What Kind of Electronic Musician Are You?

I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. - David Lynch

Today's blog will not be for everyone since it is to be my own ruminations on a couple of interviews I've done recently with Marc Doty, synth educator, demonstrator and archivist, and Tony Rolando, founder and main inspiration behind Make Noise, the synthesizer manufacturer. To be straight with you, I'm going to discuss below my own thoughts on something that everyone fundamentally has and needs: a context for setting their understanding of electronic music within. To be clear: we all have this and we all need this. If you had no context to set your understanding of electronic music within or no way to relate the electronic sounds you hear or make to one another, or to lots of others you've heard or made before, then all the music you make would be both equal and meaningless, equally meaningless. It is having this framework, what I'm here calling a philosophy, that enables you to decide good or bad, desirable or undesirable, music or noise (where these are seen as opposites - and they need not be). That's why I think you should keep reading if you make or listen to electronic music. Because this concerns you. But I understand if you want all this baggage left undisturbed and undiscussed. Many do. Thanks for reading this far and I hope you'll stop by to read another blog soon.

                               The Lyra 8 Organismic Synthesizer

For those of you still here I want to start by addressing a number of things that Marc Doty brought up in his interview with me recently. Although I've never met Marc personally, I like him quite a lot. A lot of the reason for that is that he has opinions on electronic music and electronic music making and he is prepared to explain them and, if necessary, defend them too. It probably helps that, instinctively, I want to disagree with Marc's views as well. Wise people realize that they learn as much, if not more, from those they disagree with as those who share similar views. When differing views can be discussed, or contrasted and compared, in a spirit of mutual respect this is even better. Marc is certainly a person who can do this and I value that greatly.

But on to matters more electronic. Marc starts his interview with me by stating that he is happy to see reissues of old classic synths because, in a number of cases, they don't have any memories or way to save patches. This forces the necessity of something that may or may not be quite rare on some synthesizers: synthesis! Marc states that he is happy if people are shepherded by these classic instruments into needing to learn something about synthesis. It can certainly be argued that as technology progressed and memories and presets got added to synths that synthesis was de-emphasized. Marc says that this happened to him too. It certainly did to me. Its all too easy to just take the sounds that are there and do nothing more than a perfunctory tweak. Some softsynths today even have several hundred sounds so why would you ever need to learn how to make your own? But on an MS-20 or an Arp Odyssey or, if you have the money, a Minimoog none of this exists. If you want a sound then you have to make it. And then you have to learn how to make others too. And how to get back to the first one if you forgot to take notes on how you made it. Synthesizers are for synthesis is what Marc seems to say. I couldn't agree more. This is one reason I have veered into interest in modular synthesis because there memories and saving things are much more difficult if not impossible. And that is very good.

Right from the start here I am revealing something about my own philosophy of electronic music and, at this point at least, it seems that Marc and myself are of one mind. But it becomes pretty clear as Marc gives his answers to my questions in his interview that we diverge quite soon afterwards. I asked Marc specifically about Eurorack synthesis in my interview with him because I had a sense from snippets of things he'd said before that it didn't seem to sit right with him. I was delighted when he went into detail in his replies to me about what the problems with it were from his perspective. One problem seems to be, in the wider Eurorack culture as whole at least, that Eurorack synths aren't played with a musical keyboard. Marc likes the keyboard in a way that many within Eurorack (and Buchla and Serge and other types of) doing synthesis seem not to. In this respect Marc Doty and Morton Subotnick, the earliest of adopters of the Buchla way of doing synthesis, are complete opposites. Marc describes how he has tailored his whole appreciation of doing synthesis to using the musical keyboard as his input device. Subotnick, should you ever ask him about using a black and white keyboard, will pull a face as if you've just asked him to eat food that disgusts him. He sees it as a way to make what he calls "old music", music he doesn't want to make. For future reference, I'm with Morton here. 

And I'm not the only one. Alessandro Cortini explains in an interview with Nick Batt of Sonicstate from 2015 that one reason he plays Buchla gear is that this paradigm is not based on ability to play a musical keyboard. He says he is "not a player". And this is relevant because, since roughly the 1980s, new electronic music technology has meant that the traditional music making skill required before then to make music, playing ability, was needed less and less. Computers have meant that you can literally build patterns, melodies and harmonies step by step as opposed to in real time based on ability to play. You no longer need to play to make electronic music because you can program instead. Cortini even goes so far as to say in the same interview with Nick Batt that he doesn't need to know what is in front of him in a Buchla system. "I just need to stand in front of it and weird stuff usually comes out" is his comment on the process. Most would say, listening to his work, that it is profoundly musical but also significantly melodic. These qualities carry over in his music if the instrument is a VCS3 or an MC-202 or a Make Noise Shared System as well.

       A Buchla 200e system with one of Don Buchla's touchplate keyboards

The notable thing about all this is that Cortini did not need a musical keyboard or playing chops to achieve this. Instead he just needed an instrument through which musical instincts could be suitably expressed. What's more, it seems to me that it is simply a fact that since the 1980s, and certainly since the rise of the computer, most people making electronic music aren't players of a musical keyboard in a traditional sense at all either. Many may not know a thing about musical theory or chord shapes, for example. Even in the 1980s there was already the trope of the synth player playing a one finger synth line on a synth with a traditional keyboard to the ridicule of his cultural contemporaries. But the fact is that technology changed who could even make music electronically. It was also in the 1980s that the TB-303 was invented, an instrument that had a representation of the keyboard on its faceplate but that wasn't there to be played. It was there so you could program pitches. This instrument by itself invented a whole genre of new music in acid house. So electronic music technology became a democratizing leveling of the playing field that took away the need to learn how to play a keyboard, often a difficult and time consuming process, to make electronic music. Making specifically electronic music became an easier thing to do and more about mashing buttons than learning a centuries old playing technique. Incidentally, to me this also makes the regular arguments about minikeys on instruments rather moot too since I imagine the vast majority of synth buyers today can barely play a note either. Because, today, you need that ability even less.

