The emperor's clothes... and Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxymore

 

The twenty-second studio album from one of the grand masters of visionary electronic music has been released as an homage to Pierre Henry, and Jarre's official website presents it as "conceptually his most ambitious and groundbreaking to date".

If one approaches it with quite a few decades of Jarre fandom and almost equal number of decades of audio engineering experience under one's belt, the impulse to state a few non-subjective facts about this album becomes uncontrollable. 

Thus, it is easiest to describe what this album is not...  and these facts definitely contradict the  bandwagoning and artificial, thoughtless applauding in quite a few music publications.

One has to start with the claim that this is Jarre's most ambitious and groundbreaking studio album... 

The listener may have been fascinated by the paradox of the recent Equinoxe Infinity album, which was released with great hype about its futuristic visions - but the album contained highly self-conscious nostalgia and re-iterations of the past (down to the use of specific 1970s sounds from the original Equinoxe), combined with quasi-desperate EDM trendiness and shockingly antiquated, even banale, sound sample manipulations from the mid-1980s. 

If that listener wishes to revisit those mixed feelings, then Oxymore is another perfect album for that. 

Pierre Henry was undoubtedly a trailblazer with huge influence on Jarre, too. In 2022, chopping of samples of his speech (and other sounds) is not only far from groundbreaking or ambitious creativity, it is not even something of the present. Nor is time stretching, or rapid modulation of audio synthesis parameters. What we hear throughout the album, in terms of the sounds used as rhythmic or pitch-pattern elements, could be and has been done, admittedly more tediously, in the mid-to-late 1980s already. 

Ambitious and groundbreaking creativity is not tens of minutes of rapid changes to sound localisation in stereo or surround sound space, applied to almost all sequenced patterns and lead motifs. Well, lead sounds, as one has to challenge misty-eyed reviewers (who are using words they prove not to understand at all) to name a single musical motif they remember after the album listening ends. There are none, albeit this one is, naturally, a subjective take. 

So let's paddle back to the waters of objective analysis via a trajectory that is much less jagged and histrionic than the sound processing on the entire album...

The sorely missed Klaus Schulze or any grand master of the Berlin School of EM have demonstrated decades ago how on-the-surface monotonous sounding sequenced sounds can actually contain a Universe of myriad changes, subtleties, fluid and spirited movements that can enchant the brain. 

What we have on Oxymore is a robotic, exactly repeating sequencing in many places, where musically or even sonically there is zero change - whilst other layers of sounds are trying to mask this with the aforementioned aggressive, constantly jumping-around, aimless modulations of filters, envelopes, distortion effects, and spatial localisation. 

Do we recall Moon Machine, from the album Images or the single? If one takes away all the structural development, and puts its sequencing, panning, and rhythm programming through a MIDI randomizer plugin that changes control parameters rapidly... we would get something very close to the majority of the "tracks" on Oxymore. But... Moon Machine was created then released in the mid-1980s...

Some called the new album Zoolook 2. Once again, one (in a by-now thoroughly irritated manner) has to conclude that some, simply and factually, have no idea why Zoolook was astonishingly imaginative, innovative, and why it holds up even in 2022 as a seriously "wow" electronic album. Oxymore would only be a Zoolok 2 if it had used current synthesis and re-synthesis methods in a way that it pushes them far beyond what everybody else is doing at the moment with them. 

Using 1980s garbling of audio samples, 1990s grain synthesis, time stretching based on the same granular technology that has been around us for decades etc. is not even reaching the level of what other (experimental or mainstream) electronic artists have been doing for years, if not decades. 

The one area of innovation where Oxymore can fairly claim novelty status is, ironically, not in electronic music - it is in visual and immersive virtual reality realm.

In mixing and mastering, sure, there are state-of-the art audio techniques employed - the Dolby Atmos mix makes it something worth listening to, from a sonic experience and technical viewpoint... at most. 

The supreme irony of this album is that if this was to be any kind of true homage to Pierre Henry, it could have been a cerebral sonic collage or any form of 'experimental' electronic music - instead of something abundant in desperately trendy drum machine beats and many EDM clichés.

The subject area where it is quite near-impossible to write anything objective is certainly the musical one. Does Oxymore contain anything more than jarring, random, overdone, and sometimes, for prolonged sections, robotically monotonous sonic puree from a high-powered blender?

Well, let's attempt a not purely subjective answer based on a look at Jarre's first few albums released almost four and a half decades ago... and Oxymore.

The astounding imagination that resulted in the groundbreaking Oxygene and Equinoxe albums was both technical and musical. Fascinating creativity fought with rudimentary technology, pushing it to its limits, in order to create something fluid, otherworldly, yet so human that it even contained memorable hummable tunes... and evergreen EM "hits". 

It is deeply ironic, that all the hype around Oxymore simply cannot hide the glaringly obvious fact that, apart from the mentioned mixing/mastering technology and the multimedia materials accompanying the album's sonic content, Oxymore does not bring anything new that makes erudite or non-erudite listeners sit up on hearing unprecedented flights of imagination.

One could put up even with pure technological innovation in the "tracks" when it comes to sound synthesis, but all one hears is regurgitated decades-old technology hammered-on with the higher speed modulation capabilities of modern software. 

Jarre stated that he feels "sorry for those afraid of the future". Quite rightly so. However, his depiction of future is robotically re-using decades-old EM tropes pushed to the extreme, while the visuals are quasi-monochromatic, as sterile and industrial-looking as the CGI in Tron was in the early 1980s... or a modern rendering of the gloomy industrial cityscapes of Fritz Lang's Metropolis from the mid-1920s... If this is the future, then, unfortunately, we should be worried about a return to the visions of 1950s dystopian science fiction...

Even if one let the hype-vs-reality contradictions of the "futuristic" Equinoxe Infinity pass despite its dense 1970s (and clichéd 1990s) references, it is impossible to do so in the case of Oxymore. The emperor, this time, really isn't wearing any clothes. 

The Vangelis Register

In expectation of the upcoming piano album Nocturne, some internet comments on the first single from that album prompted a bit of an inventory...

No paperwork is involved, and it is not a catalogue of Vangelis releases... Instead, as some commented on Youtube along the lines of why Vangelis is releasing a "new age"-like album, or why he "pretends" to be a "classical composer" etc., it attempts to capture the list of genres, sub-genres and styles Vangelis has composed in. Some may have only heard of him due to certain soundtracks, but the full picture of his musical output is as astounding as one could possibly imagine (or not, in our world of increasingly pigeon-holed electronic music).

The list, admittedly, contains some quite loose categorisations, too - apologies, but latter are inevitable... not only because Vangelis often manages to fuse vastly different styles and genres, but also because often he can put a very personal spin on a well-established category...

So a quick "inventory" of what one can hear in his discography, with examples given as album and/or track titles:

• Early Medieval polyphony / Gregorian chant and Byzantine sacred music influences (parts of Mask, Heaven and Hell Part II, 1492 Conquest of Paradise, Ignacio)
• Echoes of mid- to late Renaissance secular and sacred music, including specific embellishments and phrasing (Monastery of La Rabida, parts of Direct and Opera Sauvage, a capella parts of Mask and Heaven and Hell)
• Jazz and jazz-rock (parts of Albedo 0.39, See You Later, Direct, Opera Sauvage)
• Progressive rock (Earth, certain Jon & Vangelis tracks)
• Space rock (Albedo 0.39, Spiral, Rosetta)
• Echoes of Berlin School i.e. works building on sequenced background and patterns (parts of Spiral, Direct)
• Minimalism, within that perhaps closest to a patterned/repetitive Steve Reich-like approach (Soil Festivities)
• "New Age", with a highly personal take on it (large parts of Oceanic, parts of Voices)
• Ambient (Creation du Monde, parts of The City, parts of Albedo 0.39 and Friends of Mr. Cairo)
• Electro-acoustic experimental (Beaubourg, Invisible Connections)
• Psychedelic rock (Hypothesis)
• Oratorio (Mask, Mythodea)
• Piano etudes (The Long March, seemingly the upcoming album Nocturne)
• 1920s style "easy listening" with 1950s arrangements (One More Kiss Dear)
• Synth-pop (I'll Find My Way Home and some other Jon & Vangelis tracks)
• Pop ballads (from Aphrodite's Child era, e.g. Spring Summer Winter and Fall)
• Eurodisco (Multitrack Suggestion)
• Rock 'n' Roll (Back To School)
• Symphonic poems / suites (El Greco - the studio album, Chariots of Fire final suite)
• Penderecki / Orff-style choral-symphonic suites (Heaven and Hell)
• Folk re-arrangements / re-interpretations (traditional and original songs on Odes)
• Blues and blues-rooted ballads (parts of Blade Runner, some Jon & Vangelis collaborations, Le Singe Bleu)
• Vocal-instrumental experiments and improvisations (Curious Electric and other parts of Short Stories, parts of See You Later)
• As a genre in itself, cinematic soundtracks (albeit spanning several above categories) - obviously, no examples are needed here of some of his era-defining classics... 

Identifiable specific ethnic influences:

• Celtic (Irlande, from Opera Sauvage)
• African (La Fete Sauvage)
• Far-Eastern (obviously the entire album China, some tracks on The City)
• Near- and Middle Eastern (2 tracks on Blade Runner, parts of Alexander, the ballet score The Thread)
• Greek secular and Byzantine sacred music influences (Earth, El Greco OST & same title studio album, original tracks on Odes, Rapsodies)
• Spanish / Andalusian with clear Moorish influences (parts of 1492 Conquest of Paradise)
• Native American Indian (parts of 1492 Conquest of Paradise)

It is a simple, but rather astonishing, fact that he really is the one and only synthesizer artist who managed to create music with such range - regardless of one's taste, the list is simply astounding. Whether one can appreciate all these musical genres, styles, historic periods' and geographic areas' specific musical characteristics, that is another matter entirely.

Considering that all of the above are instantly recognisable as works by Vangelis, one is reminded of a social media thread not so long ago. It asked, what genre does he compose in - the only correct answer was that the genre is called... Vangelis.

Presets - the good, the bad, the clichéd

When it comes to various forms of purism or certain dogmatic views, music production is by no means special among the creative activities of various art forms.

One can find strong analogies between music and photography, for instance, when it comes to gear-related irrational claims and views. In other cases, when elements of the creative workflow are massaged into sweeping generalisations, one can go further...

Such is the case of famous, infamous or just everyday presets... We take them for granted, as nowadays synthesizers with memory, or those assisted by external gadgets, allow instant recall of a set of parameters in order to recreate specific sounds created by the instrument manufacturers' sound designers.

As everything in the field of electronic instruments, presets, too have been elevated from their merely utilitarian role in music production to the level of vehement, philosophical-sounding, and at their core always self-asserting, statements. However, many of the latter actually build on self-contradicting fallacies - and in terms of a cognitive process, it is fascinating how the most boundless music genre and its by now virtually limitless technology can produce the narrowest views so often...

Hence we see and hear numerous statements along the lines of:

1. "I never use presets" 

It is quite commendable to only rely on one's own sonic creations, however, as much as this wants to sound superlatively creative in all its fervour, it ironically disregards many nuances of the creative process and its objectives.

Bach never rolled up his sleeves to produce a prepared version of his harpsichord, nor attacked church organ pipes and valves with various blunt or sharp tools, nor did Debussy go on Cage-like adventures inside his piano... but... it would be ludicrous to attempt to make the point that somehow they were not "truly" creative in producing evocative soundscapes. Stravinsky's landmark The Rite of Spring is quite a juxtaposition of, well, presets... so is Terry Riley's seminal In C. 

Ergo they were not as creative as an electronic musician constantly going on about "never using presets" in his studio... ? After all, latter musician has the luxury of creating and/or using any sound imaginable, while mentioned gentlemen were confined to pre-defined sounds of their instruments - but this is where the "can" transforms into a "must" and becomes a tool in self-aggrandizment.

Many of the biggest names of the electronic music genre, too were and are perfectly happy to employ presets, as the latter may well be the most perfectly fitting sounds for the piece they envision.

Klaus Schulze - a vintage jam session

It would be pointless to count how many Yamaha CS-80 presets occur in the classic Blade Runner soundtrack by Vangelis, as it is virtually entirely built from preset sounds..

Nor would it help counting how many presets have the grand masters and pioneers like Klaus Schulze or Tangerine Dream used - as there were countless.

Ultimately, it is about the sound - and how it fits and/or expresses what the creator imagined. Did that sound come from a factory preset or from a custom setting created from scratch? Well, does it actually matter, if it fits what the creator wanted in the end result? 

Does the use of cobalt blue or cadmium yellow make a painter less creative as he/she may have employed them as is, without personalised alterations of the colour tone? 

Would we call Turner's skies relying on standard cobalt blue less creative? Certainly Van Gogh must have been a hack for employing plain cobalt blue as a cheaper option to the (then) horridly expensive natural ultramarine...

2. "That piece used some very cliché presets"

Indeed, some instruments had and have "killer" presets that have been (over-)used with wild abandon by many. We can all come up with considerable lists of such sounds across the decades of electronic music, and perhaps the '80s and '90s are the most guilty decades... 

Going back to the essence of the creative process, the fundamental question is whether the perhaps clichéd sound works. 

To go to a painting analogy again, Raphael and Vermeer, to name just two painters, have made quite some use of natural ultramarine - which was, already well before they made use of it, a quite expensive colour cliché, a mighty "preset" on the colour palette. 

Does Raphael's Madonna strike us as a boring cliché because of the use of natural ultramarine? Yes, a clearly rhetorical question... and there can be countless similar ones.

3. "I always start from scratch"

It is another version of "I never use presets", but it emphasizes the labour that takes one from a moment of sonic inspiration to the moment of recording the imagined or just improvised sound. 

If one over-emphasizes this process, then one actually disregards (at best) or belittles (at worst) entire alternative creative workflows that may not work for that person, but they work splendidly well for other artists.

Once again, the ego is at work instead of reason and balance in creative choices. 

Schulze's seminal Timewind, which led to the grand prize of  the Académie Charles-Cros, was put together in a bedroom session and although it used modular gear, too, it certainly didn't start with a blank setup. Nor did many of his and his contemporaries' spellbinding studio or live sessions...

Many era-defining pieces and entire albums by Vangelis were put together in improvised sessions, not seldom in single takes especially after the availability of his custom-built so-called Direct boxes.

Heavily improvisation-based works have started from a lot more than a cleaned-up modular setup or wiped sound banks... and often their unparalleled strength lies in their spontaneity that relied on readily available and easily switchable presets.


The problem with many of these over-stated and over-emphasised heroics implied in "not using presets" is that they are meant as emphases on the self-perceived value of the end result, and often as qualifying statements of one's own creativity. 

Alas, these grand statements achieve quite the opposite - as an interesting inverse correlation can also demonstrate. See how often defining names of the genre go on and on about their refusal to use presets (or about any other rigid preconceptions for that matter when it comes to the creative process) - compared to budding electronic musicians doing the same in myriad internet forums...

What we are supposed to sound like....

The discourse on music's eminently different two roles, one functional, the other well above and beyond functional, dates back millennia.

The Harmonic Scale, Franchino Gaffurio, 1480 

Even when musical scales were defined and explained in ancient times with presumed, or sometimes vaguely empirical, ratios between orbits of celestial objects, music had at the same time a recognised functional role of entertainment, and a spiritual role with even cosmic connections...

Fast forward to contemporary electronic music... and we have something that, perhaps more than any other musical genre in history, abounds with cosmic references. Even vast sub-genres like space ambient or fusions like space rock are making direct references to that outer realm, which is immediately giving such music a higher purpose.

Apart from such philosophical and historic aspects, the democratisation of music making has been an unprecedented phenomenon in our history.

One is not thinking of the availability of an improvised woodwind instrument and the tunes that any shepherd could produce at any time during our many past millennia. Making music at this level and having a few mates around to perhaps listen to it was a possibility for anyone with any background in any historic era.

Trident Studios in the '70s

However, the democratisation of cutting-edge and professional music production has been brought along by affordable electronic instruments and studio equipment. Only very few decades ago a musician had to command a very respectable budget in order to produce something that could stand up in the market of mainstream or more elitist genres. The process of getting the end product onto that market has also changed radically in recent years, but this is an entirely different topic.

Apart from the technological and financial aspects, the actual process of music making has shifted toward a state of affairs that vastly stimulates both inspiration and the creation of well-polished end products - even eminently improvised ones. The end products no longer require in-depth knowledge of music theory, many rhythmic and harmonic aspects are taken care of, in real time, by the algorithms at work in the gizmos or computer apps populating the home studio.

But let's firmly and rapidly side-step any polemic on how technology helps talent-less people create music. This is a topic that, with all its fundamental factual, conceptual and historical errors, keeps turning up like rheumatic pain. It is similar to what happened to the replacement of dark rooms with digital dark rooms, similar arguments were and are endlessly made about how it brings the death of artistic photography. It did not.

AKAI MPC-X

What technology does immensely help with nowadays is the compositional process itself. Hugely sophisticated, whilst affordable, gadgets can radically change the creative workflow. Again, as the old saying goes, anybody can do it nowadays. Well, again, let's side-step this for a moment.

One of the more abstract effects of this technology (from superb MPCs to Ableton Push to full-blown music workstations with KARMA algorithmic composition) is the shift in our perception of how what music created in such ways should be like.

When Billboard magazine, of quite some pedigree, managed to judge Gary Numan's latest album as "not electronic enough", it unwillingly created a case study in this perceptual shift. Billboard fundamentally misjudged the concept album despite its content, because the stereotype of what electronic music should sound like has been drastically shifted - and encompasses only a few very specific sub-genres.

Ade Fenton & Gary Numan

Numan's album was around 95% created and finalised with electronic instruments, according to both the artist and the producer, Ade Fenton. It certainly sounded eminently electronic, superbly futuristic, and as it happens, loaded with actual meaning and messages.

However, it only sounded eminently electronic to those who did not drastically limit the scope and extent of electronic music to typical results created with drum and sample loops, something that aforementioned creative tools excel in.

Electronic music, from its early days and years of imaginative demolishing of all boundaries, has ironically become a semantic tag for just a few very narrow genres and sub-genres.

If one looks at what is included in the category of electronic music, then it becomes clear that in our perception this music has largely lost its non-functional roles.

Dance music, and all its sub-genres, is making us... well, dance and have a good time. Even the not so mainstream, but abundant, ambient and chillout electronica is here to helps us relax, well, chill out...

When talking to creators of mainstream electronica, it is also becoming obvious how even the concept of composing with a primary intent, hence setting an objective in terms of what the music expresses or describes, is becoming an alien one or something never heard of. In best case, it is seen as "old-fashioned".

Whilst both technology and its users are creating, among the inevitable ocean of mediocrities, gems of mainstream electronica, we really are increasingly pushing traditional composition and traditional musical values into, at best, marginalised and quite niche sub-genres.

Vangelis in his former London studio

Traditional composition here is not meant along the lines of doodling with a piano and taking out pencil and paper with staves. It is meant as approaching the task of creating a piece of music with actual intent, even when merely improvising on our gadgets... and keeping focus on what the music is meant to express.

This, though, requires command of music theory, and examples of supreme masters with no such formal knowledge are rare - let's just say, there are not many Vangelis-like phenomena in electronic music...

Just saying this makes one sound hopelessly elitist, because the ways in which we can create electronic music nowadays has distorted our entire vision on what the creative process is, and what it is supposed to come up with. Electronic music that is released on, heaven forbid, concept albums, is deemed old-fashioned. Undoubtedly, the excesses of progressive rock have made the term "concept album" an almost pejorative one in the eyes and ears of many punk and post-punk generations of music creators and consumers.

It is ironic though, that in the most limitless genre, huge proportion of electronic music is created nowadays with merely its functional role in mind. This pretty much drives our definitions and expectations of what electronica "must" be.

Some niche sub-genres are either unbearably academic (continuing the eminently experimental traditions), or labelled with the by now pejorative-sounding new age term. Latter has anyway become a bucket not just for pretentious and often ludicrous "spiritual" electronica, but also for just about any music that happens to be a fusion of orchestral, ethnic, traditional and electronic. In the same way that progressive rock has eventually become a bucket for everything that didn't fit into rigid rock sub-genres, new age has become the same for electronic music.

Nils Frahm

The perversity of our shifted preconceptions and perceptions of what electronic music is supposed to sound like are made even more evident when the unparalleled pioneers or novel acts of far-out electronic music are pigeonholed into the new age genre.

Tangerine Dream ending up in that category? Really? Harold Budd, Kitaro and even Vangelis? Olafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm? It is simply tragicomic.

However, like the unstoppable and quite uncoordinated  changes of ever-changing human languages, this movement shows the shifts and currents at work. It is absolutely commendable that our drum boxes and sequencers allow anybody to lay down musical ideas at any moment, in a vein that the great composers of yesteryear would have given an arm and a leg for.

Improvisations are no longer lost forever, and can be the origins of major and complex works. Technology really is here to help, as long as the human maintains creative control.

It just remains painfully ironic how the vast new abilities and powers of this astounding and still new musical Universe are achieving the opposite effect: instead of increasingly leveraging the possibilities created by the unprecedented technology behind this music, we are increasingly limited in our rapidly narrowing perceptions of what this truly limitless sonic Universe "should" sound like. And latter is confined to the functional role of music, despite its new abilities to take us beyond the party moods, ambiental wanderings and relaxation attempts.

One has to wonder what the early pioneers would think, if they could witness what this phenomenal new genre of music has become in our aesthetic definitions and expectations.

Across centuries & continents of musical traditions - Vangelis at 75

One could try something unusual for the 75th birthday of one of the most prolific synthesizer artists: instead of reviews of selections from his musical output spanning many decades, some factual information alone could depict the significance of the almost impossible phenomenon in electronic music that is Vangelis.

Regardless of one's taste or preference for certain sub-genres of contemporary electronica, there are a few unique facts related to his body of work, its impact and significance in synthesizer music.

Having shot to fame as the keyboardist and one of the musical brains of Aphrodite's Child, his musical output soon ventured far outside the confines of progressive rock, and far outside what nowadays one understands stereotypical "electronic music" to be.

