KEYBOARDS IN THE INFORMATION AGE

KEYBOARDS IN THE INFORMATION AGE

Features

by

Roger Clay

A VERY BRIEF BACKGROUND

Musical Electronics did not start with Dr. Robert Moog, but we will. If you haven’t heard his name before as the father of synthesis— or just his last name as a kind of generic term for synthesizers, Bob Moog (and in a parallel universe on the West Coast, Don Buchla) originated the voltage-controlled synthesizer. Voltage control was the liberating concept that took electronic synthesis out of the domain of research laboratories and into the hands of the working musician. Until that time, large facilities and large college degrees were the prerequisite to doing real synthesis. Electronic Music belonged to the land of Academia (no real place for slouching musical malcontents). The Voltage Control Concept opened up new doors in music creation by allowing the basic building blocks of sound— sound source (oscillator), tone control (filter), and loudness control—to be manipulated in realtime, easily and accurately. This concept, and the others that followed the introduction of the first Moog synthesizer (just a little over 18 years ago, folks!), created a whole new niche in the music industry.

It had limitations, though. First and foremost, it was expensive. Typical “serious” configurations cost in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $15,000. Second, in most cases, you could only play one note at a time! Not a strong live performance feature. And third, it was hard to make heads or tails of the equipment without extensive training. You had to build aH your sound from the ground up on these unwieldy, quirky, and confusing machines. But they made unheard of sounds—and that made it all worthwhile.

Rock ’n’ roll can thank (of course, depending on your perspective) Keith Emerson for taking Moog’s boxes out of the recording studio/novelty item environment and onto “The Road.” It was Emerson who persuaded Moog to build him a system to take on tour with the then newlyformed Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Suddenly, a REAL MARKET was born! But still the stuff was expensive, difficult to control (at one point you could count on your synthesizer being out-of-tune by the end of your first song), and only played ONE NOTE AT A TIME.

WELCOME TO SUNNYVALE

In the early ’70s things were just starting to shake in Silicon Valley. The Small Computer Industry was just beginning, due to the new processes of computer-on-a-chip technology. In this electronics petri dish, a young company—Emu Systems—started playing with these new electronic chips, called microprocessors. Before too long, they had them controlling Moog’s modules. One of the engineers (techno-whiz and mountain climber Dave Rossum) came up with a computer control program (called, in techie-talk, an “algorithm”) for a synthesizer keyboard that made the playing of more than one note at a time commercially feasible. People noticed. Tom Oberheim, for one, licensed the method to use on his breakthrough four-voiced Polyphonic synthesizer, and the world of electronic keyboards was off to the races.

But the world of musical electronics owes still another debt of gratitude to Dave Rossum and company. Not long after his keyboard development, Rossum (along with another engineer, Ron Dow) designed and—through Ron’s company, SSM — manufactured the first synthesizer modules (Voltage Controlled Oscillators, Filters, Envelope Generators, etc.) completely contained on an integrated circuit (or chip). Still another Northern California musician/engineer named Dave Smith had a dream of taking five synths—like his favorite, the Mini-Moog—and controlling them with one keyboard in one box. Rossum and Dow’s chips and Rossum’s keyboard algorithm made this dream attainable. The result was to become the industry standard in synthesizers for the next five years—the Prophet 5.

Life went on, presidents came and went, and the music business suffered a major recession— except for electronic keyboards. Smith’s PROPHET 5 had beget many imitators and pretenders to the throne. The synthesizer was becoming the cost-effective way to cover a lot of bases in an industry (the record and studio biz) that needed to be cost-effective. It also became very important to have the latest synthesizer sounds (which by now were starting to change every six months). Before you knew it, studio players and pop keyboardists had immense stacks of electronics that they were dragging around. (The Ultimate Equipment Junkie award has to go to Asia’s Geoff Downes.) And unfortunately, unless you spent a lot of money and tech time, none of these instruments “talked” to each other. Nothing interfaced. You had to have 10 hands and a lifetime supply of methedrine to keep all this gear in line. Not good.