It will be clear to all reading this with an interest in the subject that if you want to play with synthesizers then there are a number of ways you can go about your interest. One basic choice you will have to make, and Marc saw this just as clearly as I did when posing him a rather playful question about it, is if you will have a keyboard attached to your synth or not. I think both Marc and I realize that this will fundamentally affect the type of music you can or will want to make. So its not a trivial decision. Morton Subotnick, Alessandro Cortini and Tony Rolando, too, all realise that adding a keyboard, or leaving it off, makes a difference in where you can, or will want, to go musically. So no one should regard this as a rather pointless question. It isn't at all. A Buchla synth or a Make Noise system are things ideologically conceived to make certain things possible and certain things not possible or, at the very least, much more difficult. It was the same with Moog's modular as Marc Doty could talk about at great length I'm sure. I respect Marc for pointing out that Bob Moog's original keyboard controller for the Moog Modular allowed significantly more leeway for user calibration of its possibilities than many keyboards since. But I end up falling in line with Morton Subotnick who conceives that the musical keyboard simply has too much traditional baggage to be used to find new kinds of music. To just sit in front of such a keyboard, even attached to the most modern of synths, is to hear a thousand music teachers telling you how it SHOULD be played.

And so it comes down to a keyboard paradigm or a machine paradigm, a playing paradigm or a sequencing paradigm. Buchla was the second and Moog was the first (in general terms. All of computer and much modular music is the second too.) This was even more so in terms of how these paradigms have been taken up by their users and adherents. Its in this sense, I think, that Marc Doty regards Eurorack as a Buchla-influenced "machine music". With Eurorack most users use the machine to organise the music. They are programmers or conductors (not negative terms as I use them) rather than players. If you have a keyboard synth, a synth that is a descendant of Moog's fateful decision to add a keyboard to his first modular, then the suggestion at the very least is that you are supposed to play it. The keyboard sits there and begs you to play notes and chords. This then becomes a fateful moment of decision too because keys on a keyboard are primarily on/off switches for pitch information. Keyboards play pitched music. And pitched music, contrary to the unprobed assumptions of some people, is not the same as music as a whole. For we also have unpitched music. We also have sound collage. We also have noise. And pitched keyboards aren't very good for that for they were designed exactly to be able to make pitched music that was the intention of musicians. "Intention" is another problem with musical keyboards too because we can imagine a music that is not intentional. We can imagine randomness. We can imagine soundscape. We can imagine chaos. 

Now some imagine only harmony but others can imagine disharmony, what John Cage called "the co-existence of dissimilars". Cage, in his book Silence, referred to this disharmony as "simply a harmony to which many are unaccustomed". This suggests the thought that notions of musical correctness or incorrectness, of validity or invalidity, of harmony or disharmony, are not much more than ingrained habits. And habits can be changed. Or educated. Or got rid of. I imagine that this is what Tony Rolando of Make Noise means when he quotes the ethos of his company as making instruments that cause their users "to change our trajectories and thereby impact the way we understand and imagine sound". Indeed, Rolando said explicitly in his answers to my questions that, for him, "music is noise, noise is music". And I take this very much on board in my own philosophy. We have a choice, it seems to me. We can look back to our forebears and regard them, technological or theoretical, as our limitations or we can see them as nothing more than a history of what has been done so far, something to which we hope to add but without necessarily repeating. Tony Rolando nails this by saying "Art does not have to be organized by the parameters set by those people from our past. We should look to those people for our inspiration, not restriction". The suggestion, then, is that Rolando looks forward with a knowledge of what's behind rather than looking behind and hoping to make more of it in the future. The enemy here is always conforming to some past sacred notion and the ideal is a "wild west" of ideas and electronic musical practice.

A Roland System 8. Would the music made with this sound like that from a Buchla 200e?

But back to Marc Doty and his thoughts about Eurorack for I found this to be the heart of the musical differences, inclinations and instincts between us. Eurorack is, perhaps, a contentious thing within the synthesizer community as a whole because it can easily be caricatured as the latest cool, hipster craze. As is the nature of these things in a social context, it seems to some like the next big thing people feel pressured to get involved in if they want to be seen to be in with the right people or part of the right group. I don't see it like this. I just see it as a very interesting set of electronic tools for creating and manipulating sounds. Marc agrees with me here I'm sure but thereafter we go our different ways. This is because Marc sees Eurorack as basically being under the Buchla paradigm, machine music as opposed to played/performed sound. In my interview with Tony Rolando of Make Noise he put forward the view that as far as he was concerned the format was agnostic mainly, or so I got the impression, because it was just a format and within it you could have modules or synthesis methods snatched from any form of synthesis you could imagine. And you absolutely could strap a keyboard to this if you wanted to as well (although I doubt Tony encourages it!).

Now the Buchla paradigm that Marc sees as influencing the culture and practice of Eurorack is notable because both Don Buchla, its inventor and also a musician himself (unlike Bob Moog), and its first users, Morton Subotnick and Ramon Sender of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, certainly wanted to make what they saw as a new kind of music. And they all thought that to make new music you needed a new process to do it. They thought that if you used old tools you'd always be tempted to fall back into old ways and make what Subotnick calls to this day "new old music". So this explains their dislike of the musical keyboard as opposed to Marc Doty's dogged arguments in favour of using the keyboard in as many ways as are imaginable. This is relevant to us here now because with the modular synths we have today, seemingly dominated by the popularity of Eurorack (which may turn out to be Don Buchla's lasting legacy within synthesis as opposed to his own format machines which are much more expensive and very rare), we have completely different forms of music being made than are being made with fixed architecture synths of all kinds. These synths, of course, have keyboards attached. Or maybe they are hooked up to computers and used as sound modules. Or maybe a desktop version of such a synth is used in which case it can be attached to a sequencer or, perhaps more likely, a computer for playing purposes. From many angles, "traditional" electronic music is under attack. 

These attacks to the traditional player's paradigm, the one Moog used urged on by Herb Deutsch, have changed how electronic music sounds. The baton is passing, with desktop synths, synths connected to computers and modular synths of all kinds that use formats not reliant on musical keyboards as input devices, from people who are trained musicians, like Marc Doty, to untrained nerds like Alessandro Cortini and everyone who dreams of being like him. With phenomena like the Eurorack movement in synthesis what we see is the rise of the person who likes to tinker with things and see what they can come up with. The emphasis is on experiment and possibility rather than the use of musical training. Of course, in the experiment and possibility you will inevitably pick up some self-taught knowledge of your own. But it won't be official or kosher or canonical. On this new technological paradigm, which has enabled new individuals completely outside of the guild of what were formerly thought of as musicians to take part, a new musical culture has been created and new ways of doing old things (i.e. making electronic music) have been invented. This has sometimes caused conflicts as when, in early Eighties Great Britain, the actual Musician's Union tried to ban acts like Depeche Mode or The Human League or Gary Numan because it was perceived their ways of making music took away opportunities from what were then perceived to be "real musicians", i.e. ones who could play instruments. It shows how far we have come with technology and with technological ways of making music that this argument wouldn't even be imagined today. Electronic methods won as Jean-Michel Jarre rightly said recently.

Various Eurorack modules made by Make Noise. The synthesis power of such modules as against other fixed types of synthesis and synthesizers is unarguable.

But where does this leave my argument with Marc Doty? I think that it perhaps leaves Marc on the wrong side of history. But that is okay for I don't mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with playing or using a keyboard. Neither do I conceive of it dying out. In fact, its not even the case that I don't value music made with them because, of course, I do. Like anyone else reading this, most of the electronic music I will have ever heard was made using one. So how could I not like them? I see it a bit like John Cage sees dissonance in his book Silence. There he says that "dissonances and noises" are welcome in experimental music "but so is the dominant 7th chord if it happens to put in an appearance". So why do I see Marc on the wrong side of history? I think its because I'd like to think that the keyboard has had its day and that we need to find new ways, complimentary ways perhaps, to make electronic music. I think that Don Buchla invented one and that Eurorack manufacturers are inventing them too. I think that technology and innovation has unwittingly accelerated this process. And, yes, even Bob Moog helped this along as well. I think Marc is on the wrong side of history because he is seeking to carry on an old tradition rather than trying to invent or take part in new ones. Now there is nothing wrong with him doing that and I like much of the music that he has made. Some of his theme tunes for his demonstration videos are insanely good and I hum them repeatedly. But we've done that now. Let's do something else.

But there is a further component to this and its a matter of musical philosophy. Indeed, it comes to the very heart of making music at all. It starts off with the point that electronic music making paradigms are implicit instantiations of how we see the world. They are generalized ways of seeing things with everything that implies. For example, I regard so-called machine music that cannot be repeated, perhaps because it contains machine randomizations that are not recallable or desired as repeatable phenomena, as in tune with the flux of our reality. I see, perhaps like Kraftwerk with their talk of The Man Machine or like Daft Punk with their ruminations on the same issue through their Human After All album and the associated film, Daft Punk's Electroma, that "machine music" may be made by machines but, actually, its not lacking in humanity or reality at all. Indeed, it can even be perceived as thoroughly natural and in tune with the wider reality that we are a part of. For in a random, self-generating patch constructed on some modular synth that requires no creator, no God plinky-plonking out their intentions on a keyboard, do we not have a perfect model, a creative, artistic picture, of the constantly fluctuating reality that we inhabit?

This is perhaps a deeper thought than many contemplate as they switch on their synth, of whatever kind, and begin affecting its outcomes. And yet, for me, it is the machine music that is human and authentic and not the music coming from the player paradigm, music that is a repeatable freezing in time of a canonized linear collection of note values. I ask myself what could be more foreign to an experience of life than that? For real life is forever in flux, always moving, a river that never stops. Its not something to be frozen, notated and repeated. And that's what the old music was and its what old music made with synthesizers still is as I see it. To my mind, if electronic music is to be anything significant then it must throw off this old and once useful idea and become something else, a technological expression of an ever more technological race. The player paradigm, if you think about it, is actually just very artificial and machine music, in its ability to reflect and mimic a truer picture of reality, is more authentic. Silver Apples of The Moon trumps Switched on Bach.

This, anyhow, is how I explain my current preferences. But there is one more thing influencing my thinking that leads me to machine music and away from the player paradigm. And that's what John Cage has to say about intentionality in music. In Silence he critiques those who regard music as "sounds intentionally made". This notion, I believe, is crucial to the player paradigm of electronic music as I've discussed it in this blog. But it is anathema to Cage's understanding of any kind of music at all. Not only is this a deeply conservative and limiting idea of what music can be but it is, as a matter of fact, not even correct. Music can be sound unintentionally made or even sounds without intention. This is part of the reason why Cage's 4'33" exists. Now Cage is very aware that it will take some kind of psychological turn, a flicking of the switch, to see this so it seems implicit in his thought that not everyone will. But that turn, once taken, opens up a whole new understanding of music and its one that electronic music makers, as the musicians of both possibility and of the future, should be benefiting from the most. For Cage this turn leads to nature and to seeing that, in the giving up of the cherished notion of music as intention, a notion still very dominant even amongst electronic music makers today, that nothing has in fact been lost. For Cage, "sounds may occur in any combination and in any continuity". Cage sees music as not much more than, in some sense, organized sounds and silence. And that organization may be little more than preparing the conditions for some music's appearance. He thinks that taking music forwards involves finding ways and means by which musicians can "remove themselves from the activities of the sounds they make". That doesn't have to be modular synthesis but it certainly sounds a lot like it as practiced by people on Buchlas, Serges or many kinds of Eurorack system.

I began this blog, which I'm aware has gone on longer than usual, with the title "What kind of electronic musician are you?" When you began reading it may not have occurred to you that there were differing kinds of electronic musician but I hope that now, at least, you can see that all electronic musicians have choices to make, directions to look in and ideals to live up to for we all stand in relation to everyone else making electronic music and this very fact is how we define who we are and what we think we are doing. So I want to say at this point that each one in turn chooses what they are and its nobody's business but their own what they choose. However, the choices we make will reveal what we see electronic music as being about, where we root ourselves within its on-going culture and for what we are aiming. This is inevitable if we make any sounds and much more so if we share them with others. No choice we might make is wrong but each will reveal what we value.

If we imagine a Moog/Buchla divide, as I did when interviewing Marc Doty, then I am on the Buchla side. I want to make new music, music not involving keyboard skills or knowledge. I agree with Subotnick that to get a keyboard involved is to be inevitably tempted back into old ways. Its because I want to explore new ways that I make this choice and not because I think all keyboard music is rubbish. I don't and it isn't. This is to separate what I like to hear as a listener from what I want to make as a creator. Tony Rolando expressed this perfectly when he said that he can appreciate The Beatles but that doesn't mean he wants to make Beatles music. In a similar way I like lots of kinds of music but that doesn't mean I want to make them. I am different from all those people who want to sound like..... and then they append the name of their favourite group or music idol. I want to sound like a group of one, the people who are me. 

The Minimoog, a synthesizer known primarily for the sound it can make. 

John Cage wasn't big on the idea of music as expression or communication. He didn't think that sounds had a message. Far from it, he thought that we should just let sounds be what they are. Marc Doty, in his interview, when answering a question about making the most of our tools, made the distinction between music as personal endeavour and music made for the enjoyment of others. He seemed to suggest that the more you made the first the less likely it would also be in the second category. The problem is when making electronic music, which has the capacity to be as weird as it gets as forms of human musical creation go, I don't control anybody but myself. (Often I don't control that either but I digress.) I can form and shape myself as a person. I can educate myself about the music I am making and why. If I make harsh noise or abstract bleeps I can rationalize that in my mind or assign it a place in my understanding intellectually and emotionally. But I can't do that for anyone else. Everyone else hears what I do through the filter of their own context and understandings. For me it is part explanation of my understanding of who I am and being alive as a being in the world and also the soundtrack to that process. But its not that for anyone else. Its just more music in a world overflowing with the stuff. 

People complain a lot about electronic music. Its either too bland, too traditional or too mainstream or too abstract, too bleepy or too random. Really this is all just about how we as people understand what we have heard. When I hear bleeps and blips I often find this very amenable. Why? Because as I process this within my web of understanding I can make sense of it and assign it a musical place within my life. Many others may not be able to do that. They just hear meaningless noises. But when I hear the same "meaningless noises" they take on meaning. Music does not come with values attached. WE ATTACH THE VALUE. So electronic music like any music does not come to us with its meaning and importance inherent within it. We give it those things as we are able. And its exactly those values I've been trying to show up in this blog today. Even if it was only to make you aware that you had some. Because you do. As I said right at the start, thats how you decide if some piece of electronic music is worthwhile, good, desirable, nice, exciting or anything else at all. But its also how you decide what kind of music you want to make as a creator of electronic music.

The Arp 2600 which is a better synth than the Minimoog because its semi-modular and thus has much more variety and possibility inherent within it.

In the end, equipment doesn't matter. Its not about which synth you have, how big your setup up is, what it cost, or anything like that. Its about what it sounds like and what the end product is. Music is sound. Music is noise. Music is not stuff or pictures of your gear. Of course, what you use will determine your possibilities. This is why I favour electronic music options influenced by the machine music paradigm because I value what I think it can give me as a creator and I think it can give me more than other options. But I'm quite prepared to acknowledge that there are many "players" who make music I like too. Its just, as with Tony Rolando, that doesn't mean I want to repeat them. What I want to do is make electronic music that doesn't make sense. Because life doesn't make sense. Life is absurd (which is why my blog is Absurdwurld). And so art that aims to be true to life should be absurd too.

I totally get David Lynch's frustration.

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.

Which Synth Manufacturer is Getting It Right?

We're currently half way through the Autumn (or Fall as our American friends call it) and new synths have been released in the run up to Christmas. After the festive period all eyes will turn to NAMM a month later, the biggest music equipment trade fair, when music tech companies present their wares for the coming year. This is when secret projects (and sometimes unfinished ones!) get revealed to the public for the first time. Its then we get to see what new delights, damp squibs and more of the same but packaged differently the manufacturers have got up their sleeve. Its easy to get caught up in this kind of thing and you can turn into a person just surfing the wave of hype from one product announcement to the next. Needless to say, this is not really the point of being interested in synths or gear more generally. Not that Behringer have paid much attention to that this year with possibly the longest and most dragged out teaser campaign for a synth we've seen for many a long year. One has to hope that when the much discussed Deepmind 12 gets into real people's hands it delivers for it could surely be a disaster if for any reason it doesn't.

Thinking about all this set me thinking about the synth world in general and the various options that people interested in synthesizers have should they want to buy one. This, in turn, lead me to survey the various manufacturers and then a question came to mind. This question was to ask myself which manufacturers, over a period of time, seem to be getting things right and which seem to be producing duds or misses or just things that people don't seem to want. Now, of course, this all very much depends what people want from a synthesizer if they are going to judge if various companies are giving them what they want. But I tried to think broader than this. I was not asking myself which company is making the synth that I like. I was, instead, trying to ask myself which companies were and weren't providing a range of good quality instruments and I was thinking broader than myself in doing that. For example, lots of people seem to like Novation's groove box, Circuit. Personally, it doesn't impress me very much but I wouldn't necessarily hold that against Novation. Many others do seem to like it and that seems fair enough. So what I'm saying here is that in my deliberating I'm trying to see past the end of my own nose. Of course, I won't be able to cover every company so if I miss one its because I've made my own choices. And so with that I'll start my wander through synth world.

Let's start with Korg. Only today they have released a monophonic version of their Minilogue called the Monologue. This is yet another analog instrument and Korg have for a number of years now been fueling the analog fix people seem to have been requesting in their own way. This even extends to resurrecting analog classics like their own MS-20 or Arp's Odyssey. They've also not neglected those who want to make music but have limited budgets. Their Volca range is now well established with 6 models in the range so far and they also have an updated Electribe range. Via its analog modeling synth, the King Korg, we get to its workstation, the Korg Kronos, now in its second iteration. This is probably the best workstation out there right now if that is your thing. It contains models of some of their old synths too in the Polysix and MS-20, the latter of which can be played polyphonically here unlike the real thing.

