So Many Colours! Electronic Classical Synthesizer Music » Baroque

New Music: “Le Rappel des Oiaseaux” by deCosta/Rameau

Richard deCosta — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:30:36 +0000

I have departed slightly in this performance from the purely imitative nature of this piece (namely birds, as the title suggests) to take a more subjective approach to the music. I have always wanted to do this, since not all birds are the small, flitting little things that performances of this piece so often makes them out to be. Here, then is a much more dramatic performance (I am especially fond of the thick, heavy, descending bass line that kicks in now and then). I am sure you will enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed performing it.

Eine kleine Nachtmusik realized on the XioSynth

Richard deCosta — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:43:32 +0000

To quote the performer, :

“The minuetto/trio (3rd movement) of W. A. Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik realized on the $299 XioSynth with my own patches!

8 tracks of audio – nothing edited, just raw recordings (with FX) from the XioSynth!

The track is made in the style of Wendy Carlos’ Switched-On series! ”

Bach Invention Live

Richard deCosta — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:32:15 +0000

I do prefer less monotimbral performances, but still, nicely done.

J.S. Bach – Invention #4 in D Minor, Ralph Press, Keyboard – Watch the top videos of the week here

Drottningholm:Grave by Roman perf by Lasse Viklund

Richard deCosta — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:51:37 +0000

15 Grave from the Drottningholm music composed by the Swedish composer J H Roman. Performed by Lasse Viklund.

Presto From Summer Performed Live

Richard deCosta — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:47:39 +0000

Live performance of Bach’s two-part Invention #4

Richard deCosta — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:26:41 +0000

It’s a rare thing indeed these days to see someone actually play a piece live on a synthesizer (other than in rock and electronica). Here is a live performance of a Bach Invention showing off some of the presets of the Roland SH-1000 synthesizer. The playing is a tad awkward (and its a little weird hearing the left hand come from the right speaker, and vice-versa), but it’s energetic and fun!

From BTPRO’s YouTube page:
The Joy of the Preset-Synthesizer. First battle is Roland SH-1000 vs SH-2000!

I like Preset-Synthesizer. An engineer made sound with analog technology at the time without the sampling technology. It was often that I heard a sound different from the displayed name in them. I often thought “Is this the sound of the piano?”. But I can imagine a desperate face of the engineers who are going to make a genuine sound with an analog circuit. It is very exciting/humorous for me. Roland SH-1000 is Japanese first synthesizer and SH-2000 is Preset-synthesizer for organist.

Get the low-down on the SH-1000 at Vintage Synth Explorer:

Bach lives (through a vocoder) – Et Misericordi

Richard deCosta — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:38:54 +0000

Et Misericordia from Bach’s Magnificat is one of the first pieces of music I truly fell in love with (after Siegfried, of course). I first heard it when I was about 10 (1981), and over the years have sought out outstanding recordings of this magnificent (!) piece.

Since I now run a synthesizer blog, and just acquired Prosoniq’s Orange Vocoder, I decided to perform this piece myself. The following is version 1.0 of Et Misericordia recorded in Logic with MiniMoog Vs, FM8s, Massives, ES2s and the Orange Vocoder.

Et Misericordi

I’m still fine-tuning the vocal qualities of the vocoder (it can take quite a bit of tweaking to get it to sound good), and will post the updates when they become available.

What’s a Vocoder?

From Wikipedia:
A vocoder (pronounced /ˈvoʊkoʊdər/, a combination of the words voice and encoder) is an analysis / synthesis system, mostly used for speech in which the input is passed through a multiband filter, each filter is passed through an envelope follower, the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated, and the decoder applies these (amplitude) control signals to corresponding filters in the (re)synthesizer.

In English, that simply means ‘a singing synthesizer’. Great fun!

Want one of your own?
Head over to Software & Hardware Vocoders at KVR Audio

Welcome to the Classical Synthesizer Listening Room!

Richard deCosta — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:54:14 +0000

I’ve opened up the listening room for you all. This is a page I will post all (or most) of the best of my classical synthesizer recordings. At the time of this posting, there are 12 pieces, listed below:

Classical/Romantic/Impressionistic

Fetes from Nocturnes by Dubussy

Mars, the Bringer of War from The Planets by Holst

Holst/deCosta – Mercury, the Winged Messenger from The Planets

Holst – Neptune, the Mystic from The Planets

Eine Kleine Nachtmusique Mvt. 4 by Mozart

Organ Music transcribed for Synthesizers

Marcel Dupré – Prelude No. 3

Prelude, Choral et Fugue by Franck

Baroque/Renaissance

Claude la Coucou by Daquin

Noel-X by Daquin

Misc. (TV Themes, Experiments, etc.)

