Actually, I shouldn’t lay all the blame on my own shoulders.  A bit part of it was spurred earlier, when my good friend David posted this lovely photo of a Kurzweil PC88 belonging to someone I’d love to link except that I have no idea who they are.  If you’re reading this, David, toss an attribution in the comments?  I’ve never owned a Kurzweil synth of any kind, but I was considering buying an old K2000S recently and have always appreciated their aesthetics (while also being curious about the VAST architecture).

Now, for a good portion of my musical meanderings I have not been a hardware guy at all, so this is going to be a very short list.  I might post about software another time, but I don’t get nostalgic over softsynths in the same way, and maybe that in itself deserves a post.  In the meantime, though, here are the synths that I’ve called mine over the years (the photos are not of my actual units):

#1: Korg DSS-1

The first synth that I called my own was a Korg DSS-1.  Now, technically it was never really mine.  I had it on a rent-to-own plan from the Long & McQuade back home in Windsor.  It was used, and I had it for only a couple of months around the summer of 1989.  The DSS-1 was a hybrid synth / sampler, which has lovely-sounding filters, dual delay lines, and allows you to process inputs through its filters and effects.  It had a tiny amount of memory (256kb) which gave you a whopping 5 seconds of sampling time, but compensated with both a huge number of waveforms for its synthesis section but also the ability to draw your own waveforms using the data slider and the LCD.  Prior to getting this beast, I was “composing” strictly by screwing around with tape.  I can’t say I did a lot of composition on it, and I only have one recorded song that I can attribute to the unit (“The Last Day,” which heavily overused a sample of an Imam saying, “Let every soul look to what it has put forward for the future,” and featured otherwise a sped-up sample of the opening percussion line of When The Levee Breaks and a sort of lo-fi pad made from a sample of Severance by Dead Can Dance).  Still, not only did I love it, but I thought it looked beautiful.  (Many people complain that it’s clunky, huge and heavy, but I still love it.)  You can find a whole pile of images of it here.

I don’t know if I presently have the room for it, but I’d love to get another one someday.

#2: E-Mu EMAX

What the DSS-1 made up in style, it lost in not having a manual.  Or rather, Long & McQuade didn’t have one.  And as it was my first-ever synth, it became clear pretty early on that I was going nowhere fast with it without one.  Sure, I could goof off, but I thirsted for something I could really get deeply in to.  I asked them if they had one lying around, but they didn’t… but they did have an E-Mu EMAX available for rent-to-own that did have a manual, and they’d transfer my earned credit over for it.

Now, I love E-Mu.  I was a huge E-Mu junkie for years.  However, one thing about them, they make some ugly as sin synths.  The EMAX wasn’t the ugliest synth ever, but it also wasn’t the prettiest, as you can see here.  The grey case colour lacked punch, and the pink highlights were brasher and more obnoxious in person.

However, it sampled like a dream.  12-bit was more than enough for me then, and it could hold 52 seconds of samples.  It also came with a whole pile of great sounds, including the now-infamous Arco Strings, which I must admit I loved to death at the time.  (They really are kind of horrible.)  I had it for only a little over a month, though, during which most of it was learning to use it and going through setup.  This was also when I bought a Roland MPU-401 MIDI card and got a copy of Master Trax Pro sequencing software.  Having been heavily influenced by a staccoto synth-strings piece called “Ad Astra,” by an Icelandic artist named Höh, I wrote “Flight,” which isn’t on the site but some of you have heard.  It’s not cringe-worthy, but it’s not terribly inspiring.  However, it marked the beginning of several trends that would play a role over the next couple of years.  First, I tried to make it as dense as I could without getting too muddy.  Second, I embraced the “Worship the Glitch,” ethic, composing the main line by playing a percussion loop I’d written using a strings patch instead, and third, my good friend James Drage was hauled in to save the piece a few times when I’d worked it in to a corner.  It was the first thing that I bothered actually recording to tapes not just for my own listening but specifically to pass around to other people.