                                                               The Korg Monologue

I'll be honest and say that Korg have for years seemed to me like a solid company if you are a synth fan. They always seem to have decent ideas that are well delivered. There aren't as many misses it seems to me. They are a bread and butter synth company in that they will always give you something you can work with. Granted, they may not always offer the flashiest products but they won't let you down either. A Korg instrument is always a decent bet. This is probably why in my time being interested in synths I've always had multiple Korg instruments to call upon. Sure, there are better things but Korg are a company who are a business and so they balance innovation with value. In doing so they supply solid workhorses at all levels of the marketplace. Perhaps, though, we could say that in recent years they have lacked an absolute killer instrument. Korg rarely make that one synth that just stands out from the crowd. But they do make best selling ones as their M1 and Microkorg are amongst the best selling synthesizers of all time.

And so we turn to their Japanese neighbours, Roland. Here my comments can only be controversial since Roland have chosen to take a very specific tack away from current popular consensus which is in favour of analog instruments and gone down the route of digitally modeling circuits from their old instruments (which were analog) in an attempt to present them new to the public. And so we have the Boutique series of digitally modeled polysynths and their Aira range which presents old classics like the TR-808 and TR-909 and the TB-303 in new guises. It is, I think, somewhat controversial that they have done this although they certainly seem to have found some following for these products. Others, however, are somewhat dubious about a company whose only idea seems to be to reissue things they had done before. These products came after the Jupiter 80, an expensive performance synth based on Roland's "Supernatural" synth technology which is also in their products such as the Integra 7, a rackmount synth presented in the somewhat older sound module format. The Jupiter 80 was widely panned, not least for pretending to wear the clothes of something it wasn't - the Jupiter 8. Thus, critics of Roland point out that they don't seem to have many new ideas. Roland themselves seem to say they don't want to just mimic everyone else and so they will happily go their own way.

                            The Roland JD-XA and System 8 together

My view on this is that Roland have seemed lost in the wilderness for 10-15 years now. Back in the 1980s they were at the top of their game with synths like the Jupiter 8, the drum machines mentioned above, the Juno series of the 6, 60 and 106 and even keyboards like the D-50 and JD-800 moving into the early 90s. In the 21st century Roland have seemed to have many fewer hits (the V-Synth being the most notable) and plenty of misses. There seems to have been an ideological vacuum at the top of the company and they haven't presented charismatic, must have instruments to the public. ACB, Active Circuit Behavior, which is their current analog modeling technology that the Boutiques and Airas are based on, seems to be their current answer to this ideological problem. This has allowed them to produce several instruments and devices at the cheaper end of the market and, to be fair, these products don't seem to have been too bad. Meanwhile, in a higher price bracket they have produced instruments like the JD-XA, an analog/digital hybrid instrument, and the System 8, a larger synth based on Aira technology which can host multiple plugins (or plug-outs, using their terminology). The System 8 will host models of the Jupiter 8 and Juno 106 natively as well as a third plugin synth as well as the System 8's own sound engine. I find these latter two synths interesting curiosities at the very least. Can we say that Roland are finding their mojo again? They certainly seem to be trying to.

Moog Music are, in many respects, the granddaddy of synth companies. Bob Moog was probably the guy who started the whole commercial synthesizer business off. We should note he started off making a modular synthesizer though and that the Minimoog, a cutdown version of this, came later. Incidentally, you can now buy new Minimoogs again. The company that lives on in Moog's name has periodically come out with many interesting synths in the last few years. The Sub 37, which built on the Sub Phatty, is a very capable instrument and its Mother 32, a synth that can sit on a table or in a Eurorack system, makes the Moog name available to synth fans at the lowest price ever. They do still crank out the odd huge modular system too though and were, until recently, cranking out Moog Voyagers, the successor to the Minimoog. Their range of synths is not the biggest but then Moog have gone for the compact but classy approach to synth making and they trade on the idea of quality. And, of course, their products are analog as befits a company named after a man who invented the first commercially viable analog synth. It can be said that with Moog you usually know exactly what you are getting and it is important to the company that whatever they produce is quality.

Arturia were once known as a software company that produced software models of classic synths. Some did not like these models (I saw Dave Smith in one interview saying he thought their Prophet 5 sounded nothing like it) but then the French company went and changed everything when they brought out a hardware mono synth, the Minibrute. This synth was an instant hit because it was cheap and it sounded different to other mono synths, having a brash, ballsy sound provided by a single multi-wave oscillator (with various wave shaping tricks available for each wave) and a Steiner-Parker filter to which was added the "brute factor", the old Moog trick of sending the output back through the synth again to provide overdrive. Building on the success of the Minibrute, they brought out an even smaller mono synth, the Microbrute, and now they've added a much bigger mono synth, the Matrixbrute, which boasts a huge 256 button matrix on its large front panel. This latter synth is aimed to be the king of mono synths but has seemingly suffered from being introduced to the public before it was ready for prime time. Still, this is not bad for some software developers working in the shadow of the Alps. It certainly seems that they are not afraid to have ideas and try things out although there have been grumbles about the build quality and availability of their instruments. Taking this into account, it seems best to advise caution regarding their gear and the need to allow them time to bed it in properly. 

Elektron are perhaps one of the major successes of the synth world in the 21st century. Founded just before the turn of the century in 1998, they have released a run of innovative instruments based on their own, unique thinking about how to design synths and electronic instruments. At first, these were all digital but starting in 2013 they have moved into creating analog instruments with digital control, all paired with their unique sequencer in table top instruments (save the Analog Keys, which is a keys version of the Analog Four). Indeed, if table top synths or "groove boxes" are your thing then Elektron are probably the Rolls Royce of this market at the moment. Their instruments are premium priced but also feature packed. And the feature set of their instruments is probably one of the contentious issues about them. When someone like Alessandro Cortini describes your instruments as "awkwardly structured" as he does of their sampler device, the Octatrack, then you have to admit that Elektron devices are certainly idiosyncratic. 