Danny Elfman – Beetle Juice Main Titles

Keeping Up Appearances Theme Music

Fawlty Towers Theme Music

I will post an update whenever I add a new piece.

Feel free to

SEND ME A REQUEST

(by adding a comment to this post)

for a piece you’ve always wanted to hear performed on synthesizers. I will do my best to accommodate.

VISIT THE LISTENING ROOM

MiniMoog Voyager – Live Bach Performance!

Richard deCosta — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:11:07 +0000

It’s not all that often I run across a live synthesizer performance that warrants note. Here’s one that really deserves attention: Bach prelude in c minor played by Kjell Gierstae on his MiniMoog Yoyager.

From WikiPedia:
The Minimoog Voyager or Voyager is a monophonic analog synthesizer, designed by Robert Moog and released in 2002 by Moog Music. The Voyager was modeled after the classic Minimoog synthesizer that was popular in the 1970s.

Like the original Minimoog, the Voyager has six sound sources. Five of these (three voltage-controlled oscillators with switchable waveforms, a noise generator, and an external line input) pass to a mixer with independent level controls. The mixed output of the sources is then passed through the voltage-controlled filter and a voltage-controlled amplifier, each of which has its own ADSR envelope generator. The voltage-controlled filter can itself be made to oscillate, thus comprising the Voyager’s sixth sound source.

In addition to similar features of the original Minimoog, the Voyager was designed to have a memory bank capable of storing 128 presets, a touch pad modulation control, dedicated LFO, two modulation buses (one controllable via the modulation wheel and the other with a foot pedal), two ADSR envelopes for filter and amplifier control, a pressure-sensitive keyboard, 14 voltage-control inputs, and MIDI input/output.

Unlike the original Minimoog, the Voyager’s modulation buses can be set to affect almost any parameter of the sound, not just the filters. Although the synthesizer features MIDI control and advanced patch storage, all audio paths in the Voyager are analog with the sound originating from any of three oscillators designed for high tuning stability, as the original Minimoog oscillators tended to slightly shift out of tune while playing.

With the Voyager, certain parameters that were fixed on the original Minimoog can be programmed to suit the player’s preference. This includes selection between low-note, high-note or last-note priority. Also, the envelope generators can be set to retrigger with each pressed note or they can be set not to retrigger until all notes are lifted and the next note is played.

A Neglected Classic Synthesizer: The Commodore 64 SID Chip!

Richard deCosta — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:21:42 +0000

Believe it or not, the Commodore 64′s SID chip was my first real synthesizer. An amazing little 4-voice digital synth packed into one amazing chip. Here’s a rendering of Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring on an emulated C-64.

From Wikipedia:
The SID was devised by engineer Robert “Bob” Yannes, who later co-founded the Ensoniq digital synthesizer company. Yannes headed a team that included Yannes, two technicians and a CAD operator running Applicon (now a part of the UGS Corp.), who designed and completed the chip in five months’ time in the latter half of 1981. Yannes was inspired by previous work in the synthesizer industry and was not impressed by the current state of computer sound chips. Instead, he wanted a high-quality instrument chip, which is the reason why the SID has features like the envelope generator, previously not found in home computer sound chips.

The SID chip featured:

three separately programmable independent audio oscillators (8 octave range, approximately 16 – 4000 Hz)
four different waveforms per audio oscillator (sawtooth, triangle, pulse, noise)
one multi mode filter featuring low-pass, high-pass and band-pass outputs with 6 dB/oct (bandpass) or 12 dB/octave (lowpass/highpass) rolloff. The different filter-modes are sometimes combined to produce additional timbres, for instance a notch-reject filter.
three attack/decay/sustain/release (ADSR) volume controls, one for each audio oscillator.
three ring modulators.
oscillator sync for each audio oscillator.
two 8-bit A/D converters (typically used for game control paddles, but later also used for a mouse)
external audio input (for sound mixing with external signal sources)
random number/modulation generator

Interested in playing with the SID for your own recordings? Hop on over to Madame Blavatsy’s and get yourself a SID VSTi plugin for your favorite DAW.