Unfortunately, when school started up again, my parents forebade me from getting a part-time job, saying that I was to focus on my grades.  I was devastated.  I’d lose my synths, and all the “to-own” credit I’d built up.  In return, my parents promised to buy me a unit if I did well.  It wouldn’t turn out to be quite that easy, but either way, it marked the end of Studio Setup 1.0.

I’ve noticed that it’s 1:25am, and I have to be up for work in five hours!  I’m going to cut thus short.  But if any of you are enjoying listening to my nostalgic ramblings, or perhaps even if not, I’ll continue on this subject tomorrow!

So today, Native Instruments has announced a bazillion things.  The big thing is the new version of their flagship Komplete collection — Komplete 7.  I use Komplete 6 right now.  I upgraded relatively recently, having in the past individually purchased and maintained Battery, Reaktor, FMx, and Kontakt.  When you add up all the standalone upgrade prices for each of those tools, it’s much more than the upgrade price from one version of Komplete to the next.  As such, it seemed to me that moving to the bundle, which includes all of the above plus Guitar Rig (software version), Absynth and Massive, put me on what in the long run will be a simpler and more economical upgrade cycle.

Komplete 7 adds a bunch of stuff to the mix.  It continues to bundle Reaktor 5.5, Battery 3, Guitar Rig 4 Pro, Absynth 5, Massive, Kontakt 4, and FM8.  Those are the same versions that I have now, though, in Komplete 6.  You’d expect version ramps for the new Komplete, right?  I was a little confused too.  This version of Komplete doesn’t seem to be about versioning the core products, but about introducing a whole pile of stuff into the bundle based on Native Instruments’ new philosophy of building new instruments on their core technology platforms.

As such, it also includes Abbey Roads Drums, Rammfire, The Finger, Traktor’s 12, Scarbee MM-Bass, Reflektor, Reaktor Prism, Reaktor Spark, Acoustic Refractions, New York Concert Grand, Vienna Concert Grand, Berlin Concert Grand, Upright Piano, Vintage Organs, Scarbee Mark I, Scarbee Clavinet / Pianet and Scarbee A-200. 

As you can probably tell, a good number of these are detailed reproductions of existing instruments based on the Kontakt platform or new effects based on the Reaktor platform.  The sample library size has also ramped up to over 90GB.  So instead of getting a pile of new tools, I’d essentially be getting a pile of new content, some of which will be very interesting, some of which won’t be.

I have to admit that it’s not the wildly compelling upgrade that I expected, but it’s still very interesting, and at $229 USD to upgrade, it’s a significantly cheaper buy than buying the individual instruments, pretty much all of which are available independently.  I do think that it creates some interesting crosstalk vs. the Kore  platform, although they’ve always been clear that they think Komplete and Kore work best in tandem.

In addition to the Komplete bundle, a whole bunch of these instruments have been made available separately.  I imagine the Rammfire instrument, replicating Rammstein’s guitar processing, will be of particular interest to a lot of people.  Reaktor Prism, Vintage Organs, and Traktor’s 12 have also been announced as standalone products.  (Many of the others already were available that way.)

Lastly, they’ve made an interesting move in tune with their Kore Player product, releasing freely-downloadable Reaktor 5 Player and Guitar Rig 4 Player tools, which will allow you both access to a limited set of instruments from the libraries of those tools and also allow you to run instruments and effects based on those platforms without owning the full products (I believe Reaktor Prism and Rammfire both fall into that model).  Whereas Native Instrument in the past was very creator-focused, especially with Reaktor, which really encouraged creating your own synths as being the ultimate way to enjoy the product, I think they’re now seeing that many people just want a set of presets they can fire up and use, and they’re providing channels to satisfy those needs.  The products are relatively inexpensive (they offer a lot of their built-on-a-platform-player products at the $79 USD price point) and give people plug-and-go use with a small amount of customizability.  I think that that’s a pretty sound model for them, and I admit I’ve bought a few Kore Soundpacks without yet having bought Kore, myself.

