Time travel occasionally takes less of a challenge than those described in ample volumes of sci-fi literature and theoretical physics...
Based on a number of samples of Medieval instruments encountered over the years, 24 free programs for Korg Kronos workstation have been created, in a program bank called Early Muse.
The sounds are those of wind, string and percussion instruments used in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period - and whilst some are rare, others are still in use today.
The embedded video runs through the 24 programs, which mostly use just room reverb for a natural sound - except some that show what happens when the Kronos effects engine is thrown at the ancient instrument sounds and projects them into the future...
The information on YouTube also contains the Dropbox link to download the sample and program files that are understood by Korg Kronos. It should work on all Kronos versions, and the list of programs is below.
Programs with SW1 control will shorten the release, like a damping effect - if damper pedal available, can map the control accordingly.
Hackbrett SW1
Lion Harp SW1
Cimbalon
Psalter SW1
Psalter2 SW1
Kanun SW1
Kanun2 SW1 - the double instrument
Nyckelharpa
Nyckelharpa Symp (just the sympathetic strings)
Lute
Strings Trio SW1
Dudy
Gralla
Kortholt
Garklein
Wind Trio
Riq C4-B4 - this and below tuned in D, note ranges listed for the different hits
Bendir E4-B4
Tar E4-B4
Syrien E4-B4
Nyckelharpa Layers - strings and sympathetic strings together with long release
Nyckelharpa Space - using a vast O-Verb effect
Garklein Mystery JSY+ - delay and chorus for an outer space feel, JSY+ changes chorus amount
Gralla Mystery JSY+
The demo has a few accidental notes, as one loses the will to live making the video going through all of the programs :)...
Enjoy the time travel, what better tool for it than Kronos, the God of Time ...
A very useful tutorial on loading, if needed, individual programs can be seen here:
As very recently "leaked", Yamaha is releasing a new digital synth at a surprisingly attractive price point. The MODX is essentially a cut-down cheaper version of the Montage two-engine synth from a few years ago.
It is, once again, an FM + AWM2 synth that, as a powerful combination, we could get used to since the late 1980s when SY-77 demonstrated the capabilities of the combo.
Yamaha did not call the Montage a workstation, as it really wasn't one - but its trimmed version MODX is now being called a workstation. Well, Yamaha called even the Genos, an arranger on steroids, a workstation... Since Ensoniq and Korg long ago have established the very definition of what a synth workstation is, we can abandon any and all hope of Yamaha respecting fundamental instrument categories.
While this may be an intentional overstating to mask the glaring stagnation (in terms of lack of actual synth innovation), it is all the more audacious when we look at the leaked specs of the MODX.
What is very telling again is what Yamaha has not done in the MODX.
The FM engine is still a repeat of the usual 8-operator affair - which is an FS1R cut in half. Actually, much less than half.
FS1R, the supreme FM monster from almost two decades ago, had 16 operators - but they were also of voiced and unvoiced types. Add formant filters and the ability to sequence formant movements, to create absolutely unique sounds.
Just to be superbly annoying, it was rapidly discontinued by Yamaha - a great role in this was played by Yamaha's shocking inability to see the potential everybody raved about. Thus they never even provided software tools that could enable the user and allow one to capitalise on the unparalleled and truly novel capabilities inside the box - only a freeware (hobbyist-created) app exists. The customised SoundDiver could not access the formant sequencing capabilities at all, but at least presented the thousands of parameters in some usable form.
Then there was also the EX5/EX7 - with their multi-engine combination, which even today can blow a sound designer's socks off. All the more remarkable, as we have had since then the OASYS and Kronos from Korg, as multi-engine synths.
In 2018, MODX, with all the hype and "leaking" of an "exciting" new FM synth, it begs a few questions.
What is Yamaha doing three years after Montage, and almost two decades after FS1R, in their R&D labs? Especially as MODX is not only a repeat of an earlier synth engine combo, but it still represents a vast step back from what their earlier synths could do.
With touch screen and outboard software that is possible nowadays, considering the many years that have gone past since the arrival of this dual synth engine, is there any interest whatsoever in Yamaha to give not just performers but synthesists / sound designers abilities that, no pun intended, sound like they are dated 2018? At least 2001 please?
Yes, sample storage has been increased and we can bet that Yamaha sound designers have created (on top of what Montage has) lots of superb presets. We can bet the quality of the AWM2 section is top notch.
However, while all too busy with blurring of very well-defined and long-established lines between product categories, the absolute lack of innovative thinking is depressing (if we discount the so-called superknob from Montage, present also on MODX - but that is merely an element of the user interface).
From business perspective, it is understandable, if one can release the same thing over and over again, and it sells. MODX will sell extremely well probably, as it is very attractively priced for what is under the bonnet.
Yes, it seems to be a powerful FM+AWM2 combo, but we can't even say it is state of the art. It is not even a repeat of 2001, with AWM2 added to it.
