Analogue Synthesizer Exploration, Research Paper Example

Introduction

The discussion of analogue synthesizers will be used to describe the development of technology, social change and the shaping of electronic music. Electro-Theremin, Moog and Buchla synthesizers will be discussed to support these reflections. Further there will be discussion of the relationship of these technologies to the aesthetics of electronic music including historical events, musical events and social changes that led to or influenced the development of the technology.

“Historical synthesizers consisted of an oscillator, or tone generators, in one of three basic waveforms. These were sawtooth, square, or sine waves. This signal was then passed through several other modules to alter the initial tone. These first synthesizers were not triggered by a keyboard like they are today and they were abstract in their uses.” (Liar, 2009).

Literature Review

Sound commences through what seems like a simple entity but actually extends through technology and science and embed itself into the realms of history and culture through interaction and other forms which do not seem to be properly addressed. “The emulation of sound is a necessity of history of the musical synthesizer because it is an element of the social construction of music. During the period of 1964-1975 when the best known early synthesizer, the Moog Synthesizer (see figure 1), was developed and manufactured. This modular, transistorized, voltage-controlled device was much smaller than the existing room-sized tube synthesizers such as the RCA Mark II (built in 1958) housed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Studio.” (Pinch, 2007).  The Theremin, the Trautonium and the Ondes Martenot are still used in classical repertoire in France. The synthesizer presents us with a revolutionary means of producing sound through electronics.

The Moog synthesizer has gained recognition throughout the years.  “In 2001 Bob Moog was awarded the Polar Prize for music, for his 1970 invention of the Minimoog synthesizer, a portable keyboard instrument (see figure 2).” (Pinch, 2007).  In 2002 the Apple Computer in combination with the Minimoog won the Grammy Award for it’s appreciation to the music industry.  Music engineers did really special and innovative work with this piece of work.

Timeline

1963: Moog develops a proposal and meets with composer Herb Deutsch. Moog engineers prototype voltage-controlled modules.

1964: Moog attends Audio Engineering Society meeting in New York and markets his first modules to many first time buyers.

1964-67: Moog engineers additional modules and further adopts a keyboard controller.

1966: The Beach Boys release “Good Vibrations” which uses electronic sound of from Theremin.

1967: Moog puts out the first series 900 sales synthesizer for catalogue sales distribution.

1967: Moog employs sales representatives to cover marketable areas in NY and CA.

1967: Moog’s products sold to market the music of the Doors and Beatles.

1970: Lucky Man was released by Emerson Lake and Palmer.

1970: Minimoog synthesizer was engineered.

1970: Synthesizers began to be marketed at trade shows and retail markets.

1970s: “ARP of Boston and EMS of London make synthesizers used by major recording artists like Pete Townshend, Stevie Wonder and Pink Floyd. Synthesizers used for many movies including Star Wars, Close Encounters, The Exorcist, Apocalypse Now.” (Pinch, 2007).

1983: Yamaha DX7 synthesizer successfully engineer for the market sales.

1980s-today:” Market dominated by Japanese multinationals – Roland, Korg, Yamaha and Casio. Old analogue synthesizers made by Roland used in techno and rave music.” (Pinch, 2007).

You can certainly see that as engineers develop better synthesizers that are more efficient and less bulky to operate they are the ones purchased in the modern society. Engineers are always finding better ways to improve the synthesizers to improve the music.

Sold Since Their Development

Moog and Buchla- hundreds

Minimoog-12,000

Yamaha DX-7-200,000

Casios-15,000,000

It is important to note with the first development of the Moog in the 1960’s it would cost a person the price of a small house to own one about 16,000 of which now you can purchase a low line one for about 100.00. The minimoog was the first synthesizer that could be purchased in retail stores. Stores still sell analog synthesizer cards because some purchasers prefer the quality of the old cards to the new ones. The new ones do not offer the same range of sounds as the old ones. “The synthesizer is designed to emulate or imitate other instruments” (Pinch, 2007) and with that said we will move on to the history of the Moog synthesizer to better understand how that emulation or imitation is accomplished.

History of the Engineering of the Inventions

Moog had a surprisingly chance meeting with Herb Deutsch, an avant-garde electronic music composer who worked with tape recorders and oscillators using them together to produce electronic sounds. Moog wanted a more affordable way to produce such sounds in a compositional way in the studio. Moog not only wanted to produce box sound but musical symphony. As a child Moog played the piano and made Theremins and futher worked in his father’s basement of whom worked for Con Edison as an engineer. Moog had already built oscillators to vary voltage control and change the pitch of sound electrically. He learned the larger a feed of voltage into the oscillator the higher the output pitch would be produced. “By building “exponential converter” circuits into his devices – circuits which converted a linearly varying parameter like a voltage into an exponentially varying parameter like frequency or intensity – Moog made these control voltages musically useful. It enabled him to design all his modules around a single standard – the volt-per-octave standard – such that a change of a control input of one volt produced a change in the output pitch of one octave.” (Pinch, 2007).  Moog thought broader in terms of octaves which were crucial to wiring the exponential converter circuits to the keyboard he and Deutsch were working on. The oscillators varying voltage output could be used with a chain of resistors and switches to be converted into a monophonic keyboard. This was a modern way of creating electronic music in a studio with the twist of a knob or the plugging of a wire where qualities of sound could be varied and delivered to at a faster and more dynamic rate than ever thought possible before.