So… Christmas in September, I guess!  Now to go pore over feature sheets and decide if I want to jump on Komplete 7 or not.  I think the answer is clear — it’s really a steal — but I may need some time to talk myself into it.

Definitions first; What I mean by “probabilistic sequencing” is this: In deterministic sequencing, you might use a set of knobs to set voltages and a set of switches to set gates for each step.  A knob sets the pitch of the note to be played at that step, and a switch determines whether or not that step will be played (to allow you to have rests in your sequence).  What we’re doing instead with probabilistic sequencing is to have a pair of knobs for each step.  The first one determines the pitch being played at that step, and the second one determines the likelihood that that note will be played.  If the knob is twisted completely counter-clockwise, you get a rest.  If it’s twisted completely clockwise, you get a note.  If it’s somewhere in between, you may or may not get a note, and the likelihood is in proportion to the position of the knob.

This was actually sparked by a question from Mark Sims on the synthesizers.com Yahoo group, but I became interested because I use probabilities and randomness extensively when sequencing in Nodal, and I find the results very effective, so being able to do that in hardware seemed like fun.

My solution uses the following modules: 1x Q110 Noise, 1x Q117 Sample & Hold, 1x Q125 Signal Processor, 1x Q124 Multiples, 1x Q128 Switch, 1x Q109 Envelope Generator, 1x Q108 Amplifier, 1x Q106 Oscillator, 2x STG Soundlabs Voltage Mini-Store.

The solution that I came up with (which is a slightly different arrangement than the original question, so it’s been modified for my configuration) looks like this:

I don’t know if that’s the best diagram ever.  If you have any comments on the documentation style, let me know.  The patch in words looks like this:

NOISE (White Noise) -> SAMPLE & HOLD (Input)
SAMPLE & HOLD (Output) -> SIGNAL PROCESSOR (Top Input)
SAMPLE & HOLD (Gate) -> MULT B
SIGNAL PROCESSOR (Top Output) -> MULT A
MULT A -> SWITCH (Control)
MULT B -> SWITCH (2A)
MULT B -> STG VMS 1 (Shift)
MULT B -> STG VMS 2 (Shift)
SWITCH (1 Common) -> OSCILLATOR (1V/Oct)
SWITCH (2 Common) -> EG (Gate)
OSC (Square Out) -> AMP (Signal Input 1)
EG (Output) -> AMP (Control Input 1)
AMP (Output) -> Mixer
STG VMS 1 (Output) -> SWITCH (1A)
STG VMS 2 (Output) -> MULT A

Obviously you can customize this to your liking.  For example, you might want to choose a different waveform, or mult the pitch out to multiple oscillators or something else.

Okay, so what’s going on here?

The first Voltage Mini Store in this set up is being used traditionally, to set pitches.  The second is our probability setting for each note.

Well, the Noise source is basically operating as a random number generator.  The Sample & Hold is running the timing of the sequencer, both by grabbing just one value from the noise source per beat and by using its gate output to manually shift the sequencers.  I left the output and input knobs on each of these at full.  The frequency knob on the Sample & Hold will be set to taste for the speed of your sequence, and the timing source of the Sample & Hold is set to Internal.

The multiple group called MULT A in the description above is being used to merge our random number generator with the output of our knobs from the second Voltage Mini Store, and send that to control the Switch.  The output from the Noise and S&H goes through a Signal Processor en route because you’ll have to carefully set the values of the gain and offset until you get the probability curve that you want.  The method for doing this is basically to set all of your knobs to 50% and then adjust until they fire about half the time, then check to see if they fire all the time at 100% and never at 0%.  If not, adjust accordingly until you get the response curve you want.  It sounds fiddly, but it didn’t take me very long to get something workable for me.  You’ll probably want to slow down your timing while doing this to make counting easier.  (I also cheated by temporarily unplugging the shift inputs on both Voltage Mini Stores so that I could just fiddle with one knob instead of having to twist them all to try the various values.)

