Synthesizers

CatSynth pic: I'll help! (Roland JP-8080)

From John Lewis of FootFall

As we have often observed, cats seem to enjoy hiding in equipment racks. Gabriel, the cat featured in this photo, is no exception.

I remember first encountering a Roland JP-8080 at the Audio Engineering Society (AES) show in 1998. Ironically, I had just presented a paper on simulation of analog synthesizer waveforms and filters. I of course wanted to buy one after playing it – but in the years since I never did.


(Check out more Cats on Tuesday)

RIP Karlheinz Stockhausen

We have lost another of our musical heroes this year:

German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen has died at the age of 79.

Best known for his avant-garde electronic work, Stockhausen was an experimental musician who utilised tape recorders and mathematics to create innovative, ground-breaking pieces.

His Electronic Study, 1953, was the first musical piece composed from pure sine wave sounds.

Electronic Study II, produced a year later, was the first work of electronic music to be notated and published.

But the composer rejected the idea that he was making the music of the future, writing in 1966: “What is modern today will be tradition tomorrow.” [BBC]

In addition to being a strong influence on my own music, Stockhausen worked his way into my regular rotation of music. I can recall many Sunday mornings in Berkeley with coffee, fresh bagels, the New York Times and Stockhausen's Kontakte. This was a groundbreaking work of electronic music, but it was also one that I enjoyed just listening to, the way others might enjoy classical piano music on a weekend. And so, at least for me, Stockhausen's music did indeed pass into “tradition.”

You can sample some of Stockhausen's music here – I recall NPR using Kontakte in their obituary piece as well.

Here is a lecture on “sound” from YouTube: