The elephant in the... analogue vs. digital synth debates

There have been decades of debates (and even pontifications) about analogue synthesizers being "better" than digital ones. In the rational cases the comparisons were made within the confines of some specific context of behavioural aspects or particular sonic identity for particular sub-genres of (electronic or other) music. However, in most cases cases a central aspect was ignored or side-stepped. 

After decades of sound synthesis evolution with myriad different methods opening many different creative avenues and even creating new workflows, it is remarkable that one still has to point at the tacit, ginormous, and blindingly fluorescent elephant in the room.

Let's first quickly jolt down what is not worth digging into when one wants to introduce this elephant, because the fallacy is far more fundamental than the following technical details. So no, this will not dig into details of:

• The evolution of computational power, thus mathematical abilities, too, which rendered decades-old arguments about accuracy of signal representation, oscillator behaviours, characteristics of digital filters, and effect chains factually out of date and/or blatantly unaware of current realities. The fundamental problem of these debates is not in the area of who can hear what analogue imperfection, warmth, charming instability, smoothness etc. in true analogue gear when compared to analogue modeling synths. 
• Coupled with the above, the evolution of physical modeling (of circuits and electroacoustic phenomena) arrived at a point where one could specify in even the age of a circuit - and produce remarkable emulations of the original analogue version. Again, any measurable or perceivable differences are again unrelated to the central problem. 
• Subjective preferences in work flows and nostalgia (e.g. about the ephemerality that comes from those work flows). Again, these have nothing to do with the particular, very large, elephant in the room even when there are valid rational aspects (e.g. pros and cons of instabilities, the need or lack of need for instant recall etc.)

Now then... about that elephant... 

Well, to make its presence disturbingly obvious, let's temporarily take a seemingly bizarre step, even leap, far outside the world of sound synthesis. Let us venture a bit into the history of painting - and, within that, the history of pigments and painting techniques. 

Although the use of oil paints dates back to ancient times, the phenomenal revolution that changed everything came only in the 15th century - not only because oils replaced eggs as a binding agent, but techniques perfected by Jan van Eyck and Leonardo da Vinci for the use of these oil-based paints enabled the creation of unprecedented details, smooth transitions, subtle layering of pigments, optical effects, hence realism. Certain materials allowed artists to invent and use new techniques that have led to entirely new, extended, artistic palette (pun intended).

Leonardo's use of the sfumato technique (just think of the Mona Lisa) was enabled by this type of paint that could be applied in thin layers to produce unprecedented subtle transitions. Jan Van Eyck's somewhat creepy Arnolfini Portrait is another fabulous example of his perfected oil painting technique - so astonishing, that later on (the anyway only partially trustworthy) Vasari even attributed, wrongly, the invention of oil painting to him - and this was parroted by many for way too long... even by Google art history pages at present time...

In addition, the expansion of trade routes gave painters access to materials that had been either entirely new or just horrendously expensive until then. A red dye extracted from an exotic insect gave painters a vibrant crimson never seen before. Chemists, from the 18th century onward, created new pigments or discovered synthetic, hence affordable, versions of extremely pricey ones - let's just think of ultramarine, which in the Renaissance era could literally bankrupt a painter. 

With the invention of myriad synthetic pigments, industrial paints, and the new painting techniques that emerged with the use of these, artists created never before imagined nor seen tones and textures. To mention just one milestone: acrylic paints suddenly gave painters water-based, quick-drying, and cheap paints that had vibrant colours. Painters could achieve watercolour effects whilst exploiting how the canvas absorbed the water-based pigments - and so on and on.

Rothko is just one example of artists who used all kinds of pigments, materials, and techniques, from watercolour to acrylic dyes to oil to ink. After all, instead of ideologising and/or eulogising one type of material or technique, some embraced whatever was available - because those pigments and techniques were tools of expression. 

They did not define themselves by the tools they used, somethint that would have totally turn upside down the relationship between the artist and the instrument(s)... Does the latter sound familiar from somewhere?...