Frankly, it is hard to imagine what an FM engine from the FS1R could do when combined with the sample-based engine nowadays, considering what it was capable of on its own. Imagine that with touch screen and a proper software to leverage the formant sequencing.
We are stuck in a Yamaha groundhog day - not only MODX repeats essentially a dual synth engine for the Nth time, but it also repeats just one metaphoric day of the timeline - i.e. we cannot even go back further in time, in order to resurrect much more potent Yamaha engines of the past.
When Vangelis in the 1970s' European musical landscape has started to release electronic music albums that were not sounding at all as many have expected electronic music to sound like, there was no other synthesizer artist who achieved that level of fusion between vastly different ancient musical traditions and electronics.
At that time, he was a composer of synthesizer music of a rather special kind, with emotive and evocative imaginings that were blending anything and everything from elements characteristic of African tribal music (La Fete Sauvage) to Celtic ballads (see Irlande on Opera Sauvage) to Far-Eastern music (see the LP China) to "pure" ambient sonic paintings well before Brian Eno was heralded as the creator of ambient music (see Creation Du Monde on Apocalypse Des Animaux).
While Vangelis was the most notable exception to what dominated the European electronic music scene of the time (Berlin School, French School, Synth Britannia, etc.), something happened on the other side of the Atlantic, too a decade later.
It demonstrated that even when it was not emerging from close-by ancient European and Eastern musical roots, electronic music of similar DNA could be born in the most unexpected ways. It did not emerge from the academic environments of major cities like New York, nor from some intellectual West Coast movement's creative laboratory. Minimalism in the 1980's was a success already, often relying on electronics, too, Detroit techno was making strides, space ambient was very much active (Michael Stearns's seminal works, for example), Wendy Carlos long before rocked the world with classical reworkings... then something very different turned up...
Richard Burmer was born in 1955 in the town of Owosso, Michigan. He studied music composition in college - but established himself as a thoroughly imaginative sound designer for none other that the legendary E-mu Systems. The mere mentioning of the name Emulator is perhaps highly sufficient to summarize what era-defining instruments he created sound banks for.
However, in the 1980's he did not stop at the level of technical creativity - his first album Mosaic, beyond its electronic prowess, had tracks that already heralded what was about to come.
Delicate and atmospheric compositions like Under Shaded Wateror the superbly sensitive electronic reworking of the Medieval music piece Lamento di Tristano already in 1984 told us that Richard Burmer is not embarking on an ordinary electronic music voyage.
His side-stepping of existing US-based electronic music of the time was actually achieved via superlative artistic sensitivity and a seemingly effortless blending of music from distant European centuries (Medieval and Renaissance era) and state-of-the-art electronics.
One could very much dare say that in the same way that Vangelis for a long time represented a unique voice in the electronic music landscape, Richard Burmer created a unique sound in the American synthesizer music vista.
His approach was and still remains rare: synthesizers were not seen as merely trailblazing sound generators, nor as instruments that would end up defining what music one was "supposed to" create with them... Hence we cannot find any forays into trendy electronica in Burmer's discography...
Richard Burmer viewed synthesizers as instruments that can connect and blend musical traditions from vastly different historical periods and geographical areas.
His album On The Third Extremeis a spellbinding work for those who like Eastern and Far-Eastern music flavors, Renaissance (specifically) and Early Music in general, all seamlessly combined in evocative and passionate soundscapes.
The track The Forgotten Season could be at home in any Early Music show that airs songs from the troubadours of the early Renaissance period. Celebration In The Four Towers brings us moods and sonic visions that would find themselves at home in a grandiose scene of some Medieval-themed historic or fantasy movie. Magellan brings us Eastern influences and driving ethnic percussions, fused with that emotive sound world that Burmer could produce with such immediate impact.
Turning To You is an example where ambiental, later labelled as "new age", soundscapes can be abstract, atmospheric and emotionally evocative at the same time.
We have a technically extremely competent engineer-composer-performer, who did not get lost in the enticing possibilities of the instruments, and did not end up putting the instrument in front of the artistic intent.
Instead, Richard Burmer had started from musical worlds that had central aesthetics that were diametrically opposite to the, then still novel and path-finding, electronic music - and leveraged the possibilities of the new instruments to make boundless and poignant musical journeys across unexpected expanses of space and time.
If his electronic music made us dance, it did that in the style of ancient music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. If his music made us dream, it did that with nostalgic, often uniquely elegiac, evocations of idyllic landscapes - hence compilations like Shining By The River are very aptly titled.
Richard Burmer passed away in 2006, aged only 50 - a memorial page was established on his official website, and the 12th anniversary of his passing is on 9 September.
Hot summer months can make us think of the Electronica festivals springing up all over the Northern hemisphere - but they can remind us of his wonderful sonic journeys, too, which often evoke idyllic summer vistas.
