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of signal representation, oscillator behaviours, characteristics of digital filters, and effect chains factually out of date and/or blatantly unaware of current realities.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.

Sequenced Alternate Universes: Christopher Franke at 65

Chris Franke, a pivotal former member of the electronic music legend Tangerine Dream, is one of the rare and still active persons who can be inextricably linked with the characteristic sound of the Berlin School of electronic music. On 6 April, he celebrated his 65th birthday.

The originally jazz drummer Franke has become a superlative pioneer in the use of sequencers, which were used by many to produce repetitive sequences of melodic notes or percussion.

The live use of sequencers, notoriously unstable in the analogue era and in need of sometimes heroic on-the-fly re-tuning, was pioneered by him and the other legend of German electronic music, Klaus Schulze.

While Schulze has used it in his solo performances that even now, on archive or bootleg tapes are spellbinding and mind-bending, Franke used them in live jams in a band that demolished any pre-conception on electronic music having been something robotic and pre-determined.

Chris Franke's contribution to Tangerine Dream's and electronic music history's seminal album Phaedra cannot be overstated. Speaking of heroics, one can hear, forever immortalised in the studio recording, Franke's on-the-fly re-tuning of the sequencers as they drift out of tune.

But then there is Ricochet, Tangerine Dream's first live album. Listening to it in 2018, it is still mesmerizing in its use of humanly impossible to perform multi-layered sequences.

Franke has not only expanded electronic music light-years beyond what was humanly playable, but his seminal contribution was that a musician was literally jamming, as in a jazz group or a fiery progressive rock outfit, with the rest of the band, whilst using the dreaded analogue sequencers.

The resulting sound has become a defining one, and even many decades later, known as the  quintessential Tangerine Dream sound.

Even the characteristic "ratcheting" of the sequencer patterns are making their way into the most state-of-the-art synthesizers manufactured now - just think of Arturia's Matrixbrute, demonstrating Tangerine Dream-esque "ratcheting" in its product demo clips.

But this is not about technology.

Yes, he has performed his mind-bending sonic imaginings on often custom-made gear that was way ahead of its time, but the essence of what was happening in his performances was eminently that of a musical mind. Yes, when he did his sequencer magic, it was almost unimaginable to most fans of electronic music that the so far rigidly and repetitively used sequencers can be played as any other instrument.

Chris Franke, as very few others, have demonstrated that superlative use of technology with a through-and-through musician thinking can propel music to levels and spheres never before even imaginable. Any Berlin School electronic music fan will have involuntary pulse rate changes when one mentions seminal live albums like Poland, which even decades later is an essential lesson to wannabe or even self-proclaimed sequencer masters.

His split with Tangerine Dream in the late '80s, and his setting up of a California-based solo career was a musically and technologically interesting move.

One could never expect the superlative master of sequencers to release a, what one might call "new age", introspective and impressionistic album - but that is exactly what his first solo album, the simply beautiful Pacific Coast Highway, is.

Franke has also produced soundtracks with remote over-the-satellite-link recorded symphonic orchestra and state-of-the-art electronics, like Universal Soldier or the hugely successful Babylon 5 TV series.

Whilst he has ventured into architectural photography, too, showing the same connection between a musical and visually creative mind as Vangelis has done, one has to recall with nostalgy the simply superhuman tour de force he has performed during his decades with Tangerine Dream.

However, if one wishes to revisit the sequencing mastery of Chris Franke in a more up-to-date robe, then his London Concert is a good reference point.

One hopes it is in no way offensive to any hardened Tangerine Dream fan or any of the current members, after the hugely regretful passing of Edgar Froese... but Chris Franke, or as he will be forever known, CF, has had a lasting and forever defining impact on what we know as the "Tangerine Dream sound"... and with that, one is actually labeling a whole and hugely significant Universe within the multitudes of electronic music of past, present, and future.

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"...

Retro progress

Korg ARP Odyssey FS (2017)

The new year began with some retro legends like the ARP Odyssey full-size version hitting the market, as a result of Korg's continued dedication to analogue revival.

However, the somewhat philosophical aspects of this growing retro revival are something notable... and undoubtedly controversial.

The surge in the use of analogue modeling instruments, and then true analogue (new, old or remakes of old) instruments and sonorities has been with us for some time. Even dominant mainstream electronic music trends, also some of the biggest names in some of the very "here and now" electronic music sub-genres (think of Daft Punk), have returned very self-consciously to the analogue sound world.

However, two aspects are of concern - one is related to the instruments themselves with their marketing strategies, and the other related to the new-old and old-new sound aesthetics in the creative thinking.

To begin with the creative aspects, a highly controversial question could be posed very easily while looking at recent decades of synthesizer use. What percentage of musicians create individual, hence new, sounds with the instruments that are, above all, for the synthesis of unlimited palettes of new sounds? How many spend time to sound original, instead of using vast number of presets from vast number of libraries that the vast number of incredibly powerful new instruments offer?

The number is infinitesimal.

One cannot help thinking (not just feeling) that, based on contradictions between what technological progress brought and how much originality is heard whilst using that technology, there is a regressive trend of some proportions.

There are some notable and successful attempts in sounding (or, in case of some of the synth music legends, still sounding) original and exploring ever more stunning new sonic worlds. As in the case of even legendary old-timers like Gary Numan, it means many months of painstaking attention given to the creation of a personal artistic and sonic world that serves the concepts behind their works.