So let's imagine a painter in the 21st century stating that using primed panels and egg tempera, the type of paint that used egg yolk as binding agent (think of the Renaissance greats), is "better" than all of the countless dyes and techniques, hence ranges of new colours, optical effects, transitions etc. that got added to the world of painting from the 15th century onward.

Such painters can only avoid sounding ludicrous or nonsensical if they frame their claim within the context of a personal methodology, preference, and/or artistic aim that needs those particular pigments and techniques whilst disregarding myriad others that deliver their own unique artistic effects.

Some do justify their self-limiting choice within such well-defined context, with the choice and the results being highly respected - think of James Lynch's landscapes where he returns to the toolbox of Medieval masters because he is after specific effects. 

The point is not that Lynch adopts old pigments and techniques. The hopefully very obvious point is that some artists adopt a certain well-defined subset (!) of currently available means of artistic expression in the service of particular and specific end goals.

OK, so... back to synths then - and that elephant in the analogue vs. digital synth debates. 

If not terribly obvious by now, the central aspect that renders such these debates vacuous is what analogue sound synthesis occupies in the galaxy of sound synthesis methods. 

Most analogue synthesizers are based on so-called subtractive synthesis, Other analogue synthesis methods can add to pre-existing frequency-domain content - for example, ring modulation adds frequency components that make highly characteristic sounds. Frequency modulation, when done via analogue means, can also result in complex spectra - but this is lightyears behind complex multi-operator setups for numerous practical reasons.

For example, frequency modulation-based analogue synthesis cannot create digital multi-operator FM synthesis in the vein of John Chowning's revolutionary method, because the precise control of myriad parameters (and an inherent mathematical stability essential for the reproducibility of a certain sound) cannot be achieved via analogue oscillators and their analogue controls. Tiny instability or change in parameters can produce vastly different sounds, therefore these parameters need precise and stable means of control, not to mention the programmable evolution in real time of myriad parameters. 

Without going down the sound synthesis rabbit hole, the obvious fact is that analogue synths and all their vast, world-changing, and still highly fascinating sonic capabilities occupy a mere subset of sound synthesis methods. 

The list can go on and one. As just one extra example, any objective person with any command of sound synthesis, related physics, and signal processing knows that no analogue synthesis method can produce the timbres created by Wolfgang Palm's particular type of wavetable synthesis, nor those of granular synthesis... 

But again, the key point is not the capabilities, strengths, and limitations of certain synthesis methods and the instruments that employ them. 

The "A is better than B" debate, when it comes to analogue "vs." digital synthesizers, only holds any water whatsoever when it is framed, exactly as in the case of painting, by personal particulars. 

The problem with a nebulous "better" is the irrational generalisation of a narrow and  personal frame of context, i.e. the elevation of one specific subset of sonic capabilities above the entire range of capabilities. 

If someone is only and only after what subtractive analogue synthesis can produce in terms of sonic palette then one can eulogize and even ideologize it - as long as the confines of that sonic world are honestly acknowledged. 

If one is only using subtractive synthesis in its pure analogue form for musical genres, styles, 'moods' and sonic colours that are characterised or even defined by that synthesis method, then fine. Be rational about it and see that a subset of colours are being used from a vast palette. Even if that subset is fiercely said to be inimitable and unique (this is a whole other debate on analogue modeling accuracy), it is still a subset. 

The arguments centred on a resounding "synthesis method X is better" are as fallacious as an "egg tempera yellow is better than all other vast ranges of pigments and painting techniques" statement would be in the sphere of visual arts.

Irrational, even deplorably desperate attempts to square the circle did and do exist. Some had set out to demonstrate that everything that came after analogue (subtractive) synthesis can be created via the latter. It is deplorable not only due to the immense waste of creative and engineering efforts that could have been used for using the right tools for the right job (and focusing on the artistic goals, if any) - but also because it shows the cognitive dissonance at work. Attempts to make rudimentary and impractical (this, unusable) analogue 'replicas' of some digital synthesis methods reveal the psychology of obstinate denial of fundamental physics, acoustics, and sensory perception laws.

For example, the spectral movements caused by Palm's revolutionary wavetable synthesis (not to be confused with the generic uses of the term 'wavetable') cannot be achieved via analogue means - due to its core, defining, principle. Internet examples of euphoric analogue fetishists demonstrating the morphing from one simple waveform into another one via immense effort and purely analogue means are as commendable as they are tragicomic. 