Even in 2018, it is a curious fact that one is unable to name another synth artist whose musical output spans the following categories, styles, genres and sub-genres - whilst uses electronic instruments as creative tools to connect and blend these vastly varied genres...

There is early music, specifically Medieval and Renaissance secular and sacred music. There are Far-Eastern, African and Celtic, Greek and Arabic influences and deep ethnic flavours.

There are choral-symphonic oratorios with resonances of Penderecki or Orff, but at the same time Medieval characteristics that are returning to the days of early polyphony. There is jazz-rock and even good old-fashioned rock & roll.

There are space rock suites, ambiental tone poems and abstract sonic paintings. There are "new age" and mainstream electronic vocal-instrumental works.

There are minimalist works with the shamanic and hypnotic traits of Reich and Glass. There are eminently experimental electronic adventures with echoes of IRCAM sonic collages and tone paintings.

There are Greek ballads and folks songs from the Middle Ages transposed into spacey electronic works. There are futuristic soundtracks with era-defining impact from cult film classics.

There are piano poems of twenty-plus minutes comfortably sitting within symphonic and electronic structures. There are ancient Middle-Eastern arrangements coupled with electronics, that evoke worlds that are distant in time and space.

One can travel from the dark processions of the Inquisition to the peak of Mount Everest, from delicate Chinese ornaments to vast Gothic vaults, from African tribe's ceremonial polyrhythms to the hustle and bustle of a modern metropolis's nerve centre, from intimate folk ballads to the unleashing of colossal powers by ancient and future deities and demigods...

Above list is not exhaustive, but all this can be found in the discography of one man who looked at synthesizers as creative tools serving any musical imaginings... instead of specific instruments for a specific genre limited to specific sound worlds.

Looking back at many decades of musical output, perhaps the central characteristic that made all this seemingly impossible musical range a reality was and is the refusal to treat technology as a dominant factor in the creative process.

First and foremost, there is a, as some said, great Romantic in front of those keyboards - hence comes an eminently human passion that puts technology in the service of the imagined sound worlds that refuse to listen to artificially imposed boundaries of styles and genres.

It is an interesting quasi-paradox in the case of Vangelis: treating complex, and often trailblazing, technology as just any other conventional instrument, allowed him to produce the most unconventional results that move freely across the musical traditions of many centuries and many thousands of miles.

Vangelis in electronic music demonstrated what the late Ray Bradbury demonstrated in literature: using the characteristic tools of the most futuristic outer realms of a chosen art form, one can create eminently evocative, passionate and hence emotional works that are not hampered, but instead are augmented, by the possibilities of the chosen creative tools.

Someone asked a few weeks ago on a synth music forum, what genre does his music belong to. As all music journalists and reviewers struggled over the decades, so did the numerous forum members... except for one answer, which was: "the genre is called Vangelis"...

Converging worlds, stable antagonisms

Famously, and somewhat infamously, Klaus Schulze's first fully digital recording Dig It proclaimed the "death of an analogue" in one of its tracks.

Although the lyrics were ironic, and digital was understandably called an "automat" at that time, 1980 was not quite the best moment for heralding a tectonic shift toward an exclusive relationship with the emerging digital instruments.

Eminently digital synths (from early samplers to the later FM synths and beyond) have expanded the sonic palette to before unimaginable dimensions - but when it came to an "analogue" sound, they had been operating with a couple of crucial limitations.


In terms of sound synthesis and processing, the available computational power  was one of the factors that had been limiting the bit resolution and sample rate of the digitally represented signals that the synth operated with. This then introduced sonic artifacts, e.g. the especially notorious aliasing and a puny performance of early digital filters. Many of the still surviving, and largely outdated, stereotypes about the "digital sound" artifacts originated in this era.

The revolutionary Fairlight CMI

Both sample size and sampling rate also meant memory impact, especially for samplers. The characteristic sound of a Fairlight was partly due to its humble 8-bit sampling. 

Early Emulators used nonlinear compression tricks from the field of telecommunications standards, which exploited the way in which we hear things. Ergo they could store increasingly decent audio with fewer bits, hence with less (ludicrously expensive at that time) memory usage.

In an FM synth, like the revolutionary Yamaha DX7, the processing power was limiting the signal representation, the precision of the mathematical operations and how many of those it could perform in real time. 

The maths involved in even much later synths, like the E-mu Morpheus with its mind-bending morphing filters, limited how much control and changeability they allowed the humans to have in real time.

