the music industry anyway and apparently put up with any musical filth that doesn’t even begin to deserve the term music. It’s all about that assembly line production that is made with loops, MIDI chords and all kinds of automated computer stuff including auto tune, copy/paste and quantization like chewing gum that you spit out after enjoying it. It’s thanks to the outstanding sound quality of the samples that you can now clearly hear all this. And turn away from it. As a listener. We also encounter an influx of sounds with which synthesizers and software instruments are stuffed. Hard to beat in terms of irrelevance, lacking any kind of dynamic spectrum. Musicians trample around like clogs through a flower bed.

Some sound designers struggle with so-called signature sounds, but these are no good if they lack any real character of their own, as well as the right musical signature, and are therefore arbitrary. So we are at a moment where we can realize that this is the wrong highway exit for further development and that we have to go back to the further evolution of electronic instruments. The musicians now have to keep up with the technology, which is a very unpleasant situation. And manufacturers should stop developing faceless mass-produced goods where you can no longer tell the difference between them and the competitor’s product. Digital pianos that all sound almost the same? That’s not the best idea. Mountains of synthesizer souds that you won’t remember once you’ve heard them. Electronic instruments should be an inspiration? Yes, absolutely. But first and foremost a suitable tool for making music. But that doesn’t work by simply packing in more and more features.

But with aspiration, dedication and love on the part of the makers. Manufacturers and musicians have to work hand in hand as equals. And the musician must feel all this when he plays the new instrument for the first time. Let it appeal to them to such an extent that they are only on their fifth preset after an hour of trying it out. So the next development phase has begun right now. Here we go.

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When Keith Emerson started using the big Moog Modular Synthesizer live on stage at his ELP concerts, Bob Moog was quite surprised. Why? Well, he had designed these large boxes with their countless plug-in panels, knobs and switches primarily for broadcast purposes. They were also intended for use in recording studios. Construction and durability for the stage was not yet intended, and he was afraid that Keith Emerson would have problems with the Moog Modular. Even during transportation, he had doubts as to whether this could be handled properly at rock concerts. At an ELP concert near Bob’s hometown, he took the opportunity to see it in person. He was visibly impressed by Keith’s performance and how he used the Moog Modular. Perhaps he had also listened to audio recordings of the ELP concert at the now legendary Isle of Wight Open Air Festival. You can hear some of the Moog Modular’s operational problems. However, both Keith and the technical crew obviously mastered these problems quite well.

In any case, he remained in close contact with Keith in the following years. And since he was fascinated by the idea of being able to use synthesizers on stage, he developed several prototypes, together with Herb Deutsch, for a small portable keyboard instrument. This was inferior to the Moog Modular in terms of sonic possibilities, but at least it contained the most important components and functions of the Moog Modular – and was compact, portable and easy for musicians to understand and operate.

It was to become the famous Minimoog when he was finished with his concepts. The great advantages of the Minimoog combined with its great sound brought the desired success for everyone. The parameters were all pre-wired or accessible via switches. And the controls were dimensioned in such a way that they were easy to reach even on poorly lit stages and could also be operated while playing. Basically, this was the prototype of a controller keyboard. The only difference was that it also had sound generation.

Why a controller keyboard? Well, they are parameters that are operated with the knobs and switches, but they are the very important parameters of a synthesizer sound. Later, synthesizers became more and more packed with such controls and today they are often displays with a myriad of parameters that you have to operate via menu navigation if you want to make changes to the sounds. However, the abundance of these parameters made it difficult to use them for dynamic sound changes during a performance. And that was precisely the problem. Why was that? Well, the sound alone, such as a finished preset, is only half the battle. Only the intention of playing it dynamically and thus serving the musical idea was largely prevented. How could this situation be improved in favor of the artist?

This is how it worked: in the meantime, some synthesizer manufacturers thought that a handful of special controllers would be a good idea. They were to be assigned important parameters in the desired intensity and range so that they could be called up and used by hand and foot during a performance. The Yamaha DX7 was one of the first synthesizers to offer something like this. It was probably a case of necessity being made into a virtue. Because completely digital access to parameters is not useful as a dynamic tool during a performance. Today, there are keyboard instruments with a more extensive range of controllers, and with master keyboards this is sometimes too much of a good thing.

Now, when using a sound, it’s not the what that matters – it’s the pure sound itself – but the how and what you do while using it to play your music or composition. A need was recognized here and implemented as an example, initially as a Minimoog. Although this was probably not meant to be so specific at the time. Today, the controller arsenal of a keyboard can be fantastically adapted to your own purposes. For example, certain modulations of filter functions can be assigned to one controller, envelope parameters to another, effects and their intensity to another. To use them elegantly and conveniently for your own music during the performance without any fuss. As a dynamic tool to represent the viruosity, to enable interesting sound variations during an improvisation. With MIDI recording, this can also be done in a second step by recording controller data on an extra track after the music has been recorded.

If you are clever, then this happens with a certain standardization. You simply think about which sound category should be controlled in a particularly clever and targeted way. With a lead synth sound, for example, it makes sense to assign this quick and convenient access via controller to Filter Curoff and Resonance. And perhaps Attack Time to a different one, but with a very small range. So as not to have too coarse control steps at the start. Switching a second oscillator to another controller, the volume level of which can then be controlled using the controller. Or switch on the second oscillator using the On/Off button. Effects such as delay and reverb are also well suited to such a practical controller set. You can do the same with pads, or you can think of something else for them. For example, assign the release time to a controller. And add two or three more sounds via the controller to improve the dramaturgy options during the performance. Or control a bass in this way, for example by adding an octave. Switch on an extra attack sound or add it succesively using the controller or call up a fat unison sound. For pianos or percussive instruments such as guitars, you can also put together your own controller set, which you can use during performance. Operation is particularly easy if you standardize this and equip sounds of the same categories with identical controller assignments. Then you don’t have to memorize so many different controller assignments. If you have a synthesizer or a workstation in front of you where the presets are equipped with completely individual controller assignments, you can adjust them to your own needs. Otherwise you would have to memorize the settings of every single sound, but that is impossible.

So it depends on how you can use a sound for yourself. The sound alone is only half the battle. But with a great contriller assignm,ent it becomes the real fun and a signature sound full of character.

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Category: Handling

The trivialization of euphony

Realtime Controller: It’s all about how you do what you do