Those attempts demonstrate not only the fundamental limitation that is hit immediately by them - but also the lack of understanding of what a PPG Wave synthesizer and all its famed successors did to create their unique sound world.

Similarly, attempts to demonstrate multiple analogue oscillators frequency modulating each other demonstrate the inherent absurdity of the task: beyond a two-oscillator setup, the tiny differences in the oscillator circuits (from instance to instance), instabilities in their parameters, and the inability of controlling precisely the notoriously vast number of often rapidly evolving parameters make the sounds impossible to control and reproduce.

If one takes physical modeling synthesis, for example the Karplus Strong algorithm of a string model, and dials in precisely controlled (even physically impossible!) parameters that cannot occur in the real world... or excites the string with complex audio waveforms instead of e.g. plucking... it is simply pointless to even discuss the analogue emulation of this. 

One could go on and on. 

In both worlds, painting and sound synthesis-employing music, analogue sound synthesis methods are a subset of methods that have produce their eminently different sonic worlds - a simple fact, even if in our post-factual society facts have been reduced to mere subjective opinions. 

Please, whoever resorts to the sweepingly general "better" rooted in a false dichotomy: add an acceptable reasoning that is rooted in your personal artistic aim - and acknowledge the boundaries of the island on which you chose to move to. 

That island has unique beauty and buried treasures to uncover over time - but there are vast, very different continents out there. Ignoring them is a personal and artistic choice, so is traveling around the world and embracing all the distinct marvels of all other islands and continents. Some choose and even need the latter for their sonic ventures, like all artists throughout history who embraced all creative means and put them in the service of their art - instead of defining themselves via a tiny subset of them.

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. 

Horses for courses... and dogmas for decorum

The British expression "horses for courses" originated from the world of horse racing, and it means that different things are best suited for... different things, as certain horses were better suited for certain types of races.

Despite a horse racing parallel, this post would take a leap into the field of sound synthesis methods (and the hype around them) - hence the reason for the expression might become apparent shortly.

So... this post was triggered by a recurring question seen on forums: why doesn't somebody make an analogue FM synth (in specific context, meaning multi-operator complex FM synths)?

Another trigger was  a "demonstration" of "wavetable synthesis" done some time ago with 2 analogue waveforms, triumphantly stating that this is proof that it can be done via analogue means.

This is the point where, in some minds, the analogue synthesis methods move from a solid technological sphere into a realm of fetishes. It is also a perfect example for the case when the astute 'horses for courses' principle is clearly being violated.

Yes, analogue synthesizers have superb capabilities and a distinct personality - unique even, in some cases.

Vast research and development efforts have been spent by companies of all sizes in attempts to perfectly imitate the "analogue sound". Their imperfections and instabilities are one of the, if not the, most crucial features that give them their unique sound. Emulating these imperfections via digital means only seems simple, but actually it is a fiendishly difficult and complex task.

Yamaha DX7

However, if one sees analogue synthesis, due to all its merits and stemming also from undoubtedly hyped discourses on quite ill-informed forums, as "the" method to apply to everything, then one commits a fundamental technical and conceptual error.

This leads to proposals like the mentioned case of making a multi-operator FM synth to "beat" the digital beasts dating all the way back to the era-defining DX7.

It can be imagined, and to an extent, even created in a lab - yes, technology certainly allows it. However, it would be eminently pointless and a supreme waste of effort, if one considers the fact that the mentioned instrument needs to leave the lab and is to be used as an... instrument.

Reasons? Well, tiny changes to the so-called FM operators' parameters can cause vast changes to the sound. What is a mere case of oscillator drifting out of tune in case of substractive analog synths, in FM case this often brings radical changes to what we hear. Reasons are buried in FM synthesis theory, but they are far from obscure reasons.