MIDI THE LIBERATOR

What MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) embodies, as a concept, is so large that there just isn’t enough space to cover it in one article. Simply put, MIDI means that (with a little work and luck) a musician/composer/artist can construct a creative system for expression to his/her needs or wants—not someone else’s. Ideally, with MIDI, keyboards, synths, signal processors (like digital delays), sequencers, mixing boards, lighting controllers, all manner of performance electronics and (possibly of most importance) small personal computers are able to work together interactively— and (keep your fingers crossed) easily. MIDI truly can unlock the door to creative use of the computer’s power, and its rapid-fire acceptance and support are proof that this is a powerful concept. The following description of current products in the keyboard field should help to drive this message home.

CREEM PRODUCT PROFILES

A certain amount of brute force stability seems to be finally entering into the market, and one of the major reasons for this was the appearance of the Yamaha DX series synthesizers. The DX-7 in particular is setting the standard in polyphonic synthesizer design, and knocking out a lot of the competition at the same time. Why? Here are some of the reasons.

These products use synthesis techniques derived from the Chowning/Stanford research done during the late ’60s/early ’70s in FM digital synthesis. The DX series synths use special computer chips, designed and manufactured in-house at Yamaha, and these chips allow their sounds to be completely computer generated and programable. The DX synths are also incredibly inexpensive considering what you get and how they do it. Yamaha has managed to pack into these boxes the equivalent of what, a couple of years ago, used to require two telephone booths’ worth of electronics. The DX-7 octave, velocity and pressure sensing keyboard, 32 on-board patch preset, 16 voices, complete MIDI access (you can, through MIDI with the proper software, compeletely program any of the DX’s with a computer), and GREAT sounds for under $2,000 list! About the only thing wrong with this synthesizer is trying to find one to buy.

CASIO & THE CONSUMER KEYBOARD

A few years back, to most of us in the music industry Casio meant caculators and digital watches. Then came the MT-10. With the introduction of this one keyboard, the whole new world of consumer keyboards was born. These products offered a portable musical companion, with several different preset sounds, in a very popular price range (under $200). To everyone’s amazement, they sold like hotcakes. Mainly because of the success of this product line, companies like Technics, Suzuki, Seiko, and Yamaha developed and started marketing similar products.

Although they utilize synthesizer techniques to create their sounds (mostly digital in nature because it’s cheap), they do not, in most cases, allow the user to program their own sounds, and are more properly referred to as electronic keyboards. They pack features that, just a few years ago, could only be found on fairly large home organs. Features like autopercussion, chord comping and auto-bass are pretty common on units costing under $200. Some, like the Seiko DS-202, can build from a preset keyboard to a fairly sophisticated little synthesizer that can be programmed and hooked into a personal computer for complex sequencing.

The CASIOTONE-type keyboard has been taken on as a “technological backlash” instrument by a number of new wave/techno-pop bands (the old equip ment-choice-as-socialstatement stance, I guess). Its nasal tones and quavery vibrato have graced tunes by the likes of Devo, Lene Lovich, and Wall Of Voodoo.

SEQUENTIAL CIRCUITS

Sequential Circuits, one of the forerunners in polyphonic synthesizer procluctcrevelopment and one of the originators of the MIDI concept, continue to churn out timely products. They still produce Dave Smith’s beloved Prophet 5, and are currently offering a series of products designed to take advantage of the new “modular” approach represented by the MIDI concept. The recently released SIXTRAK “multi-timbral” synthesizer allows the user to assign to the synth’s individual voices completely different and separate sounds (String sounds to Voice f 1, Brass sounds to Voice #2, etc.). The SIXTRAK also has a built-in, multi-channeled sequencer for storing polyphonic passages. The sequencer will allow you to record up to six different tracks (hence the name), kind of like you might on a tape recorder. In the sequencer’s memory you digitally store your first line, play it back (making sure it’s what you want), re-start the sequencer (listening to your first line), and then lay down a second track (with a complenty different sound if you want). You can keep doing this up to six times, with six different sounds. The SIXTRAK’s costeffective synthesizer section only has one oscillator per voice, unlike the “industry standard” for analog synths, which is two. The SIXTRAK’s front panel format requires a lot of button pushing to build sound from scratch, but you do get 100 pre-programmed onboard patches if programming ain’t your thing. The SIXTRAK is, of course, a MIDI keyboard—and it can work in conjunction with SCI’s other MIDI keyboards: the T-8, an eight-voiced polyphonic synth with a velocity/pressure sensitive, wood-weighted, assignable split keyboard; and the groundbreaking Prophet 600 six-voiced poly—the first keyboard to be introduced with MIDI.

