reissued music found the German synth-masters— in this incarnation, Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke, and Paul Haslinger—transitioning from their analog origins to the digital “future,” cour- tesy of the Atari ST computer (BSXCD-8924, $15.95, 11 tracks, 46m 50s). The ST, with its built- in MIDI port, allowed TD to transform conventional sequencing from rhythm and tone generation into a composing and performance tool that could control any number of instruments. Gone were the days when musicians had to pre-play rhythms and notes into a device with little or no memory before a concert or recording ses- sion. In my first live keyboard performance in 1980, I played a Mini-Moog with pedals and a sample- and-hold controller, an ARP Odyssey and se- quencer, and an Elka Rhapsody String Machine. Before playing, I had to spend 15 minutes step- sequencing the Odyssey to pulse the base line of Philip Glass’ “North Star.” Nothing else had memory; every change in voice, timber, attack, release, sustain—and every effect—required the on-the-fly resort to a knob or a slider. Digital changed all that, but at a price. The first digital synth to find a commercial foothold, Yamaha’s DX-7, proved remarkable in the studied hands of Brian Eno, Pieter Nooten and others who conquered its learning curve; but, unlike the fat and volatile analog synths, its sound was clean and pure—and its early competitors were thin and cold. NEAR DARK is a suitably schizoid creature of its time, with cues that could be outtakes from TD’s essential THE KEEP (1983), but others that suffer the pains of transition—tinny patches, unpersuasive strings and choir, and an ill-advised blues/pop excursion that Bigelow rejected. Tangerine Dream also pioneered digital sam- pling in the 1980s, deploying the PPG Wave and Waveterm, the E-mu Emulator, and Synclavier. With an arsenal of sound samples and computer- assisted control on- and off-stage, TD prefigured the contemporary soundtrack composer, with a singular distinction: they never desired, or tried, to emulate an orchestra. Their example would not be followed.
By the late 1980s, digital sampling was re- fined and relatively inexpensive: I bought my first sampling keyboard, a Korg DSS-1, in 1988. The possibilities seemed endless, as digitized sound files eliminated the complexities of tape loops and could be stored and manipulated with a few keystrokes. Yellow Magic Orchestra (including future film composers Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto) had experimented with samples and loops. Ex-Clash guitarist Mick
Jones introduced sampling to the rock/dance charts with THIS IS BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE (1985). And Graeme Revell of SPK, another screen com- poser in the making, created THE INSECT MUSI- CIANS (1986) entirely from samples. But Afrika Bambaata foretold the future by including “samples” from two Kraftwerk songs—simply re- recording the music without credit—in the hit single “Planet Rock” (1982). Sampling gave birth to hip-hop, an entire subgenre and subculture based on recycling, if not appropriating, earlier songs.
Soundtrack talents were less interested in pre- existing music than in musical instruments. After leaving the Moody Blues, Mike Pinder painstak- ingly sampled each note from his Mellotron tapes. In time, anyone who owned a computer could construct a personalized palette of sound with hundreds, if not thousands, of voices and instru- ments. By the new century, a small investment in hardware and software allowed anyone with a modicum of musical skill to become the “small, mobile, independent, intelligent unit” Robert Fripp had prophesied in 1974—but not necessarily one who, like Fripp, had mastered an instrument. In- stead, he or she could use a computer to com- mand an entire symphony orchestra, choirs, percussion ensembles, and anything else that could generate a sound. To demonstrate this truth, I spent about an
hour composing, recording, mixing, and master- ing my own entry in the Hans Zimmer school, “Memo to Bruckheimer,” on my MacBook Air, using Garageband, Apple Loops, banks of orches- tral instruments, a 100-voice choir and, in honor of Christopher Franke, who had campaigned in the 1980s for a digital Mellotron, my Manikin Memotron. You can listen to the results, ye mighty, and despair, at
douglasewinter.com.
To be continued...
For additional information about the com- posers and the discs, visit
ilovem83.com,
joecomposer.co,
officialchristopheryoung.com,
hans-zimmer.com,
enniomorricone.it/uk,
Johnwilliams.org,
lalalandrecords.com,
buysoundtrax.com,
tangerinedream.org, and
christopherfranke.com.
You can contact the Audio Watchdog online at
OnEyeDog@aol.com or by visiting
douglasewinter.com. Review materials should be sent c/o Vale House, 2495 Oakton Hills Drive, Oakton VA 22124.
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