In simplest case, we can imagine these operators as oscillators with simple waveforms, but later generations of FM synths do vastly more than that. Changing their frequencies can radically alter the resulting spectrum, as one operator modulates other(s) and even has feedback - and if their frequency  drifts, the resulting spectral components shift around - hence fundamentally affect the tones we hear. Not to mention the controls to these operators, which have to have well-synchronised envelopes and precise amounts usually.

Also, in this hypothetical example, even if we assume the analogue multi-operator FM concoction is stable and perfectly controllable (it would be neither), the musician would want to recreate later the FM patch he or she arrived at. This can only be imagined with copious help from digital technology and digital to analogue converters - similar to how early analogue synths acquired patch memory.

However, even in this case (and obviously we already have digital creeping in, albeit not strictly in the sound synthesis part itself), the resulting complexity is, simply put, a mind-blowing mess.

Even in the case of digital FM synths, the constant and justified polemic is centred on the difficulty to program them, and the need for very intuitive and stable interfaces in often outboard software, so that one can cope with even thousands of parameters at play. A supreme and to this day not equalled FM monster like the Yamaha FS1R died as a product shortly after its release, and this was not due to its astonishing (!) sonic capabilities, but its user interface.

Similarly, what was once triumphantly demonstrated in a Facebook synth group as "wavetable synthesis", as an analogue concoction managed to morph the output signal from one simple waveform to another, was something that still firmly resides in a hobby lab.

PPG Wave

Also, it simply just wasn't wavetable synthesis, full stop, in the Wolfgang Palm sense (which led to the revolutionary PPG Wave and its successors, like the current Waldorf Blofeld).

It just isn't wavetable synthesis, by definition... as latter needs perfectly stable and precisely "sliced" waveform parts stored in precise manner in a table, and then precise sweeps that index in this table in perfectly controlled and even modulated manner.

Also, those waveforms are eminently digital, because the wavetables store samples of these waveforms... and then a synth based on this method is scanning those tables. By definition, one cannot have analog waveform slices kept in a static table of values... only digital samples of those waveforms...

The resulting revolutionary sounds' spectral content simply cannot be achieved by a few analogue waveforms morphing into each other. Latter experiment posted on Facebook some time ago was similar to a demonstration of a slow and careful forward parking manoeuvre in a Trabant and then stating "tada, it is perfectly capable of doing all that a Bugatti Veyron can do!".

As a person who spent half a lifetime in signal processing technologies, it is, admittedly, a deplorable sight to see such waste of time, effort, and enthusiasm channeled in completely misguided directions and utter dead ends.

Personal note aside, where above two characteristic examples spectacularly fail is the factual misconception that a certain technology is THE answer for everything in sound synthesis.

The hype and downright fetishisation of analogue synths have a big role to play in the birth of such misconceptions.

Analogue synths are absolutely fantastic in... analogue synthesis, which usually means substractive or additive synthesis whereby oscillator waveforms are taken away from (via filters) or added to (by wave shaping or modulation effects that add harmonics).

Korg Kronos MOD7 top level view

Multi-operator and hybrid FM synthesis engines (e.g. FMX by Yamaha or MOD7 by Korg), wavetable synths (like PPG Wave or Waldorf Blofeld, etc.), granular synths (Waldorf Quantum and countless plugins are capable of this among many other things), the vast array of mighty samplers and so-called romplers (list would be simply huge), plus numerous eminently digital signal bending tricks (think wave sequencing and waveshaping from Korg), constitute vast and complex worlds - often very unique worlds.

Then we have the hybrid synths... Even the aforementioned PPG Wave was actually a hybrid,  since it had famous analogue filters after the digital signal chain. These synths can create phenomenal possibilities. The Korg Prologue flagship analogue synth with a digital add-on engine even lets the user write his/her own oscillators and effect engines, with any algorithm one can think of (that fits in the multi-engine's memory). The Roland JD-Xa can layer and combine complex sounds from both digital and analogue synth engines under its bonnet.

These all add to our sound synthesis and processing capabilities entire new and vast universes of sounds, which are simply impossible to create via analogue synths.

Excluding them in some absolutist hype is a classic and misguided dogmatic approach, and we can encounter it in many forums about electronic music and sound synthesis.

However, trying to replace some horses with others that are eminently unsuitable for, and factually incapable of running, certain courses is a futile at worst, tragicomic at best, attempt.