This was another key issue: how much we, users, could meddle in the inner digital processes and how much instantaneous control we have over the parameters that shaped our sounds.

The user interfaces on these digital synths were notoriously minimal, compared to the analogue synth users' joy of having an immediate, continuous and direct control over myriad parameters via many lovely knobs.

Even if some "programmer" kits helped one a little bit to get inside the digital beasts, the processing power still meant that one could not expect major real-time control over major number of key synthesis parameters. Notorious example, alas, is the aforementioned DX7, but even something like a Roland D50 engine was not a dream to deal with even with the programmers manufactured for them.

However, the analogue and digital worlds began to converge, and with huge steps in more recent times. NB convergence does not mean that the two (may) end up absolutely indistinguishable from each other, nor that someone may have the sheer audacity to claim that. Latter would immediately assemble the either purely digital, or purely analogue (never hybrid) execution squads in many internet forums...

The age-old debate about how much, in what conditions and in what way can one hear or not the differences between real analogue synths and their digital emulations have never been more heated.

It may be obvious, but it is most often missed: the very factor that makes such debates on increasingly subtle aspects even possible is the huge strides achieved in the digital/analogue convergence. At the time of  the release of Dig It, the topic would have been hilariously absurd.

With current sampling frequencies and bit-precisions achievable in internal computations and sample representations, with current volatile and non-volatile memory amounts, and considering the sheer processing power in multi-core engines, the ability to emulate analogue circuit behavior has increased exponentially. So did our ability to control the processes - think of the user interface of a Roland System-8 or Korg Radias for example.

VA, or virtual analogue, synths have the increasing ability to handle many tweaks to many beloved knobs, altering in real time the synthesized and processed signal. We take this for granted now, but not so long ago this came at huge expense, if it was even possible. Also, the level at which characteristic irregularities in analogue circuitry can be modeled have vastly increased.

The Roland JV-1080 (and its successors) tried, for example, to imitate some crucial irregularities and instabilities with what they called the "1/f modulation". Fast forward, and now certain Roland VA gear, like the Boutique series, have detailed circuit modeling with even a control to adjust the age of the instrument - in order to simulate the components' sound-altering decay over time.

Which then lands one in the everlasting debates about how "good" they sound or whether analogue reigns supreme, full stop.

Roland Boutique series JP-08 VA synth

The answer to latter, looking at some forums, is typically a resounding quick "yes", or similarly emphatic "no". 

However, both such irrational extremes disregard a core contextual element.

"Analogue sounds best" is still very true, for...  the sphere of analogue synth sounds, especially within the confines of substractive synthesis. 

There is a very obvious reason why even decades ago creative minds embraced all other synthesis methods, too, including eminently digital gear... but even in current times some lock themselves into an exclusive, hence by definition self-limiting relationship with just one specific corner of the sonic Universe.

Latter is possible within the confines of certain sub-genres of electronic music, so exclusion of vast other sonic possibilities is not an issue. 

There is psychology at work, too, especially if one defines oneself by the used tools - instead of treating them as just tools. Musicians fall into the very same trap as e.g. photographers have been doing for ages, we really are not as different nor special as we sometimes would like to believe.

While many photographers were caught up in film vs. digital debates, the creative bunch embraced both technologies and used what was best for a certain purpose - same goes for synth artists of recent past and present.

Taking such shamelessly utilitarian approach, it boils down to something eminently simple but missed completely on a daily basis in many forums: is the tool in question the best one to use for the task?

Questions like "how can I create a realistic piano with my XY analogue gear" or "how can I do multi-operator FM synthesis via analogue means" (to quote two concrete examples) show how the use of the right tools for the job is entirely ignored in favor of a bordering-on-fetish approach. 

In the two examples, the approach itself is a by-definition failure from the start. If one thinks of e.g.  multi-operator FM synthesis's vast sonic changes introduced by minute alterations of some parameters, lack of precise and exactly reproducible control in a purely analogue approach makes the task eminently pointless.

Also, the task in question may well have not just parameters like music genre, musical or sonic style, technical range etc., but also crucial factors that define personal work flow.

If one needs instant recall and stability, then one goes for a hybrid or a fully digital tool, in order to be able to focus on reproducing the needed sounds as quickly and precisely as possible.

If one puts the sound source through (no pun intended) convoluted chains of processing, the "I can hear the difference immediately" between an analogue or digital source may no longer actually mean nor matter much- especially not in the final mix. Internet forum rhetoric is superb, until one plays games with an audience and subjects them to creatively processed sounds from plethora vastly different origins.