This fact may have deterred some from taking the plunge and I can certainly say from personal experience that coming to an Elektron instrument cold is a frustrating thing. There is undeniably a learning curve in the first few days and weeks of owning their gear since everything is done their way or not at all. That said, if you know one of their instruments then, in some sense, you know something about them all as their philosophy carries across their range of gear. I have not really heard anyone complaining about the sound of their instruments and the sequencer they have, capable of multiple parameter locks per step over 64 steps, is still today more powerful than many in other manufacturer's gear. Recently, they have introduced Overbridge technology which enables analog instruments to essentially become plugins in a Digital Audio Workstation on a computer, a first of its kind, making these unique in a studio environment. If you have the money I don't see why you wouldn't buy their gear.. provided you are prepared to learn their way of doing things.

Dave Smith Instruments is the latest company to benefit from the design skills of Dave Smith, formerly of Sequential Circuits back in the day. In the last few years DSI have concentrated in premium quality synthesizers such as the Prophet 12, Prophet 6, Pro 2 and OB-6, the latter a joint project with Tom Oberheim. Their market seems to be the pro gigging and studio musician and although they do produce cheaper products this has never really been their focus. You get the impression that Smith just wants to make the best synths he can. Another collaboration, this time with Roger Linn, produced the Tempest drum machine back in 2011. This was another feature-rich, premium priced product. The products themselves are in some senses fairly conventional and the major advancement in recent years has been adding ever more granular methods of control. Smith introduced a character section to his Prophet 12 and Pro 2 synths which allowed more control over the tone of the synth and the screens on these synths were cleverly designed to make sound designing intuitive. The Prophet 6 and OB-6 were call backs to greatest hits of old from Smith and Oberheim respectively and these were both well received as premium synths of today with an authentic heritage. Smith's synths also seem to enjoy a good reputation in the pro music community such that they justify their prices at the higher end of the market.

Analogue Solutions will probably be the least well known of the synth companies I mention here in this brief tour of synth world. They produce boutique analogue synths loosely based on classics of the past but each with their own unique tone. This ranges currently from the Nyborg 12 and Nyborg 24 through to the Telemark and Leipzig-S, the latter a brutal synth originally designed with percussion in mind, and on to premium synths like the modular Vostok Deluxe and Polymath. These synths are definitely meant to stand within a wholly analog tradition and you can tell that they are made by people who venerate the Moogs and Arps and Oberheim SEMs of old. The company is also actively engaged in producing Eurorack modules and so have feet in both the fixed architecture and modular synth camps. Being wholly devoted to analog synthesis, the focus of these synths is on the production of a distinct analog tone. If that is your thing then these boys deliver the goods.

                               The Analogue Solutions Polymath

Of course, there are other manufacturers besides the few I've been able to mention here in a relatively short blog. Feel free to mention any others of note, in good or bad senses, in the comments. What is clear from even this brief survey though is that synth buyers do need to beware when buying things. Some manufacturers may have a dodgy reputation or seem to have run out of ideas whereas others chug along producing reliable and solid if unspectacular instruments. And then there is the fact that some will be better at some things than others. At the end of the day, of course, its what you do with what you've got that counts. A name is just a name and having Item X piece of gear guarantees nothing.

An Interview With Marc Doty

You may know Marc Doty as an educator and archivist at the Bob Moog Foundation. Alternatively, you may know of him in his artist guise as a player and demonstrator of synths through his You Tube channel and Facebook page, Automatic Gainsay. Its even possible you may have seen him sometimes on Sonicstate.com whom he credits for inspiring him to start demo-ing analog synthesizers in the first place some years ago now. Marc also even worked for a time at Paisley Park for Prince in the 90s. So this is clearly a man with an interesting story to tell. Over the years he has come to have some pretty interesting things to say about synths and synthesis too, at least to my mind, and he can argue his point reasonably and cogently. And so I wanted to seek him out and see if I could get him to answer some of my questions about synthesizers, synthesis, the burgeoning interest in modular, especially Eurorack, and the various design choices that have shaped synthesis and Electronic Music as we have it today. And I wanted to find out why Marc favors vintage analog tone too (something he's become famous for). I was very glad when Marc agreed to field my questions and what follows is the questions I asked him and the answers he gave me back. I think you'll find some things worth thinking about if synths and synthesis are things that interest you. 

             Marc Doty teaching synthesis in his role as an educator

Me: As you survey the synth scene right now, a scene currently being regularly refreshed with reissues of classic instruments like the MS-20 and Arp Odyssey (and now the Minimoog too) and also with completely new analog synthesizers being designed and built, and not only that but also with an ever-growing interest in various formats of modular synths and synthesis, do you see a synth scene that is healthy at the moment?

Marc: The synth scene and synthesizer culture seems VERY healthy at the moment.  As a synthesizer enthusiast, I am happy to see its popularity rise again. 

I am particularly happy about the recreation of my favorite vintage analog synths.  Not just because I'm happy that people have access to these wonderful tools at more reasonable prices, but also because many of them lack presets. Yes, I know that presets are helpful, and patch storage is also helpful.  But I want people to realize that it's possible to learn to think in the language of these synths… and when you do, you find that you can remember how patches are constructed and how to reproduce them (or at least close!).  As a synthesis educator, it makes me happy that people are encouraged… or even forced… to learn synthesis.  

                Marc at Moog Music demonstrating a Moog Voyager XL

ME: In an interview in 2014 for BBoy Tech Report you described yourself as "a modular synthesist" at your core. And yet I've also seen critical (but not necessarily negative!) comments attached to you regarding the ever-burgeoning Eurorack modular scene. So, in light of this, my question to you is what do you personally see modular synthesis as being about and do you think the Eurorack scene, as far as you know it, matches up to these ideals? Is Eurorack a way of doing synthesis that appeals to you?

Marc: Wow, you're opening the can of worms right in question 2?  :D

Okay, I'm going to need to address a lot of parts of this to answer it accurately. Bear with me!

