An Interview with Tony Rolando (Make Noise)

• Anthony Rolando is the founder and head honcho of Make Noise, one of the big noises in the ever-growing Eurorack modular synthesizer scene. The company have quickly established themselves in the 8 years of their existence into one of the more widely known manufacturers in this modular format and besides manufacturing modules of varying kinds influenced by various past and current types of synthesis in which they seemingly mix and match their influences at will, they also market complete systems and, as of this year with their 0-Coast instrument, also stand alone devices. Make Noise gear first came to my attention shortly after they started making it and I sought it out and was personally impressed by what struck me as their fresh and positive approach to synthesis as demonstrated through their products. I then caught a few interviews and talks that Tony Rolando gave and were captured for posterity in places like You Tube and it became clear that there was a thought process and indeed, a man of ideas, behind the modules. So after my interview with Marc Doty that I published a few days ago the idea came to approach Tony and see if he too would share a little of his philosophy and thought process as it relates to synthesis, synthesizers and electronic music. I was happy when he agreed to do this. Below are the questions I asked him and the answers he gave back.

The Black and Gold Shared System by Make Noise

ME: Tony, can you give readers the short version of your own electronic music history? What are your influences both musical and technological?

TONY: Earliest electronic music discoveries for me were the Tape Music, musique concrete, of Pierre Schaeffer and others and then Morton Subtonick’s Silver Apples of the Moon. That would have been about 1989. I searched for years for an Arp 2600 or some other modular synthesizer. I purchased reel to reel tape machines and made attempts at tape music. I programmed the Roland R8 drum machine and then the Akai MPC and also the Ensoniq Mirage sampler. I fell head over heels for the K2000 sampler and was thrilled to later discover that Bob Moog had worked on VAST development. 

I played music in bands and other ways for many years. I worked for 3 yrs at Moog Music. I founded Make Noise in 2008 to produce some small number of modules for the Eurorack format. Things changed dramatically over the past 3-4 years and now I am part owner of a company of 10 to 15 people that designs and builds electronic musical instruments.

ME: Its always struck me that your company is called Make Noise. I emphasize the NOISE part of this as opposed to sound or music. Am I right to do this? What's the musical philosophy behind the company, if Make Noise has such a thing, and how does this play out in the devices you produce?

TONY: The official statement (from the Make Noise website) reads:

“What started as a re-visioning of jettisoned music technology grew into a crew of folks—Make Noise—working together in Asheville, NC, to design and build some pretty strange, but thoughtful modular synthesizers. We see our instruments as a collaboration with musicians who create once in a lifetime performances that push boundaries and play the notes between the notes to discover the unfound sounds. We want our instruments to be an experience, one that will require us to change our trajectories and thereby impact the way we understand and imagine sound. Also, we think what we do is fun and we hope you like it, too.”

In short, noise is music, music is noise. Art does not have to be organized by the parameters set by those people from our past. We should look to those people for inspiration, not restriction.

ME: I'm a huge fan of the 0-Coast. I think its an extremely innovative instrument and a synthesis education all by itself. I think of something like the recent video you put up on your You Tube channel which showed how many of its circuits could be used as sound sources and not just the one labeled "oscillator", for example. Without giving away any future Make Noise product releases, do you see producing self-contained devices like this as something you'd like to pursue further and do you see further ground Make Noise could cover in this area?

TONY: We will likely develop more stand alone instruments and devices, but the core of our visions is the modular synthesizer system.

The Make Noise 0-Coast, so-called because it holds allegiance to no one form of synthesis. Its a self-contained synthesizer which, uniquely for Make Noise products, allows access via MIDI meaning that a standard MIDI keyboard can be attached directly to it for playing purposes.

ME: I recently interviewed Marc Doty and he described Eurorack as a whole as significantly influenced by Don Buchla's "machine music" paradigm of generating sounds from a synthesizer, a paradigm he said was focused on "the creation of automated electronic music with synthesizer sounds". Make Noise's Shared System is one of a few self-contained systems within the Eurorack world but it has no MIDI interface. As such, it seems to stand within this "machine music" paradigm of synthesis that Marc describes in that it discourages attaching a traditional musical keyboard to it and, therefore, it encourages other means of generating sounds such as your sequencer, Rene, and the Pressure Points module (for example). Is this Make Noise taking a side in the varying paradigms of generating sound from synthesizers and, if so, why have you chosen this side?