There is also the effort element in the workflow. It is often left out of the sizzling debates, exactly because it is highly personal and goes to the creative process of one or the other individual.

Ansel Adams's superb prints can be appreciated not just because of their visuals, but also because of the dark room efforts they involved - latter efforts can be nowadays reduced by order of magnitude in a digital dark room. Let's just think of his elaborate multi-masked dodging and burning, which required often a dozen paper cut-out masks to adjust precisely and locally the tones... However, he and many others used the best possible tools available to achieve what they set out to visualize.

Ansel Adams in his darkroom

As fundamental as it sounds, it is remarkably absent in many debates: as much as one may subjectively appreciate the mechanics of translating ideas into images or sounds, those are just the mechanics of the process - and some actually distance one from the end goal. It is admirable to suffer through a certain workflow for the sheer heroics involved, but...

Even seasoned judges in photography competitions have fallen into the trap of trying to guess, when separate categories were not defined, whether the photograph emerged from a digital or a traditional dark room. Watching them agonize over the prints was in a way entertaining. Did the origins of, and workflow leading to the image, really matter? In some cases, perhaps, but trying to reach judgement centered on content and message while mixing it with considerations on medium, process and tool-related aspects was and is symptomatic of the subjective traps.

There is marketing and financial side, too. Clearly, spending vast amounts on a certain piece of kit takes a huge degree of objectivity and honesty to allow the owner to admit that some kit at a fraction of cost is "close enough" for what the end result wants to be. It is not different from the debates about whether an Alien Skin plugin reproduction of the special je-ne-sais-quois feel of a certain film stock is good enough compared to shooting on that very film, then scanning and post-processing it...

Even digital relics have been brought into the present, with extra oomph... The Synclavier monsters' computational power nowadays can fit multiple times in an ordinary laptop,  and a Fairlight dinosaur can come to life in a cheap plugin. A legendary monster like the PPG Waveterm is nowadays wonderfully reproduced by apps like Audioterm coupled with a super-affordable Waldorf microWave or Blofeld that emulates the PPG Wave's characteristic analogue filters.

Synclavier

A Roland Boutique VA synth can reproduce "well enough" the analogue originals at a fraction of the cost.

It is a cliche by now that the compromise between "good enough" and cost & effort is an eminently personal one.

Perhaps warranty periods and obtainable state-of-the-art (and affordable) components outweigh in some studios subtle differences in sound.

However, putting to one side psychology, ego, preferences in work flow, personal finances and priorities (feeding into the subjective), the brutal technological fact is that if something nowadays has set out to be a good VA instrument, then it has unprecedented chances of coming "close enough".

In some debates on "close enough", the use of arguments centered on aliasing, converter bit precision, computational precision and complexity are rather anachronistic nowadays, unless it is a really badly made gear. The subjectivity of such arguments is betrayed by how much they are in denial of the signal processing realities lurking under the bonnet.

When it does go wrong, it may actually add character... Waldorf Blofeld's surprisingly bad metallic reverb is horrid to some ears, but perhaps in someone else's studio it adds a characteristic thing that is missing in the other superb quality digital effects... In certain patches, it actually becomes essential to the final sound and pumping it through good quality reverb loses that certain something...

So while the galaxies of personal motivations, attempts of self-definition via the used tools will continue to swirl on and on, the convergence up to a point of the two (in some minds still) antagonistic worlds is also unstoppable.

Does true analogue sound best? Yes, for true analogue sounds, if that is all one needs... and when target audience can hear the current VA vs. analogue differences... and when they self-consciously care.

Does the audible differences in analogue-wannabe digital imitations matter? Yes, if in the sonic creation we make that authenticity a priority over myriad other artistic elements. Even eminently analogue legends perform nowadays with their vintage pieces emerging live from digital and hybrid gear, while internet forums of home musicians spiral into a frenzy for months and years debating some VCO vs. DCO sonic differences.

Thorsten Quaeschning of Tangerine Dream

While Daft Punk famously replied "Daft Punk" to the question "who will hear the difference between the three different microphones" on the track Giorgio by Moroder (from the album Random Access Memories), they embraced all technology at their disposal for achieving the creative goal.

How many listeners of Tangerine Dream's expansive improvised live sets on recent Sessions I and II albums lose sleepless nights trying to identify where the Doepfer modular ends and the JD-Xa's digital engine part begins?

As simple and obvious as it may be, countless such electronic artists, who do not have cramps about self-defeating puritanism about one sort or another, have demonstrated that even having attention to detail at obsessive levels is not an obstacle in going for the main goal that matters to them: putting every available tool in the service of creativity.