One man and his synths...
I have played and experimented with sound for some 27 years now, and in the early days my personal compositions were often influenced by a World Gazetteteer at the back of some old encyclopedias I had. The pictures in the book inspired me to write many long, and I might say now, rather self indulgent pieces of electronica. I needed a name for my self penned compositions so again I turned to the gazetteteer. I came up with "Takla Makan". According to the book, Takla Makan is a vast area, over 100,000 square miles, of upland China. It is one of the largest sandy deserts in the world. So nothing to do with music or electronics then, but it seemed to capture my imagination at that time....
During my late teens and early twenties I played in various bands, some of them less sucessful than others. It gave me a taste of many different popular musical styles from The Rolling Stones to Erasure. However, my prime goal was to make music on my own. Here, I would not be constrained by other people's ideas and egos. I could do my own thing. Occasionally, I would ask a guitarist friend to lay down a few bars, but in the main these were my 'songs' and that was that.
Recording
I started off using two tape decks to produce sound-on-sound recordings. This was fun, and kept me happy for many years, until I got my first four track. My equipment was simple at that time. I had a Roland RS-09 keyboard, a RMK-100 drum machine, a heavily modified Moog Rogue, and various other noise making electronics that I built myself.
Then in 1989, I met Mike Harding. He is an allround songwriter, comedian, rambler and playwright. He had just built a studio in the Yorkshire Dales, and I was given a tour. I decided there and then I would upgrade all my equipment. The very next week I got a Roland D50 and Atari MegaST. This was quickly followed by a TR-505 and D-110. The four track was abandoned, the Rogue and RS-09 were sold. Cubase version 1 was installed and the midi age had finally arrived. From then on, all of my recordings were made using the Atari. Over time I upgraded the Atari to 4Mbytes, gave it multiple midi output ports and started using Cubase 3.1. Any audio tracks would be replayed from an Akai S-01 sampler controlled via midi.
Over the years my musical equipment list grew longer. I now regretted selling my Rogue, and I did miss that analogue sound. So I dug out my old homemade analogue polysynth which had overheated during a long recording session in 1989. I cleaned and repaired it, and turned it into a smaller four voiced poly and two very powerful monosynths. This was my original Orbital project.
In 1996 I finally plucked up enough courage to go public with a collection of compositions that I produced over my first few years living in Cumbria. This was the Drumlin CD.
GAS [Gear Acquisition Syndrome]
Building up my business and having two very young children took up a lot of my spare time and my musical output pretty much stopped in 1997. However, in 2001 I was asked by CEM Recordings to do a 12 minute long ambient track for a compilation CD. It took a long while to get back in the swing of things, but less than a year later not only had I done that piece, but also a whole new collection of tracks. This was the ArcSin project.
During 2001 and 2003, my little studio had many changes. I chopped and changed my equipment regularly, and had for a time a Korg Polysix, Oberheim OB-Xa, Oberheim Two Voice TVS-1, Roland JV-880 and an Akai DPS-12, as well as my own Orbital, Oakley modular, TB3030 and 3031 synthesisers.
Cutting back
Then in early 2003, after much soul searching, I sold most of my gear. In the end I found I could actually make music easier, quicker and with more quality without having lots of electronics around me. I settled then with a very small but entirely useful set up. This consisted of a 4MB Atari STe running Cubase, the D50 keyboard, an E-Mu E6400 sampler, a Korg 03r/w, a TX-7 and the Oakley Modular. Again all of Rachel's vocal work and any modular pieces would be recorded onto the sampler for playback via midi.
In the summer of 2003 I felt I needed to upgrade the Atari's version of Cubase for Cubase VST on the PC. I wanted an easier way to incorporate audio directly into my music without using samplers. This however proved to be a complete nightmare. Hardware problems coupled with my inability to deal with the complexity of the VST interface made me eventually go back to Cubase 3.1 on the Atari. I found the early Cubase VST stiffled creativity not helped it. Thus the 1632 CD-r was sequenced entirely on a 4MB STe with all the audio recorded onto the E6400 sampler as before.