TONY: When I discovered the Control Voltage, I jettisoned MIDI. I find that MIDI is too hard to deviate from and often leads people to create the same music over and over again.

This idea that to create electronic music you must have a “bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat, bass synth, lead synth…” and so on is conforming far too much to the ideals of pop-rock music aka the Beatles. Like any breathing human I can appreciate the Beatles, but I have no interest in re-creating it.

So I no longer use MIDI. I did include it within the 0-COAST because I wanted to create an instrument that could be used by nearly any musician, and MIDI is a very common communication protocol that many musicians have access too and use. The hope though, is that these MIDI musicians will explore outside the MIDI control and use the CV I/O of the 0-COAST.

ME: Do you agree with Marc Doty when he describes Eurorack's "underlying focus" as a West Coast form of synthesis?

TONY: A great deal of the modules available in Eurorack format focus on East Coast techniques and then there are still more modules which are rooted in neither East nor West.

Eurorack is the very heart of No-Coast synthesis… where a system could include everything from a wave folder (west coast) to a ladder filter (east coast) and also a granular pitch shifter (cloud coast?).

We live in the midst of a synthesis revolution. Eurorack is unlike anything that has ever happened in synthesis technology. Only the software synthesis revolution of the late 90’s is even comparable. 

ME: If you had control of the entire Eurorack standard from a technical point of view what three things would you change about it?

TONY: I would change nothing. By changing anything about Eurorack you risk damaging its spirit, and the spirit of Eurorack is quite unique and amazing. No need to change it. Even the most poorly designed modules have their place in the history, if for no reason but to remind us how not to develop modules.

Sure there are flaws, but we work with those flaws daily and great things have happened in the last decade. Eurorack is the “wild west” and it should forever be so.

ME: A nice easy question to finish. Often I see threads across the Internet bemoaning the lack of "innovation" in synthesizers these days. So I want to ask you what is the future of synthesis in your view and what innovations should we be aiming for?

TONY: I disagree strongly. I feel that with the Eurorack community there is a great deal of innovation. So much that it is tough to follow all of it.

People who bemoan such things are merely bored and seeking human interaction via social media or forums where other people are also seeking human interaction. Just leave your home or office more often and enjoy the wonderful musical instruments and tools available to us today. Or take up the banjo.

Tony Rolando
I want to thank Tony for taking the time to do this interview and for sharing his thoughts. I find them to be both interesting and stimulating, especially when compared and contrasted with those expressed by Marc Doty on this blog just a few days ago. I shall have more to say about this in a future blog.

Put Your Back Into It

In a recent blog I discussed the outside perceptions of some regarding those who use modular synthesizers. Now while I don't want to repeat or rehash that particular topic, I do want to continue on from it a little bit today since I myself was in receipt of a new wave of thinking about it when I read a comment thread about another blog I'd written on a different subject. That comment thread contained the cogent and sensibly argued thoughts of a number of synthesizer fans who were not necessarily also fans of modular synthesizers. At first I was rather surprised about this. Surely all fans of synthesizers are also fans of modular synths, I unreflectively thought. Modular, after all, is the holy of holies of the synth world, is it not? The best form of synthesis. Apparently this is not at all the case as the thread I was reading contained a number of synth fans, even synthheads, who had no love for, or interest in, modular synthesizers. One particular comment, which characterized those who like modulars as "introspective people interested in technical achievement" as opposed to their fixed synth brothers and sisters who like having fun playing tunes, perhaps captures a flavor of this discussion.

As usual in discussions of this nature, nothing I'm going to argue here in my blog today should be taken as a must or a directive. And no one whose thoughts I quote or report on should be taken as thinking anything other than that people can follow their interest however they like. This goes without saying even though, often, it still needs to be said. That said, as I read further into the comment thread I just mentioned I became more intrigued. Someone described an emphasis on modular synthesis as "backward looking" and suggested perhaps many of these people wanted to imagine they were in Berlin in 1974. Another critical comment was that, it seems to some, modular synthesis has more to do with train spotting and tinkering with motorbikes than with music. A further suggestion was that the staggering breadth of possibility contained in many modern modular systems was not matched by the depth of thought going into using the equipment and making patches. This gives the possibility of making two charges: first, that someone's modular system is merely an ego trip, a "look at what I've got" big dick contest and, second, that having a large modular system is an empty boast if you can't make anything beautiful, musical or profound with it. "A cacophony of noise" was another comment lobbed casually the way of the sounds coming from modular synths.