Conceptually, apart from signal processing theory and technology, where this exercise goes wrong from the start is the failure to see appropriate horses as mere devices to get us, via appropriate courses, to the finish line. Dogmas are not left for the decorum or the viewing area to talk about over a beer, they actually make their way onto the race track...

Analogue, as splendid and as hyped it may be, is not the answer to everything that recent decades of music technology produced. As shockingly obvious it may be to many, each approach has its strengths and weaknesses - and some horses are simply not suited, not even designed, to run certain courses.

Nobody attempted, certainly nobody succeeded, to create cobalt blue, cadmium yellow or ultramarine paints from plant-based pigments just to score some dogmatic point in the art of painting. Well, maybe some have tried, especially when e.g. certain minerals ran into some trade difficulties as it happened in the case of ultramarine, but the results are not exactly surrounding us in galleries... Artists used different paints with different characteristics for different tasks, and with a good reason...

The huge problem is when hype crosses a certain boundary, and makes certain words magical. Not

Waldorf Quantum display

only can hype achieve that, but also it can then make one forget that all, absolutely all, of our electronic instruments are... instruments. Nothing more.

If we forget that, then we can ask questions like one seen recently on a forum: why doesn't a certain major manufacturer see sense and "finally" create an analogue workstation.

Why the question was phenomenal nonsense, well, one can leave that to the reader (small hint, synth workstation product category definition with a feature list)... However, the fact that such conflating of methods, instruments, and categories is even possible, it is a testament to the power of synth hype.

It is a free world, and everybody is entitled to their prejudices, misconceptions, and beliefs - but this particular area is one in which those are at the same time creatively, artistically, and technologically self-defeating...  If hard to swallow, challenge is to name one single groundbreaking creative electronic artist who artificially excludes majority of sound synthesis methods from his or her arsenal, instead of looking at a range of tools to achieve his or her creative aim.

From oxygen to outer space - Jean-Michel Jarre at 70

Photo: AFP

Jean-Michel Jarre, perhaps the most prominent post-avant-garde names of the French School of electronic music, turned 70 today.

Whilst he was already a prolific experimental and soundtrack composer before the 1976 release of his landmark album Oxygène, the latter has really projected his name onto the firmament of both popular and critically acclaimed electronic music.

Even in 2018, the album sounds futuristic, timeless and perfectly at home with state-of-the-art current space rock and ambient electronic albums - a fluid, bubbling and seamlessly flowing electronic symphony that still continues to hold many lessons for budding electronic musicians who choose to compose with intent a descriptive and emotionally involving sub-genre of electronica.

As they say, the rest is history...

Whilst Jarre has become perhaps even more known for the record-breaking gigantic concerts, where audiences were in their millions (absolute record was 3.5 million people) and the stage could often be an entire city even, his imaginative musical creations cannot be ignored.

His music was seen by some regimes as ideologically clean and "safe", the music of a technological future - hence it is not an accident, that he was the first Western musician officially invited to give live performances in post-Mao China.

While Jarre established himself as an unparalleled visionary when it came to live performances, with hugely innovative multimedia technology at work alongside his futuristic electronica, his use of innovative new musical instruments was also remarkable.

Cities in Concert - Live in Houston, TX

Fairlight, the pioneering sampler that completely changed music across countless genres, was mostly used even by luminaries like Herbie Hancock, Peter Gabriel, Art of Noise and Kate Bush as a digital instrument capable of playing back sound samples.

Then Jarre released the to this day astonishing album Zoolook, where he has taken the Fairlight to an unprecedented level, projecting us into a never before heard sonic Universe.

His use of sound processing and alteration via the new instrument sounds simply stunning even today - and all this was not done in a purely academic manner, making Zoolook actually enjoyable by the masses.

Whilst he ventured very happily into the realm of chirpy, dancey, highly trendy electronica, too, we cannot forget the fact that he also composed vast, almost cosmic requiem-sounding suites like Rendez-Vous, and ventured into "pure" electronic ambient music, too (the epic length title track on Waiting for Cousteau).