ROLAND

One of the big guns in the world of popular synthesizers and electronic keyboards is Roland. A prolific manufacturer, Roland was one of the first companies to devote research and development to musical instrument interfacing and synchronization. They have also brought out some of the neatest “musical composition tools,” exemplified by the DRUMATIX, programmable rhythm unit; BASSLINE, a programmable bass synthesizer,and the MC-202 MICRO-COMPOSER, a selfcontained sequencer and synthesizer. All these units are highly portable (they even come with Walkman-like carrying cases, shoulder straps, and headphone jacks), sync-up to each other through a common system or “bus” (not MIDI), and don’t cost an arm and a leg.

Probably more than any other one manufacturer, Roland has thrown itself fully into MIDI pro duct development. In the last year, they’ve produced more MIDIrelated equipment than we can possibly cover in this article. At the January NAMM show in Anaheim, CA, they introduced a new MIDI keyboard, a MIDIoutputing guitar synthesizer, a selfcontained (needs no external computer) MIDI multi-tracking sequencer, a MIDI interfacing box called the MPU-401, which allows MIDI keyboards and personal computers to be easily hooked together, a MIDI-THRU box that allows the ganging together of multiple MIDI keyboards, and a MIDI-programmable rhythm composer called the TR-909. As a sign of their further commitment, Roland has dedicated a whole wing of their organization to digital developments—Roland DG. This group, made up of software developers and digital designers, works in supporting Roland’s growing line of computer peripherals: graphics plotters, computer TV monitors, and their Compu-Music series of computer dedicated synthesizer/compositional products.

Roland—whose keyboard line has always had a much larger audience in Europe and Japan than here in the States—has in the last years introduced several keyboards that have given them a new visibility. The most important of these, is the JX-3P—a programmable six-voice, poly synth with a built in polyphonic sequencer. The JX-3P comes with 64 pre-programmed and permanently stored sound patches, and, of course, it’s MIDI. If you want to program sounds on the JX-3P, you’re gonna have to purchase a companion piece|§the PG-200, a small box with all the necessary programming controls.

Roland recently added a new piece to their JUNO keyboard line with the introduction of the JUNO-106, another six-voiced polyphonic. The JUNO-106 is in many ways an update of its predecessors—the JUNO-6 and JUNO-60. The 106 utiltizes the one oscillator-per-voice format of the 6 & 60, but improves on these products with expanded sound patch storage (128 programs onboard), polyphonic portamento, and MIDI interfacing. The JUNO-106, unlike the JX-3P, has all its programming knobs and sliders on its front panel, and gets over the “thinness” of sound usually associated with a single oscillator-per-voice synth by making the famous Roland chorus effect an integral part of the machine.

KORG

Every year Korg seems to come out with a new price barrierbreaking keyboard. They started the whole phenomenon with their introduction, two years back, of the POLY-SIX, the first programmable six-voiced polyphonic synthesizer for under $2,000 list. They followed that up with the POLY-61, six voices, programmable, and two oscillators-pervoice (the POLY-SIX has only one). Now Korg has totally outdone themselves in pricing—eight voices; two oscillators-per-voice; built-in polyphonic sequencer; built-in chorusing; batteries or AC; lots of preset/patch locations; MIDI; nine lbs. total weight and $800 list price! This is coming seriously close to Casio pricing. The POLY-800 may end up becoming “the great second keyboard.” It is so affordable, weighs so little, and does so much that you’ll find it hard not to justify its place in a keyboard stack.

FENDER/CHROMA

Shifting back to the U.S.A., Fender Musical Instruments, the people who brought you the Rhodes electronic piano, are busily working on the next stage of development in their CHROMA series of synthesizers. Taking what they learned with the CHROMA, Fender has developed (and should soon be. releasing) the six-voiced POLARIS. A much-requested improvement this synth has over the old CHROMA design is lots of front panel programming controls. This means that if you want to make a quick change in a program you can, without having to do anything but grab that control and adjust it. The POLARIS also has a built-in polyphonic sequencer that will allow you to record passages (up to 12, six-track sequences) and assign the individual tracks their own particular sound. The sequencer also captures and stores the pitch bend, modulation, and keyboard velocity information of your performance. They have also taken a lot of the weight out of this box by eliminating the wood-weighted keyboard action. The velocity sensing is still there, but the CHROMA keyboard is gone.