Now partly I view these comments as a matter of taste. Some people just don't like abstract music, random sounds or music without melody. It might be suggested that these people are themselves limited in their tastes and their imaginations regarding what is musically possible. But its quite banal to say this. Surely, as we discuss "taste" for the twelve millionth time, we realize that people like what they like and that's all good? Your freedom to like what you like is balanced up by everyone else's ability to like what they like as well. So that discussion isn't very interesting and goes nowhere. It also the case that not everyone will be on the same page musically. This is a good thing because without it there'd be no variety. More interesting than these things are criticisms of what is made of ever more complex modular systems and the not matching the expectations of some who expect fantastic sounds from fantastic machines. Why, think these people, shouldn't I expect something fantastically musical from this very complex and often very expensively assembled machine? Instead, all I'm hearing is beeps or, whisper it quietly, fart noises. Is this a reasonable expectation? I'm going to say no, its not.

There are today numerous kinds of synthesizers. Hardware. Software. Fixed architecture. Modular. Analog. Digital. Even hybrids like the Roland JD-XA. There are numerous manufacturers. You can get synths in many different colors (to some it matters if their synth is silver or black!). And all this is before you even get to do anything with any of them. One thing I think we need to note is that a fixed architecture hardware synth is not a hardware modular synth. They are different things. So should they be required to produce the same noises or kinds of musical output? I don't think so. This is especially the case where the fixed synth more often than not comes with a keyboard attached and the modular probably doesn't. Having a keyboard attached or not does make a difference. 

Some synth commentators have made a big thing out of this citing a "player's paradigm" that comes from Bob Moog's decision to have a musical keyboard attached to his modular synth and a "machine music" paradigm that comes from Don Buchla's design decision not to have one. And, certainly, it should be pointed out that playing music on a keyboard is but one form of musical expression and data entry. Its just one form of data entry for an electronic musical instrument. Its not the whole game. Its one way to get sounds from a machine. (Moog himself had sequencers besides a keyboard, for example.) Of course, not having a keyboard doesn't mean you need ditch traditional music theory either. There are, for example, modular sequencers that are still quantized to traditional scales even in very modern Eurorack systems. But no one is mandated to use these either. We may summarize all this by saying that there are at least two paradigms for playing synthesizers: by hand on a keyboard as a player and more machine-like by conducting the machine itself, as it were. Both are legitimate methods. And, of course, there are others. But they might not lead to the same music or sounds!

One reason people use modular synthesizers, I think, is that they are boxes of possibility. If I have a fixed architecture synth I can only do what it will let me do and, as a cutdown version of an earlier modular product (Moog, for example, built his modular before he refined it down to build a Minimoog. Alan R. Pearlman built his Arp 2500 before his cutdown Arp 2600 and then his cutdown of that, the Arp 2800, later renamed the Arp Odyssey), this will be less than I could do with the full modular synth. If my synth has a keyboard or other input device I can only play the notes, and with the expression,  this device can produce and I can only make the sounds the architecture of the synth allows me to play. With a modular synth, perhaps in perception more than actuality, it seems as if you can do more. It can create things that your fixed synth couldn't do. (Lack of a keyboard may also mean I couldn't do the things it can do too.)

But, in the perception of some, that doesn't always happen. Modular synthesists always seem to come up with the same beeps and farts (its alleged). And not much else. There are people who really think this because I've read and heard them saying it. Perhaps you are a modular synthesist who thinks this is wrong, a defamation of modular synthesists in general. Perhaps you are thinking that keyboard synthesists only ever come up with melodies and chords and that's a fair point. But surely the point common to both sides here is that people tend to certain sounds and kinds of sounds regardless of their instrument. Both instrument environments are limits as much as they are possibilities. What we need in both cases is players with deep minds rather than synths which are called "deepmind". The instrument will rarely do it all for you although there are numerous interesting self-generating patches that can be made with a little thoughtful patching. For the truth is that the best fixed architecture synth in the world or the most expensively assembled and complex modular system devised will be nothing but a damp squib in the hands of an unimaginative user. And as things become more popular so the talent pool will inevitably become more diluted.