Even under the surface of sometimes very pop-sounding electronica, he often managed to hide complex musical ideas. A simple example would be Equinoxe, his second album, where the most popular track has employed time signatures that one is challenged to find in any chart-topping creation...

Even in 2018, even at 70, he is not only keeping up with the absolute latest greatest technological advances in sound synthesis, processing and music production, but he remains an influencer and a shaper of sound technology.

His latest studio double opus, the Electronica Vol. I and II., shows how he can collaborate with numerous electronic musicians who come from vastly different musical and technological backgrounds.

The tracks composed with the biggest names, ranging from Vince Clarke to Hans Zimmer to the late Edgar Froese (founder of the veritable Berlin School institution that is Tangerine Dream), show that Jarre's artistic range and sensitivity is able to integrate myriad musical ideas and sources into a coherent concept.

In ways that transcend particular subjective tastes and electronic music preferences, Jarre's trailblazing efforts in the field have left their mark on countless facets of music technology, including creative tools and approaches to the vast world of synthesizers.

His music is also testament to the fact that the most high-tech instruments are mere instruments, and the human using those instruments remains the key factor in the creative process... making the resulting music sometimes unashamedly romantic even, whilst created with (the still often misperceived as "cold") electronics.

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...

Shaping sounds... with good KARMA

One doesn't normally start a music technology-related piece with a (for all the wrong reasons) alleged and memorable expression from a former president... However, KARMA is perhaps one of the most "misunderestimated" technological innovations out there...

Some have asked recently in some synth groups whether KARMA is basically an arpeggiator of sorts. Well, that might be just one ice crystal on the tip of an impressive iceberg... and as KARMA has many modes, generated effects, and quite some depth of parameters, a number of its capabilities are exemplified below with some techie elements, too.

Korg KARMA workstation

KARMA (Kay Algorithmic Realtime Music Architecture, named after its inventor Stephen Kay) has had its debut on the Korg Karma music workstation. Latter has been used by Peter Gabriel, Rick Wakeman, Vangelis, Herbie Hancock, to name just a few...

Subsequently the technology was incorporated in flagship workstations like the Korg M3, OASYS, Kronos, but also as separate software app that can be used with e.g. the Yamaha Motif series synths, too.

Well, while it can be used as an extremely powerful and quite unprecedented generator of musical accompaniments, it has modes (or in proper KARMA terminology, generated effects or GEs) that possess some really dazzling capabilities.

True, it generates MIDI events basically - but  one must not think of MIDI events just in terms of musical notes. KARMA can actually control many aspects of the sound, hence it can actually be a powerful sound design tool, too. It is at its most powerful when integrated closely with the synth, so that coupling between the user interface (think of M3 or Kronos's panel of sliders and switches) and what it controls is tight.

Many of its GEs can create complex musical sequences whilst monitoring what one plays. The myriad parameters, which one can have real-time access to, elevate the resulting melodic and percussive lines far beyond the stereotypical and often robotic arpeggiator outputs. Real-time control of note randomisation, swing, generated pattern complexity etc. can give the resulting sequences a surprisingly human feel.

The fact that vast sets of parameters can be organised into so-called "scenes", and transitions between these can be done instantly while playing, means that user can build up different sections with helpful assistance from KARMA.

This clip shows some examples by Stephen Kay, with KARMA scenes and controls on the Korg M3. Some  subsequent clips are taken from the net, but unashamedly from one's own tracks, too, where at least one knows exactly what was done with KARMA settings and why...

The areas where KARMA really starts to cross into a whole new realm is where its GEs create realistic imitations of how some instruments are played. Hammered dulcimer can be played with stunningly realistic action, as a section of this clip illustrates on the Kronos workstation - and one has fine control over how that hammer action shapes and decorates the resulting sound.

Similarly. KARMA can imitate strumming and specific ways of playing ethnic instruments with typical phrasings - from guitars to sitar. There aren't many things as annoying as a sitar or a koto that sounds like a keyboardist played it on a keyboard with some sitar or koto samples... KARMA's assistance in performing realistic triggering of notes and phrases of even fiendishly difficult instruments can be quite surprising.