EMU SYSTEMS

The Wizards of Santa Cruz, Emu Systems are continuing to turn out “new” innovations in digital sound sampling—an area they practically carved out singlehandedly. Emu capitalized on the concept, initially demonstrated in the Fairlight CMI, of digitally recording a sound, storing it, and then having the computer spread this sound out over the keyboard. Emu refined the idea down to essentials, gave the keyboard a split (allowing you two stored sounds on the machine at one time), gave it the name— EMULATOR—and made it affordable. The first people to get EMULATORS and use them extensively spent a lot of time recording normal instruments and sounds like strings, brass and voices. But it wasn’t long before they realized that all manner of strange and wonderful noises and sound combinations could also be captured by the EMULATOR and stored on its floppy discs. But my favorite for sheer bizarreness is the “Three Stooges” disc which features samples of Curly’s crazed “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk,” “Certainly!” and other Stooge-isms at different parts of the keyboard.

With their latest introduction, Emu has completely overhauled the original EMULATOR. So total is the change that they have renamed it the EMULATOR II. The E-II features a new approach to sampling that improves frequency response and lowers that bane of all music sampling machines— digital distortion. The E-II doesn’t stop there. Emu has added more disc storage, allowing more onboard sounds, a velocity-sensing keyboard, MIDI,. RS-232 (the computer industry’s interfacing connector standard), SMPTE (the film and video industry’s standard for audio/visual synchronization), individual voice output jacks, and built-in multi-tracking sequencer.

The E-II design includes filters, envelope generators, LFOs (or modulation) and other good stuff that you used to have to have Jim Cooper (J.L. Cooper Electronics, 2800 S. Washington Blvd, Marina Del Rey, CA 90219) install as a modification on the EMULATOR I.

OBERHEIM ELECTRONICS

One of the real leaders in the world of product interfacing/bundling is Oberheim Electronics. Originator of the first commercially marketed digital sequencer, Oberheim has always prided itself in putting out a class product. For the last two years, Oberheim has been refining and improving what is called “The System,” a completely integrated series of products based around their eight-voiced poly, the OB-8. The OB-S-^-the latest incarnation of what started out as the OBX synthesizer years ago—offers two analog oscillators per voice, assignable split-keyboard, layering, lots of unique modulation effects, stereo outputs, arpeggiators, keyboard transposing, polyphonic portamento, and a bunch more. The OB-8 is also one of the ballsiest sounding synths around and^-more good news — Oberheim has now started shipping the OB-8 with MIDI.

The OB-8 can easily be connected to other parts of the OB System—the DSX digital sequencer and the DMX or DX digital drum machines—and creates a total package that has been quite popular with songwriters and techno-pop bands. And quite rightly so, because the OB System offers a lot of what people are looking to MIDI for—namely, a personal music composition work station where (on you own time) you can totally create, record, edit, and store songs.

As of this writing, Oberheim is prepping their latest creation—the XPANDER. The XPANDER is a hot addition to a new family of MIDI products that can best be described as “synths u/ithout dedicated keyboards.” The XPANDER will have six individually programmable synthesizer voices and has interfacing inputs for control voltages and gates, the OB SYSTEM and MIDI channel or CV input. This means you could handle two of this unit’s voices with a MIDI keyboard—like the DX-7—and the other four with a sequencer—like the DSX—at the same time (or lots of other combinations and configurations). That’s flexible. The folks at Oberheim are also sporting a different approach to FM synthesis, using one of the XPANDER’s onboard computers to control the modulation of one analog oscillator of a voice by another. Other nice features let you stack up to three sounds on top of each other, and assign up to two keyboard splits. These splits can be used even if the controlling keyboard doesn’t have a split option, but it’s gotta have MIDI. Finally, there are 100 sound patches and 100 of what Oberheim calls “multi Patches,” or combinations and configurations that can be created and stored in the synth’s memory.

OCTAVE-PLATEAU

Sitting a little way up in Hudson from New York City, in the striving metropolis of Yonkers, is Octave-Plateau, another innovative little company that’s been designing this new modular/universal interfacing concept for a couple of years. In fact, they were the second American company to apply for a MIDI ID number. They build a powerful piece of synthesizer equipment called the VOYETRA.