Now, of course, there are always guiding paradigms in place when thinking about music. Everybody has in their head an idea of what "music" is and what it isn't. Quite often this is thought of broadly, or in the mainstream, as "a tune" and I'll freely admit that this idea rubs me up the wrong way. I think its very backward to have something like a synthesizer in your hands but then all you can think to do with it is write melodies. Again, a melody is just one thing you can do that is musical and not the whole of music. I'm quite a fan of Kosmische Musik, the German music that was often entirely electronic that was produced from the late 1960s and on into the 1970s. Much of this, at least at the start, was quite abstract and not really very melodic. (So abstract electronic music has always been with us!) I'm thinking of things like Popol Vuh's "Affenstunde" or the early albums by Kluster (later changed to Cluster). There's even Tangerine Dream's first album "Electronic Meditation" to consider here. All this was just abstract electronics noises. But it was still both profound and beautiful in my ears. It was from this type of environment that the "Berlin School" sound first invented by Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream (lead by Edgar Froese) developed. This music's development was partly influenced by the technology as well. There were no digital synths in these days. It was all analog. So there was no saving anything. You couldn't really change patches because there was no comprehensive system to do such a thing. You had to create sounds and then weave them together into things of substance on the fly.

I find this an incredibly useful insight musically. At their best I think this is what all synthesists of any kind do, whether using fixed synths or modular ones. That is why I personally take the Kosmische artists as my role models. They are mixing sound design, technology and their own creative minds together to come up with something and they've had to stretch themselves to do it. I wouldn't describe their output as "beeps and fart noises" even though many people with similar equipment might make that kind of noise today. To me it sounds like designed soundscapes or even modern electronic classical music (which is what Morton Subotnick wanted to make too). Of course, the technology has moved on. Now, today, even in modular systems there are ways to save and store (or at least record and playback) things. I regret that a little. Part of the reason why the electronic music of the past at the start of this current era of electronic music with its commercial synths and recordings sounded the way it did was because of what you couldn't do as much as because of what you could. All the sound sources were analog too. Today many might be digital. But I note that especially within modular synthesis it doesn't seem to be so controversial today whether a module is analog or digital anymore. Meanwhile our fixed synth brothers and sisters still often seem to have flame wars about whether this new synth that's come out is analog or digital. System 8 anyone?

                       Tangerine Dream at Coventry Cathedral in 1975

Taking the Kosmische artists as my role models it makes me want to put such banal and ultimately unresolvable discussions to one side. I listen to their works and read about how they did it and it seems to point a sensible way forward both in terms of the technology and the sounds. They were masters of combining things together and of being agnostic about things we might now in Internet forums find reasons to have interminable arguments about. They could and did combine machine generated sounds with leads played on keyboards. They would combine things on tape with things played live. (They had to. They only had two hands!) It was an attitude, in my naive mind at least, of making the best of what you've got, taking smaller parts and creating a greater whole from them. It was about making an effort. We have, I'm sure, all seen pictures of the giant multi-synthesizer stacks of gear from their performances. Much of that, in today's modular world, could be combined into much smaller cases. But the question many people would ask is if many of our modular synthesists today make even half as much out of the gear that we have at our disposal as they did back then. And this is not just about kinds or styles of music. Its about taking what you've got and making something worthwhile out of it. Of course, in the end we each decide whether something was worthwhile for ourselves but there is, I think, that sense we all have of knowing that we tried to achieve something beyond us with our musical gear, the sense that we have stretched ourselves. This, I think, is the criticism at the heart of the "beeps and fart noises" comments we often see and hear. And we may be able to lie to others about that. But we can't lie to ourselves about it.

Or it may be that modular synth world really is a train spotting, mending your motorcycle club. In which case its not really so surprising that people who want to make music and put some effort into it are turned away from it.

If I was an Instrument I would be.....