I learned how to make a polysynth make sounds that I liked back in the mid-eighties.  I wouldn't exactly say I learned "synthesis," but I definitely learned how to make synthesizers make cool synthesizer noises.  As the years passed, I got more and more into digital synths and more and more into presets.  I actually lost the ability to effectively author sounds and just constantly looked for presets that would work for what I needed.  In the late 90s, I realized that I truly loved the sound and interface of analog synths from the 70s, and so I started buying them. I came to realize that I had never understood synthesis to the level of employing it to author sound… just to author synth sounds… if that distinction makes sense.  As I purchased more and more complex analog synthesizers, I learned more and more about actual synthesis. In the mid-aughts, I bought a 44-space dot com system and dove head-first into the authorship of sound.  It was hugely educational.  Since then, no matter what synth I'm using, I think of synthesis in terms of modularity. 

Okay, so in 1965 we had two Americans making voltage-controlled modular synths on different sides of the country.  Bob Moog, inspired by Herb Deutsch and others, pursued a conceptual design that focused on the authorship of sound. The Moog modular was a tool to author and shape sound. Don Buchla also created a means to author sound, but his focus and even intention was to create a device that allowed the authorship of new sounds and a means to create realtime performances with them.  

In my view, both concepts were completely valid.  But I favor what is called the "East Coast" paradigm because it imposes less on my creative process.  As a classically-trained musician, the performance aspect of music is an important part of my compositional process as a body.  Which is to say, I spent years training my body to perform the music as I envision it.  Learning an interface and interactional paradigm of a performance machine is an unnecessary step for me. And, let's face it, when we're talking about Buchla, we're not talking about a necessarily user-friendly interface… we're talking about Buchla's concept of interface, which was unique.  So, for me, personally, the "West Coast" paradigm is less effective. 

Eurorack is fantastic.  Small, convenient, inexpensive modularity made by a host of companies putting out creative and unique modules.  It's really a dream come true for synthesis as a whole, and synthesists in particular.  I can't imagine how anyone who is into synthesis WOULDN'T be thrilled by it.  

However, although Eurorack modules are diverse enough that anyone of any interactional concept could make a system that would suit their needs, there is an underlying focus in Eurorack… and it is the Buchla concept.  "West Coast." And that's perfectly fine… but the focus appears to be for the average of Eurorack users the creation of automated electronic music with synthesizer sounds.  Again, nothing wrong with that.  But in that, the focus isn't the authorship of sound, or even the authorship of unique, expressive, etc. timbre, it is the creation of automated music of a certain style.  And that is the thing that I am less interested in.  I do not want or need to automate, and I definitely do not want to be pigeonholed into a style.  

Now granted, you can say "Marc, you can make any style you want with Eurorack," and that's true.  But the movement is definitely aimed at the culture that surrounds it.  I could make, for example, the additive synth I've always wanted with Eurorack.  But that's not the sort of thing that is the average of the culture.  So many of the devices being made are focused on triggering, sequencing, etc.  And there I would be, trying to buy duplicates of standard "East Coast" type modules without any sequencing, etc.  I can get that sort of thing from the few 5U makers that still exist.

  

So, yes.  I'm not anti-Eurorack, but I am somewhat alienated by the intention, interface, and culture that surrounds it.  Any Eurorack enthusiast would be bored by the Eurorack system I would design.  

        Marc at NAMM alongside Michelle Moog-Koussa and Herb Deutsch

   

ME: Much modular synthesis as it appears today seems to tend towards plinky-plonk, bleep bloop music, if I can describe it as this. The nickname of modular users generally is "wigglers". We also see a lot of drone and soundscape music produced with these musical tools or dissonance and noise collages. I personally love (and make) these kinds of music and appreciate modulars as tools for the making of abstract sound. However, we don't seem to see so much music in which modulars are used to compose what might be described as traditional songs where the modulars are used as sound design tools crafting sounds which make up a whole containing different melodic or harmonic parts. It seems to me that, in general, attention is focused much more on creating one patch or atmosphere which is left to run. And then its on to a new patch. As more and more artists get into this equipment they seem to reproduce the same kind of things as well and the Internet is full of examples. If you accept this analysis of contemporary modular synth usage, do you approve of it or frown about it? I guess I'm asking if you think modulars are currently being made the most of or put to good use.

Marc: Here is the thing about music.  It can be a personal endeavor, or it can be an endeavor for the enjoyment of others.  The great thing is when it is perfectly both.  When it is perfectly both, you have the ideal intersection of personal expression and artistic communication.  But as all musicians know, that ideal intersection is very hard to acquire for most of us!  The more personal music is, usually, the less accessible it is to audiences.  That is the sad truth of writing music.

But I guess it's not THAT sad.  If you're writing "music" for yourself that is made up of cascading electronic squeals or drawn-out drones, and you like it… that's fantastic.  Being able to write music you personally like is the most important aspect of writing music, I think.  But the value of music as a whole is usually measured by how it affects people OTHER than you… and that's the thing.  

So, if you're doing your own thing and audiences are enjoying it… it's the perfect situation.  If you're doing your own thing and you are enjoying it… then that's great, too.  

But, as I've suggested to you before, it's my personal view that the average of musical tastes in human cultures have something to do with a bit of genetic input as well as cultural input… and there are natural inclinations humans have in regard to sound.  Musicians are often explorers with unique abilities that enjoy unique aural outcomes.  But audiences are usually more average and enjoy more familiar outcomes.  In any musical pursuit where the outcomes are more unique, they are at the same time less accessible to the average audience.  

       Marc chats with Stevie Wonder in front of a custom Moog Modular

ME: Bob Moog strapped a keyboard to his modular synthesizer and Don Buchla did not. Who got it right? Ok, no, I'm teasing you! My serious question is is the traditional musical keyboard and the musical theory which goes with it, which is the product of a very situated, Western understanding of musical theory, a limitation we need to get past or a blessing we need to embrace as fully as possible? Should synthesis be limited by the design decisions, technological limitations and artificial choices of centuries ago? Wouldn't the clever minds out there be better employed finding and using new ways and methods?