I send both the pitch and the gate through the Switch because if you decide that you want a log decay tail on your envelope and you don’t do this, the decay tail will change to the pitch of the next note in the sequence even if that note isn’t supposed to be sounding.

From there it’s pretty straightforward.  The pitch drives your oscillator, the gate drives your EG, they go to the Amp and Bob’s your uncle.

Here’s a short recording of the patch in action.  In this example I’ve got notes 1, 3, 5, 7 at 100% (they always sound) and the alternate notes 2, 4, 6, and 8 at 50%, so you’ll hear them fill in sometimes and sometimes not.  I’ve also added a bandpass filter sweep and some reverb because I can’t leave well enough alone.  You’ll notice that there’s a little rhythmic click after each note.  That’s not supposed to be there.  I kind of like the way it sounds, but if someone has suggestions for getting rid of it, I’d love to hear it.

Download audio file (probseq.mp3)

They’re not lying.  It’s definitely the Bieber song.  However, a lot more has been done to it than just slowing it down 8x.

At first I thought maybe it was a different version — perhaps an “unplugged” version.  I didn’t listen to the original and the re-sped-up version side by side enough to say, but I’d posited that it was a different rendition that felt a lot more soulful and bluesier to me.  However, from reading the comment thread on the post, it appears that it’s just that it was actually slowed down somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10.7x instead of 8x, and that in addition it was knocked down in pitch by a minor second, which presumably account for the change in tone and feel to my ears.

Also, the shimmery, dreamy quality seems to come from a large hall reverb applied to the original prior to slowing it down.  You can definitely hear it when you speed it back up, and it actually imparts the same shimmery, dreamy quality on the original, even though the effect is also sped back up.

To be fair, if you speed it back up by only the mandated 8x factor, don’t shift the pitch back up and leave the reverb on, it’s actually still not a half bad tune to listen to.

Nonetheless, it’s an interesting thing.  In a few tracks well prior to the ones on the site here (say around 1991), I used samples of me speaking that I’d made when I had a cold then both slowed down and pitched down by a factor of around 4 to 6, and they sounded awesome, like dragons.  I’ve used small chunks of my own material resampled and stretched or compressed in time before.  Still, this makes me really want to take some earlier ramp tracks and mess with them to see what kind of new material I can generate.

Right now my October Insanity Roster looks like this:

Sat., Oct. 2nd: Swans at Lee’s Palace.
Sun., Oct. 3rd: Deerhoof at Lee’s Palace.
Tue., Oct. 12th: Howard Jones at The Mod Club.
Wed., Oct. 20th: Four Tet at The Mod Club.
Sun., Oct. 24th: Ryuichi Sakamoto at the Queen Elizabeth.
Wed., Oct. 27th: Recoil at the Opera House.

As far as I know, the Ryuichi Sakamoto show is the only one that’s seated, so if anybody wants to join me for any of the other shows, it shouldn’t be a problem going together if you just buy tickets on your own.

Still no news on any North American dates for the two-day Einstürzende Neubauten 30th Anniversary tour. 

Rising, Falling: (download)
Download audio file (Rising_Falling.mp3)

As always, I hope that you enjoy it.

1. Swans at Lee’s Palace on Saturday, Oct. 2nd
2. Four Tet at The Mod Club on Wednesday, Oct. 20th
3. Recoil at The Opera House on Wednesday, Oct. 27th

They’re all general admission and all were quite inexpensive, so if you’d like to come, feel free to pick up tickets and we’ll go together!

My only sadness is that there are still no North American dates announced for the Einstürzende Neubauten 30th Anniversary Tour.

It’s undoubtedly going to be an exciting month!