However, one is very free to apply such KARMA modes or GEs to eminently different things - try run a "gong roll" effect on the decay parts of a piano sound for instance, stand back and admire what happens - a pulsating ambient texture unfolds.

The harmonic "modes" or GEs are hard to describe until one hears the effects. Not only they create chord structures, but also they can subtly alter and move notes, creating shifting textures. The exemplified section of this track was created with a  modified Korg M3 combi, which uses subtle KARMA movements that slowly shift and decorate the ambient music-like textures.

Often the MIDI events are so rapid and subtle, that they do not actually fully trigger notes - but their effect on patches can be quite interesting. Some of the so-called "pad holder" GEs used with, one can guess, pad-type sounds can really move and blend things, creating interesting sonic textures.

One can unleash KARMA effects on patches that benefit from gated GEs and such, the MIDI control events ending up moving and shifting the sounds in ways that can give countless ideas in sound design, too.

Korg M3 workstation

This clip shows two Korg M3 modules connected together, and a lot of inventive custom programming allowing the improvisation to benefit from touchscreen controls changing parameters, while KARMA is creating the ambient sonic textures.

One, perhaps not every day used, ability of KARMA surfaces when one has the audacity to use a certain mode or GE for something entirely different compared to what it was actually meant to be used for.



Why not use something intended for a piano chord frenzy on a rich choral patch to create some interesting motions and atmospherics? The first section of this track inspired by Cordoba Cathedral is an example of this.

Or why not use gated GE to move some sounds around? Opening part of this track and the main motif uses this to add a lot of animation, as certain patches can react quite pleasingly to the KARMA controls (instead of merely hearing e.g. a panning effect).

KARMA ticking along with different scene settings while one builds up a largely improvised track can result in immediately usable results, for example a track dedicated to the Hubble space telescope has had the percussion and bouncing background patterns entirely created with KARMA scenes, which were set up before the improvisation session started. Clean up the result, add some ambiental intro and outro... and there it is.

Speaking of improvisations, the middle section of this semi-ambiental and new age-ish track was set up with two KARMA modules ticking along and playing calm inter-twined motifs on sitar patches... while improvisation could be layered on top.

Wave sequencing is also an area where the technology can create real time controllable sonic magic, if the synthesizer controlled by KARMA can do wavesequences - as exemplified in this clip . Latter  shows the KARMA software that can be used on a computer, while it controls the connected synth, if latter has no built-in KARMA.

Can KARMA be used to bridge musical traditions several centuries apart? Well, yes, two of its modules with real-time controls provided backdrop and the electronic swells for a track that used a theme by John Dowland (Flow My Tears, 1600) and projected it into the sci-fi atmospherics of a Philip K. Dick-inspired album project.

The eternal discussion can ensure of course: what percentage of human input is at work, and how much is done by the algorithms...

Well, perhaps one is biased after years of interesting idea-triggering KARMA experiments, but the fact is that what makes the technology perhaps so non-obvious is actually its greatest strength: it has myriad, truly myriad, parameters one can set up and control also in real time.

So the human input cannot be ignored in setting up the desired KARMA scenes and the parameters of each. Even custom GEs can be created at will... As any tool, this, too it can be used for mechanical results or something human and creative. The difference is in the user, not the tool...

True, once it is set in motion, it runs along the human player, monitoring what is being played on the keyboard or in the incoming MIDI information set to trigger it. So one can forgive some beliefs that it is "just" a complex accompaniment generator.

However, the delimitation line between the human user and the tech at his fingertips is a very blurry one. Even mere step sequencers and arpeggiators in the right hands (think of Tangerine Dream's or Klaus Schulze's trailblazing and mind bending sequencer jams) can be astonishing creative and performance tools.

KARMA is light years beyond step sequencers and arpeggiators... so with all the philosophical doubts and debates one might have, we cannot consider it a robotic add-on in the creative or performance processes in studio or elsewhere.

Like everything else, it can be used for utter robotics, sure... but one can only blame one's own affinities and imagination if rigid patterns are the only things coaxed out of this technology...

Korg Kronos workstation with latest incarnation of KARMA technology

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.