What did people use to make electronic music with in 1990?

Started by Louigi Verona, April 13, 2009, 09:03:12

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Louigi Verona

Today we have lots of software, sophisticated apps, complex sound modules, VST technology and serious sound processing algorithms. User-friendly interfaces allow us to easily make a tune, all synchronized, routed properly and very visually.

Back in the days there was no such stuff. There was, however, dedicated hardware. And by dedicated I mean that it wasn't the cheap mass production crap we get today - the quality level of modern synthesizers is noticeably lower thanks to their orientation on non-professionals and large sales - but the sturdy half-room machines like some Roland synths, which would be samplers, sequencers, keyboards - all in one.

I've heard about these, I've seen them on stage, but I've never actually tried one and I am not sure whether all of the above functionality actually exists or maybe it's fiction and everyone actually used Cakewalk 0.001 with cool sound cards.

Yet I've tried Cakewalk and it was complete crap to be doing dance music on. Even latest versions.

So... what do you guys think? Maybe a couple of experienced chaps like Sam and Chris know something? Because basically I want to know what was the whole rave culture based upon. Certainly not on Cubase or Fruity Loops - those appeared much later. Then what?

Rakib

^^

Louigi Verona

Yeah, but I am not searching for a cliche answer, man. I know what samplers and synthesizers are. Also, it doesn't add up if you research it a bit.

You see, Scooter, for instance, worked on their first album in 1994. Various raves and house music appeared even earlier, in 1990-1992. The samplers pictured on photos in that article didn't yet exist. but they managed to sequence full albums.

I've checked a list of Roland synthesizers up to 1994. Few of them are as sophisticated as first versions of sequencers we are using today. As for samplers, the only one that existed and was serious were AKAI products: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akai#Akai_Professional
However, it is not clear (at least to me) what they could actually do.

If they all had been using synths and basic samplers, question is... how? How did they do it? How did the composing look back then? Record 8 tracks, then do other 8 tracks and synchronize them with already existing material? Because most synths and so called musical stations usually had 8 track sequencers built into them.

Today when we sequence a track we edit every bit and detail of a sound and only now we manage to get the same sound as those guys did back then without all this software. How?

Rakib

I know prodiy used Roland Workstation 30 before they were signed to a label.

Another example of how people worked.
QuoteIn 1989, Orbital recorded a track called "Chime" on their father's cassette deck.
^^

psishock

Check out Tangerine Dreams or Jean Michelle Jear, they were "commercially active" in electronic synthesized music much-much earlier than Scooter example. They constructed even some custom hardware to make their jobs easier and to be able to produce the wanted sounds, but they were surrounded most of the time with a lot of analog hardware stuff while producing. The first modular synths (like the famous Moog) were invented around 1964 or so, if i'm not mistaken, and they were developing the idea deeper and deeper quite fast after that. Around 1990, we already had some pretty "advanced" analog (even digital) hardware stuff to produce kinda easily.
(Scooters first albums and the "pop/rave etc" musics around that year were not really well synchronized, you could mostly pinpoint the timing errors on their separate tracks by listening. I assume that they didn't used real BPM sync, but that is ok, they did a great job anyway.) ;)
I'm as calm as a synth without a player.  (Sam_Zen)

Saga Musix

Interesting fact: At least one of Jarre's albums was done by glueing pieces of cassette tape together.
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Sam_Zen

Well, this is just too complicated to answer, because a lot of things were going on then.
I also did some glueing pieces of reel tape together to make some sequence.
My own EMS, and also Moog, ARP, and Buchla came up with analog modular sytems.
But my AKS already had a 256-step digital sequencer, which was a hybrid design of logic circuits and DA-converters.
More of these things came along. The first digital delays showed up. In fact meaning the first samplers of a few msecs of sound in a memory.
0.618033988

uncloned


Louigi Verona

QuoteScooters first albums and the "pop/rave etc" musics around that year were not really well synchronized, you could mostly pinpoint the timing errors on their separate tracks by listening.

Really? Wow, can you post examples? I am very-very interested to hear.

Louigi Verona

Quote from: "uncloned"

I can dig up examples of using the others is wanted.

Yeah, of Casio synths.

Louigi Verona

So from what I understand, doing music back then was pretty much the same kind of sweet pain as it was with my Simplicity album which I made outside the sequencer using just a sound editor and separate VST. You play parts and you then glue them together and you get excited when everything sounds almost 100% in time.

This sounds exciting.

rncekel

There is (at least) an Eno album which sounds pretty electronic, although the instruments are just a string quartet playing Pachebel's canon; the electronification is made with just some tapes, altering the velocity (real velocity, not volume) as a function of the pitch.
Eno used a lot of tricks with tapes in the 80's and even 70's. I hear a show in Madrid by Fripp and Eno. The electronics were made with a synthesizer, but mostly with tapes that recorded every sound from the guitar and repeat it as loops.

LPChip

Its even possible to use some hardware that actually has step sequencers/patterns in them, to make songs.

For instance, take Rebirth. You might think of Propellorheads Rebirth, but its actually a software remake of the hardware equillevant (did I wrote that correctly?).
"Heh, maybe I should've joined the compo only because it would've meant I wouldn't have had to worry about a damn EQ or compressor for a change. " - Atlantis
"yes.. I think in this case it was wishful thinking: MPT is makng my life hard so it must be wrong" - Rewbs

uncloned

Quote from: "Louigi Verona"
Quote from: "uncloned"

I can dig up examples of using the others is wanted.

Yeah, of Casio synths.

I used these synths through till 97 for the MT-68 and 2002 for the CZ-101

All Casio CZ-101 (love this synth!) This piece is from 85 actually.

http://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=2437.0

And the drums and keyboard is the Casio MT-68 here and it is from 84 or 85

http://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=2679.0

now of course you limited yourself to the 90's... I was making electronic back into 79 or 80. I recently found a tape with "circuit bent" guitar pedals as the only sound source and effect source.  - no key board and no guitar. I just plugged the pedals into themselves.

uncloned

Quote from: "rncekel"There is (at least) an Eno album which sounds pretty electronic, although the instruments are just a string quartet playing Pachebel's canon; the electronification is made with just some tapes, altering the velocity (real velocity, not volume) as a function of the pitch.
Eno used a lot of tricks with tapes in the 80's and even 70's. I hear a show in Madrid by Fripp and Eno. The electronics were made with a synthesizer, but mostly with tapes that recorded every sound from the guitar and repeat it as loops.

Edgar Varese predates Eno I think. He used tape techniques for this - premiered in 1958 at the Brussels World Fair and used some 400 speakers. Though I'm pretty sure the Musique Concrete genre predates this.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1AT8rI_A8M

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po%C3%A8me_%C3%A9lectronique

http://discorgy.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/varese-xenakis-le-corbusier-poeme-electronique-1958/