Moog next invented the ‘envelope generator’ which would be used on all of the standard synthesizers to come. “An envelope generator allows the loudness of sound to be structured or contoured to produce, say, the effect of a string being plucked, where the loudness builds up rapidly and then decays away slowly.” (“Interview with Herb Deutsch, April 19, 1997”).

“The Moog instrument was based on a process known as subtractive synthesis.” (Pinch, 2007).  Moog’s sources of sounds were productions of waveforms.  He used filters to remove frequencies. Classical studios used process of additive synthesis “since any sound can by Fourier analysis be broken down into sine waves of different frequencies (a fundamental and overtones), it should be possible to assemble any sound by adding together sine waves.” (Pinch, 2007).   Some musicians noted that Moog’s engineering produces acoustic sounds.

Don Buchla, musician of the West Coast worked during the same time as Moog. His education was in engineering at Berkley University of California. Buchla met composers Mort Subotnick and Ramon Sender at about the same time Moog met Deutsch. Buchla came up with a design independent of Moog’s however it was very similar in that  it was modular and used voltage controls – but there was one crucial difference – “Buchla rejected the standard keyboard altogether and did not build oscillators that followed the volt-per-octave standard (see Figure 3).” (Pinch, 2007).  Buchla invented generating a sequence in different voltage altogether. This was a great invention for him. He designed touch sensitive metal pads in wooden boxes called Kinaesthetic Input Ports.  These pads were not designed to play the twelve note chromatic scale on the keyboard. Buchla’s attitude was guided by the avant-garde composers he met at the Tape Centre. John Cage and David Tudor were inspirers’ of Buchla. Buchla sold his first set of pads to John Cage.  “Electronic music composers like Vladimir Ussachevsky found Buchla’s way of working more appealing than Moog’s and another of Buchla’s earliest orders were for three identical systems for each of the three studios that Ussachevsky ran at the Columbia-Princeton electronic music studio.” (Pinch, 2007). Ussachevsky did purchase from Moog his envelope generator. Ussachevsky did not use the piece to work in real time, instead he asked Moog to redesign it to add contours to taped sounds.

Relationship of Technology to the Aesthetics of Electronic Music

Moog’s synthesizer obviously became a modern day keyboard that is used throughout music in studios today. Moog’s philosophy was to not only produce for avante garde musicians but for mass production in commercial use. His second complete sale was to musician and composer Eric Siday. Moog further felt that if you looked good playing the instrument that you felt the music and should have one. Moog encouraged the generations to explore their interests in music. He believed in experimenting with sounds and capturing the essence of the music through this belief. Further he believed that if you like a sound you should try to capture it on tape as soon as possible to try to repeat it and develop it. Moog saw the synthesizer as an independent instrument to create its own individual sounds which could aid the musical industry. Other musicians saw synthesis as ways to drown out the beauty of classical music. Moog felt that if you could hear the sound in your mind then you could create it on the synthesizer. Flutes and strings were much harder to produce, though.

The Beatles successfully used the synthesizer on Abbey Road in 1969 on their tracks like Here Comes the Sun and George Harrison used in Because. Wendy Carlos used in on Switched on Bach. All of these albums were well known. The use of this synthesizer eventually developed into the use of the Minimoog and by 1987 the Yamaha was being used to produce natural sounds like wind, rain, thunder and the sea of waves. Further the Minimoog could be used to produce sounds like a motorcycle kicking up. In the famous Star Wars it was used to make the famous R2D2 voices throughout the movie. Further the synthesizers can be used to create lion sounds for kid’s movies or to create a pick-up truck crashing into a wall.

Pink Floyd even though suffering with mental depression made his best music with the use of synthesizers including The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon. “The first major musical acts to incorporate drum synthesizers into were Stevie Wonder, Peter Gabriel and the Cars. The influence of the synthesizer soon became what was known as synthpop in Britain. Duran Duran was known for using all kinds of synthesizers in their music.” (“Drum Synths History”). Today engineering has gone so far synthesizers don’t really have to be used in a studio rather they can be used as drum synthesizers in a box. “There are computer programs that allow a musician to create sounds through drums with sound effects.” (“Drum Synths History”).

Conclusion

Even though the first synthesizer was created by Elisha Gray in 1876, Moog and Buchla were the most well-known contributors to the synthesizer industry after that. They both contributed revolutionary pieces of engineering that helped to create the modern day synthesizers that we know today. Musical Instrument Digital Interface made it much easier to integrate the engineered synthesizers with already invented instruments. The Japanese manufacturers have taken lead of the digital synthesizer industry since the 1980’s with the Kurzweil 250 which was produced in the 1980’s and other Yamaha and Casio products. Open sound control is the newly proposed technology to replace the MIDI and is designed for online networking. This will allow sharing of synthesizing with computers through online in real-time.

References

Pinch, Trevor (2007) Emulating Sound. What Synthesizers can and can’t do: Explorations in the Social Construction of Sound Retrieved November 1, 2009 from, www.soc.ucsb.edu/ct/pages/CT4/Readings/Pinch/Pinch.doc

Drum Synths History (2009) Retrieved November 3, 2009 from, http://www.drumsynths.com/Drum_Synths_History.htm

Interview with Herb Deutsch, April 19, 1997

Liar, D. (2009) History of the Synthesizer-A Brief Look Back Retrieved November 3, 2009 from, http://www.articlecity.com/articles/music_and_movies/article_125.shtml