If I was an instrument I would be a modular synthesizer. Modular synthesizers are very popular these days and, as is the way with these kinds of things, some don't like that. You know the kind of person. Someone who has been modular synthesizing for years and now feels threatened by the fact that other people have discovered his hobby and doesn't like it.  This is the kind of person who will waste his time being sarcastic and derogatory about these new adopters of modular synthesis rather than concentrate on his own modular synthesizer and making music with it. For these people it is as if modular synthesizing is a political thing and that you are not allowed to take part unless you have been let in by the esteemed circle of proper modular synthesists. "We can't have these newcomers infiltrating the modular synthesis ranks," they think. What they forget is that everyone, even them, started somewhere with no knowledge at all.

So that, of course, is all a lot of rubbish. There is no inner circle of modular synthesis and you don't need anyone's permission to buy a modular synth, use a modular synth or even have a modular synth on your sideboard as a pretty ornament with flashing lights. Indeed, I once saw an interview with legendary synth pop guy, Vince Clarke. He recounted how, in the 80s when he became popular, initially with Depeche Mode and finally with Erasure, he bought every synth going, from keyboard models to full modular systems. In the video interview I saw he freely admitted that when he first bought these things he had no clue how they worked. He just knew he wanted them. So if you buy a modular synth with no idea how it works just because you think it must be cool you are only really doing what Vince did. And pretty much every synth person in the world likes Vince.

                                        Some of Vince Clarke's synths in his latest studio

So what you really need to do if you get a modular synth is forget the snobs and remember that modular synthesis can be for you about whatever you want it to be. There is no proper way to use a modular synth. That is why there are all those jack points and you need all those cables. You can connect it up any way you like and whatever works for you, works. Indeed, all that freedom openly encourages you to try out random things and see what noise (and often it might just be noise) comes out from your audio output. It is often said that you don't hear very much actual music from people who have modular synths. I think these critics mean actual pieces of music or songs. I think that is probably because a lot of people with modular synths are happy just experimenting with sounds and with the here and now. And this is a worthwhile task in itself. There is no compulsory endgame with a modular synth. It is, in many ways, just a sound lab.

The current set of Eurorack modules made by Make Noise, one of my favourite manufacturers

This is what I think is very attractive about modular synthesis. The only reason to have a synthesizer with lots of access points to the processes of synthesis all over the instrument is so that you can affect the processes in unexpected or unorthodox ways. (Alternatively, you might want something to happen in a predictable way by sequencing it, of course.) In this way you can create unique or unimagined sounds. And if that's all you ever did that would be perfectly fine. There are no modular synth police, just people too busy policing something that isn't theirs rather than making music. Life is short so I really rather think it would be better to see what happens if you plug a cable in from here to here and see what happens rather than shouting into the void. But yes, since you ask, modular synth enthusiasts can be cliquey. Luckily for you, having a modular synthesizer does not mandate that you have to talk to or listen to any of them.

Complete systems by two of my favourite manufacturers, Pittsburgh Modular and Studio Electronics

So what you do with a modular synthesizer is really up to you. The same goes for what your modular synthesizer is like. There are no rules here and you are free to choose from as many or as few manufacturers as you like. Nearly all the modules of a modular synthesizer are different in some way from the modules of other manufacturers and will produce different results even when, nominally, they are meant to perform the same tasks. The clever engineers who make these instruments love to put their own little twist on these things. This is why modular synthesis is such a fun and rewarding way to make music. Getting to know the modules you have at your disposal is a lot of the fun of having a modular synthesizer in the first place. You are not stuck with a fixed instrument when you have a modular synthesizer. You can build an individual instrument, one that only you in the world has, by putting together a unique set of modules.

An absurdly large double case Eurorack modular synthesizer built online for fun which illustrates just some of the myriad possibilities when building a modular synthesizer of your own

So a modular synthesizer is a way of making music with something approaching a blank canvas and can be very orientated towards musical exploration. You could use it to make unique sounds that you sample for use in bigger musical pieces. You could create a complex patch involving multiple modules that evolves over time as you tweak the controls. Or you could do anything else you can imagine with it because, with a modular synthesizer, it really is up to you. It's the ultimate "do-it-yourself" instrument whether you choose to have one that takes up a whole room or one that you can carry anywhere in a case. It's a way to combine fun, exploration and sound all into one happy activity. It's to be enjoyed not policed.

MUSICS!!!!!