The opposite and considerably more superficial trend is what happens in fashion, too. It may seem like a trivialized parallel, but it could not be more accurate analogy: classic denim trousers of certain tailoring are revived with some twists by a certain brand - and posters say: 'be individual'. With a, one may add, mass-produced piece of clothing that millions wear after the first days or weeks of novelty are over.

Cue the legendary synths of yesteryear, always at some price tag and always with some marketing to make the old legends seem and sound even more individual and personalized.

The superficial and increasingly omnipresent approach to individuality is a musician resorting to the limited edition old-new, new-old, sounds and instrumentation. Oh look, a rare lead line from a Model D revamped version! Ah those filters from the Odyssey! That chorus from the Polysix!

What is happening, and this is factual reality in current electronic music, is the non-functional 'vintage for the sake of vintage' artistic (?) approach. Kudos to those, who integrate the vintage legends into their already individual sonic universe. Again, easiest example is Daft Punk, but going back through the years, even veterans like Jean-Michel Jarre can still use the old in novel ways to this day.

The problem is when the instrument, electronic as it may be, is not an instrument any more. When it is not 'just', with all its specifics and personality, a source of sounds to realize a sound world as imagined by the musician.

When it becomes a goal, instead of being an instrument, then we have the large parts of the analogue revival on our hands... where analog legendary sounds are used without any overall artistic concept, just for their 'refreshing vintage individuality'.

The most bitter irony is when some talk of the analogue warmth these legendary instruments bring and then they use them in the coldest, impersonal and superficial manner.

One does not spend weeks or months shaping his/her sound world, in order to be individual - one resorts to the most recent revived legend and saturates his/her compositions with the vintage sounds (or their emulations). Tada. A new revolution in sound... purely by returning to the past - exactly as one pulls the vintage tailored denim off a shelf.

The marketing of these instruments unfortunately plays very much into this phenomenon, exactly as it did with the mentioned classic pieces of clothing.

The instruments themselves, especially when it comes to the revived legends like the Odyssey and MiniMoog Model D, show a predictable and questionable duality that support the more impersonal and less creative impulses in amateur and established musicians alike - kudos to the increasingly few exceptions.

While they are undoubtedly unique in terms of their characteristic sound, they are highly specialized (and therefore often limited) in their capabilities - as legendary and revolutionary they may have been in their heyday. Their production costs are infinitesimal compared to the originals.

However, their price tag can be hugely out of sync with their physical realities. One, naturally, pays for the name, pays for the legend - and to make the contradictions in the performance-price-manufacturing costs triangle less strident, the manufacturers resort to the emotional side of even hardened electronic musicians.

It is made as very limited edition. It is made by hand. It is, to quote, "aged" before it gets to our studios. It is released in different colors and sizes. Above all, we buy a legend. It is, as one of Ray Bradbury's classic stories says, the haunting of the new.

While manufacturers, even hugely respectable ones with long tradition of sustained innovation, are after the money by releasing different sizes and color versions of the same revived electronic legend, something is deeply wrong. Their interior essence has become less important than their exterior superficial properties.

The electronic and other musicians who use these resurrected oldies for something new, and fuse the newest with sometimes the oldest (think of Theremin revival), are in a tiny minority.

We are chasing something warmer and more human, while we feel drowned in a vastly complex digital world - this is quite acceptable and even predictable, but most of this drowning is our own making as we let the instruments take over rather than be instruments in our creative processes. In many technology areas the same trends and counter-trends occurred and are occurring, as a reaction to some perceived dehumanization.

It is just vastly and deeply ironic, that in some (often mainstream) cases the false perception of some dehumanization results in a mechanical and rather reflex-action reaching for the ultimate in perceived 'warmth' and 'humanity'.

The bad news is, as too many electronic music creations of recent years show, that the result of this mechanical chase for vintage warmth is the very opposite of what the chase was about.

We ended up with countless albums of mass-produced, soul-less and cold electronica that wants to be so desperately individual, like the mentioned denim, that ends up being indistinguishably bland - while reduces, deplorably, the vintage sonic legends, too to mere gimmicks.

As it happened in other areas and in other eras, hopefully this chase for the superficial humanity and warmth again suffers some normalization. Such overcompensation, aided by misguided marketing, has happened countless times - and hopefully this time, too, the revived or genuine vintage legends can occupy a more functional and personalized corner in our studios, in physical and metaphorical sense.

(Post also available on the Niume platform now).

Deep Mind to the 12th power

Screengrab from Behringer teaser video No. 5

A slight detour into gearheads' territory, as such news don't come around very often.

In 2014, originally based on an interview in Amazona.de, rumours started about Behringer working on an analogue synth.

In 2015, there have been wonderings and wanderings on forums, whether the plans are still "on" or it's all been forgotten.

Well, mid-2016 it is all reality. Cue the to-be-released DeepMind12 analogue splendour...

Whopping 12 voices in an analogue synth, which seems also aided, even augmented according to first impressions (see 5th teaser video below), by digital effects.

So after many years of mixing desks and other audio gizmos of quite respectable caliber, now a whopping synth beast is in the making in their product portfolio.

It appears to have arpeggiator and undoubtedly some more digital control 'oomph', too - if they bolted onto it such a display and digital effects module... Step sequencing please? Pretty please? :)

It will be presented in October it seems, and judging from the videos, it is claimed to have a very "organic" feel when played.

So apart from gearhead enthusiasm, it is yet another "retro" synth beast and it will be interesting to see price point and features compared to e.g. Korg current offering.

The 5 teaser videos so far released by Behringer are below:

1.

2.

3.

4. 

5.