Marc: While certainly, the keyboard was designed in a specific way for a specific concept.  There were reasons that the white notes were white and flat, and the black notes were fewer and pointy.  But those reasons are less important than the fact that the keyboard is actually a pretty ergonomic AND powerful means of triggering sound.  

We can apply all of the music theory of the Western tradition to the keyboard if we want, but we don't need to.  When keyboards were triggering strings or tines or tubes of air, they were quite rigid in that tradition.  But what Bob knew when he applied the keyboard to the synthesizer was that the keyboard no longer was bound by really anything. The very first Moog keyboard controllers were designed so that the user could define how the keys applied to the sounds being created.  They were not limited to specific notes per octave.  They were not limited to any specific tuning.  They were not even limited to pitch direction. You could DEFINE how this "row of buttons" triggered or controlled your sound. And weirdly, no one ever thinks about that when they're talking about the keyboard and Bob Moog.  

Vladimir Ussachevsky was very concerned about the ASSOCIATION people had with the keyboard… but that was the body of his concern.  It wasn't that the keyboard could only play linear notes of the 12-note octave.  It was that people might be inclined to use it that way.  And some did.  But also, many did not. 

Don Buchla was quoted as saying that keyboards were meant to "throw hammers at strings."  And while that is at least kind of true, he seemed to be unwilling to recognize the concept that Bob had that I just described.  That it could be used any single way.  What is the difference between a number of linear finger pads and a keyboard?  I don't honestly know… except that Ussachevsky would be happy they didn't LOOK like a keyboard.  ;)

I understand that non-keyboard controllers are more consistent with the concepts associated with traditional Electronic Music.  As Electronic Music was meant to be an escape from all tradition wherein the user could personally define timbre, performance, etc., new tools and interfaces seemed to be the right thing to do.  And, as I've said before, Bob Moog was right there at the forefront… having started out as a person who was an expert at making the most unique musical interface of all time… the theremin. 

Ultimately, the problem is that for an interface to be the most successful, it has to be the perfect balance of ergonomic, expressive, and as intuitive as possible. There are people creating all sorts of interesting electronic interfaces that employ unique technology and weird interfaces… but if the musician has to go to great lengths to use it OR finds that it doesn't work in a fashion that allows their full expression… it's merely a novelty. Musicians need the intersection of intuitiveness and expression in an interface. And the keyboard, despite its ancient associations, happens to provide a literal visual portrayal of what it does and what is needed to operate it.  It can be used in any way to trigger anything, and many people already have physical experience with them. That's about it.  

Of course, that's not to say that there couldn't be new interfaces that suit new or different needs or intentions.  Heck, I recently purchased a Haken Continuum.  It is the unique realization of a number of factors of expression. While it kind of resembles a keyboard, it is much more powerful than a keyboard and allows amazing levels of complex expression.  I am having to train my body to be as expressive with it as it allows, but learning is also a good thing.  

ME: To what extent do you think modern synthesis is held captive by the paradigm that was taken up and used by Bob Moog when he started designing synthesizers, that is to say the paradigm of subtractive synthesis? Why do you think that most synths produced today are subtractive in architecture when there are a number of other choices that could be made? Is it innate musical conservatism?

Marc: Bob  didn't invent a "subtractive" synth, actually.  The Moog modular was capable of creating both subtractive AND additive outcomes.  Or, any number of other synthesis possibilities.  

In 2012, when I was demonstrating Erik Norlander's massive Moog modular "The Wall of Doom" at NAMM in the Bob Moog Foundation booth, the very first thing I did was tune its many oscillators to the harmonic series and start creating additive sounds.  Of course, with the pitch instability, I had to do a lot of retuning, but still… I could create amazing sounds never even touching the filters.  

                           Marc with Eric Norlander's "Wall of Doom"

But there is no denying that Bob's paradigms became the standard.  The Minimoog set the standard for synthesizers to come.  I also believe that it was people's desire to imitate the timbres they heard in Switched-On Bach that was also part of what set the standard.  Synthesizers became more-traditional instruments not because of Bob's subtractive efforts, nor the keyboard, but because of the associations of the general public regarding popular music.  And those associations led to expectations in those who sought synthesizers… and those expectations essentially came down to "I want something like a Minimoog."  

Since then, it has become a sort of traditional interface.  I wouldn't say it was conservatism, I'd say that for some reason, in the culture of synthesizers, users are more concerned with emulation and association than they are authorship.
  

It may also have to do with the fact that the subtractive concept is very linear. It's easier to understand than other synthesis concepts like additive or FM.  I am a big proponent of additive synthesis, and I think it has been sadly ignored due to the challenges associated with it.  But as much as I'd like to believe that a lot of it has to do with interface, I think one of the main reasons it has never taken off is because of its complexity coupled with the fact that it's never been in a big hit by a big artist, really.  ;)

ME: What's the best new synth you've interacted with? I understand you have big love for the Dave Smith Pro 2. Is it that?

Marc: Well, that's definitely one.  For me, it is a wonderfully functional and expressive interface that is packed with tools and functionality.  It is so powerful, has such a great sound, and features an intuitive and easy interface that allows access to everything.  I basically have found that I can do everything I think of with it.  And that's never happened with a non-modular synth before.

Also, I am very enthusiastic about the Haken Continuum because of its expressive interface.  It also features a very powerful synthesizer… but I have to be honest that the thing totally exceeds my capability!  :)

  

ME: A nice easy question to finish, Marc. What is so great about vintage analog tone?

Marc: I can't speak for everyone, but I can say that while I love the way that synthesizer tones often sound so alien and strange… and how their precision and stability creates a weird and enjoyable experience for human ears… I also love the way that certain synths can sound like natural, acoustic noises that happen in physical experience.  Analog tone is that for me.  When an analog synthesizer has true analog tone, it doesn't sound like a weird spacy alien sound, it sounds like a new acoustic musical instrument.  There is natural beauty in the various distortions or instability of waveshape, tuning, and amplitude that is reminiscent of acoustic sound.  That's what I like about it.

I want to, of course, thank Marc for taking the time to answer my questions. If you agree with, or take issue with, anything he has to say please feel free to have your say in the comments.