All change
In my job I often have the wonderful chance to visit many other people's studios. This is great inspiration, but it also shows up any weaknesses in one's own music and work areas. I had watched other people manipulate audio as easily as midi note data, and I had seen them recall whole songs with all the effects and patches required for that track instantly. I have never been able to remix any old tracks because of the sheer amount of unscripted work in setting up a mix. Fully automated mixes were never in my domain. But they could be if I moved away from the way I was working and did something really different.
So I did. I sold off ALL my hardware with the exception of the Oakley Modular and the D50. I bought a new PC and fitted it with Reason [a powerful software studio] and Tracktion [an audio recording system]. I also bought myself a Sequentix P3 which is a highly powerful analogue style sequencer.
The result of this new union was the CD Farewell to Mount Fuji. Completed in March 2005, its five tracks cover the move from Atari to PC. The title of the album is a reference to the Atari trademark symbol of a stylised Mount Fuji.
The voice of Reason
Using Reason 2.5 was a wonderful new experience. It was very easy to make new tunes fast. With total recall of all the various parameters in the whole production it was possible to move from one musical idea to another simply and reliably
However, Reason's own synths, although quite capable, have a sound of their own. At high frequencies they tend to sound a little harsh, and at high resonance settings they don't sound that good at all. Thus, in many of the songs I composed within the framework of Reason, I often used samples from my own modular. But just like the Atari/Sampler combination before, I was limited to using short loops or hits. This is because using long samples tends to cause timing problems as the sample moves out of synch with the sequenced parts.
Farewell Tracktion
Tracktion is a software recorder with rewire capability. This, in theory, allows one to record and playback audio tracks at the same time as working within Reason. However, Tracktion from V1.6 to 2.0.2 was blighted with small bugs that would affect my workflow. The graphics were laggy, the midi timing was poor, the midiclock output failed to comply with ordinary standards, rewire implementation was only half finished and it didn't accept aftertouch commands from my D50.
In November 2005, after trying to use Tracktion for one year, I sold my license. To replace it, I bought Ableton Live 5. This pretty much solved all my workflow problems I had with Tracktion in an instant.
Not so reasonable
However, in March 2006 I decided to move away from Reason 3.0 and to compose entirely within Live 5. Working with Reason was an awesome experience but I wanted to include more hardware and VSTi instruments. Ableton Live allows me to do this, quickly and reliably. I think, at long last, I have come to where I wanted to be when I first started looking at making music with a PC. In fact, I may be so bold as to say this is where I wanted to be nearly 20 years ago. The perfect home studio; small, friendly, flexible and surprisingly cheap.
Oddly enough though, the move away from Reason has led me back to using some real synth hardware again.
Contour
The album Contour was created in Live 5 and then 6, using a wonderful mixture of real, virtual and sampled instruments. It took just over a year to make and was released in its first guise in October 2006. However, although reviews were very favourable, sales of this version of the CD were not spectacular. In February 2007 I decided to shuffle the album around a bit, I dropped the last track off the album, which was a traditional song, and replaced it with a long instrumental piece I had just finished. I then sent off a copy to Synth Music Direct an online music retailer which specialises in electronic music.
Fortunately, Dave Law at SMD was very pleased with the CD and offered to sell it. That month the new album, with sales mostly as downloads, went to their number one slot and stayed there for several weeks. I was very pleasantly suprised to say the least. The increased publicity also created a sudden rush for my older albums.
So what happens next?
After the success of Contour it would seem a good idea to make another album in a similar style. However, this was not going to be easy. The creation of music should be a relaxing and enjoyable pursuit, but the making of the follow up CD was proving to be mix of increased self imposed pressure, frustration and disappointment. In the year following the release of Contour I managed to finish just one piece in which I was proud. The rest of my output, while technically polished, was of little interest musically. In a nutshell I was running out of ideas and fast. Its at times like this, and I am sure that every artist has them, when it is time to take a break and do something else. Some while ago I started writing a novel, but gave up because of lack of time. Now is the time to start again. This will do in conjunction with working on some new synthesiser hardware for Oakley Modular.
But I won't be giving up on my music. Those of you who have heard my earlier work will know that I am fond of traditional songs. So for now, although I'm not going to be officially recording anything for the time being, I will continue to pick up my guitar and just sing.
Tony Allgood
Cumbria, April 2008
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