When I read the one sheet for the recent Oval album 'O', it described a self-discipline exercise that Markus Popp put himself through for the process of creating the album. He claimed that he had purposefully limited himself to, as he called it, a ‘very cheap’ PC computer running 'old software'. Very vague, but still intriguing. Since Popp seemed to rely entirely on making his own DSP programs, my mind tried to imagine what he could possibly sound like if he had reverted to the sound palette of an early album like 'Wohnton'. The end result was very interesting, and although I would have never guessed that it was made using 'old' software, I did enjoy listening to what sounded like someone tweaking the fuck out of some Karplus strong style physical modeling synthesizers (maybe Tasman?). Whatever was going on was undeniably beautiful and very distinctly Oval.
As I have digressed from the start, let me relate things back to the title of this post. Take an artist like Burial as a recent example. In his interviews, he talks openly about how he prefers to sequence his music by manually copying & pasting beats together in Soundforge. Back before multi-track computer recording programs were affordable, let alone powerful enough, this is how many of us (myself included) would get by in making sample-based music. To hear a popular musician who has a very slick production sound make a claim like this was a compelling statement for me to hear. And so in thinking about both examples, it reminded me of what I was doing on my computer at age 16 and feeling a bit nostalgic for the best programs of that age. I’ll be dedicating an overdue series of posts to going back a bit in time to before VST instruments, before Reason, before Abelton, before Fruity. Before Adobe cannibalized several companies both large and small, back when SGI was considered to be at the forefront of computer science. This was the time of the Aural Relics of Operating Systems past. I hope that you enjoy this trip in its several installments, whether or not you ever used the various relics to which I flash back.
As I have digressed from the start, let me relate things back to the title of this post. Take an artist like Burial as a recent example. In his interviews, he talks openly about how he prefers to sequence his music by manually copying & pasting beats together in Soundforge. Back before multi-track computer recording programs were affordable, let alone powerful enough, this is how many of us (myself included) would get by in making sample-based music. To hear a popular musician who has a very slick production sound make a claim like this was a compelling statement for me to hear. And so in thinking about both examples, it reminded me of what I was doing on my computer at age 16 and feeling a bit nostalgic for the best programs of that age. I’ll be dedicating an overdue series of posts to going back a bit in time to before VST instruments, before Reason, before Abelton, before Fruity. Before Adobe cannibalized several companies both large and small, back when SGI was considered to be at the forefront of computer science. This was the time of the Aural Relics of Operating Systems past. I hope that you enjoy this trip in its several installments, whether or not you ever used the various relics to which I flash back.
Vaz Modular stand-alone (PC only)
Crafted & Designed by Martin Fey. One of the first software modular synthesizers, and definitely the first to accurately mimic analog synthesis. With the advent of real-life modular recreations like the Synthé EMS emulation, or Aturia Moog Modular and Arp 2600 VST plugins, you’d rarely hear this monster of a synth mentioned. What makes this an oversight is that it was more powerful and diverse than any single encapsulated 'modular synth' out there (if you weren’t counting more open ended programs like Buzz, Reaktor or Max/msp). A VST plugin version was released before Vaz Modular was discontinued. You didn't connect modules together with wires in Vaz, rather you’d actually click on an in/out panel and choose from a list of available modules right on the screen. An interface that appears to confuse at first glance is actually pretty elegant: there is no 'structure' layer, what you see is what you get. And for being able to contain a massive modular monster on 1 normal screen sized area, you are able to get surprisingly deep with the configuration.
The Sequencer in Vaz was extremely intuitive and pleasurable to use. It had an instant randomization feature, note skipping, step slides and complex pattern changing ability. For the power that it offers, VAZ is a great addition to a live virtual synth setup. By today's standards, it is possible to not allow it to take up very much cpu, but you have to think ahead. Loading a preset patch would lend itself more to stability than adding modules live. Like Reaktor or other modular programs, too much in screen rewiring can easily crash it when running in a host sequencer. I have been able to chain together 5-10 Vaz Modulars in Cubase running as Vsts with little issue and just a bit of patience. Although I was always tempted to go immediately for the repatching because it's visible directly on the GUI, I’d suggest you fight that urge when running it as a VST.
As a synth-tinkerer fresh out of high school, I did quite a lot of my jamming and recording in Vaz modular. Part of me wishes that I could go back in time and be a fly on the wall in my old bedroom/studio, just to find out what the hell I did to make some of the sounds like this simulated crackling fireplace or this rubbery jam
There was a revelatory moment early on for me in using Vaz, when I had made a very simple snare drum and bass drum patch. I decided to sequence them independently of one another. While keeping the snare at a pretty regular beat I decided to hit the random button on only the bass drum pattern. Instantly, I felt like I had discovered the 'key' to an AE song like 'flutter' from the Anti-Ep, where there was still a cohesive, dance-y regularity to it, but with a seemingly human element of random rhythmic disturbance. listen here
Since I'm mostly on a Mac these days, I have to run Vaz under Parallels running Windows XP. I recommend you try it on your system and you'll be surprised how smoothly it runs even on an emulated Windows. Unfortunately there isn't a PC-vst to OSX-au converter.... yet. And lastly, Vaz modular 3.0 can also host other VST instruments & effects inside of it.
Available: still being sold here
More information: Vaz kvr forum here
Stay tuned for the next installment: Cool Edit Pro
Aww yeah, cool edit pro... I ran into that in college back in 1997 or so and have been using it ever since <3
ReplyDeleteLooking forwards to the next installment.