The first thing that you notice about the VOYETRA is that the keyboard is not attached to the rack-mountable main guts of the synthesizer. If you wanted to, you could just buy the central “mainbrain” module and use a computer to control it through MIDI. Once again, here’s a synth with the eight-voiced/two oscillator/analog synthesis format. But the 1 VOYETRA has some tricks that I set it apart from the rest. Because it can program and store up to 100 sound patches, 100 configuration patches (splits, layers, arpeggiator assigns) and has a 1,700 event polyphonic sequencer—and because there just isn’t enough room on the front panel to accommodate all the knobs that would be necessary to control these features—the VOYETRA uses a “multi page” approach. A page, in this case, is a software “overlay” that assigns the front panel controls to a specific set of synth functions. The VOYETRA’s computer will allow you to “flip through” a number of overlays, giving you a new set of functions for the same front panel controls.

KURZWEIL MUSIC SYSTEMS

In the last 12 months, a whole new wrinkle has been added to the somewhat clique-ish musical instrument industry. A company that is developing, marketing and noticeably managed like a computer company is making a major product introduction, and getting a lot of national media exposure from it. The name of the company is Kurzweil Music Systems—and they may be the model for new musical instrument companies for the rest of the decade.

Raymond Kurzweil, referred to as a “computer wunderkind,” is a trained classical pianist who wanted a synthesizer that could accurately reproduce the sounds of a concert grand—no easy request if you know anything about the amount of sonic complexity making up the “piano sound.” As nothing came up to his standards, Kurzweil decided to do it himself. He hired the best engineer and designers, took some techniques drawn from his own research work in computer pattern recognition and sound sampling, and—for the sake of brevity—we’ll just say he’s come up with a product that does an incredibly accurate representation of the sound it’s copying!

Called the MODEL 250, the machine is more like the EMULATOR than any of the other keyboards mentioned so far. In most cases, the 250’s sounds are digitally recorded (or sampled) and “ranged” throughout the instrument’s polyphonic (up to 12 notes at the same time) 88-note keyboard. The actual keyboard boasts—and comes real close to delivering—a concert grand action and can be split wherever assigned. Up to three sounds can be layered on a key, it has a built-in 1,750 note poly-sequencer, MIDI, and a number of significant options—most notable being the “Kurzweil Sound Laboratory,” a software package that will allow you to use a personal computer to build and record your own sounds on the 250 from scratch. The overall idea behind the MODEL 250 seems to be that of a complete, self-contained music performance system that will have a home anywhere from concert stage to the Holiday Inn.

MOOG

One of the original names in the business, Moog Music has recently upgraded the sonically popular MEMORYMOOG six-voice. The upgrade gives the MEMORYMOOG MIDI interfacing and two or^-board sequencers—one polyphonic (4,000 notes) one monophonic (400 notes, and good for doing a bass riff while comping on the remaining 5 voices). Moog’s design criterion for the MEMORYMOOG was to produce a polysynth that sounded as good as the original monophonic MINI-MOOG did. Most folks seem to agree that this is one of the bestsounding analog synths available. Among others, it has a bowedstring patch that is absolutely killer! The MEMORYMOOG has a fiveoctave keyboard (not touch sensitive and not splittable), 100 different sound patches, and lots of jacks for hooking up a variety of different footswitches, pedals, etc.

Moog also markets the Taurus II pedal-controlled synthesizer (for those of you who play better with your feet than your hands), which is usually used to cover bass in bands that subscribe to the “Rush/Triumph” equipment-forevery-extremity philosophy.

Looking more toward the future, Moog is currently developing a hardware/software package that will make use of MIDI and the Commodore 64. The package will give you a single-step entry sequencer and the ability to control both MIDI and voltage-controllable products.

PASSPORT DESIGNS & SYNTAURI CORP.

Two companies that have been building and designing digital synthesizer systems based around personal computers for several years are Passport Designs and Syntauri Corporation. Both companies offer software and keyboards that use an Apple II (or compatible) with Mountain Computer’s “Music Systems” synthesizer-on-a-printedcircuit-board installed in one of the computers’s expansion slots. All these systems are great at organlike sounds, and are heaps more sophisticated in their performance and sound capabilities than the factory provided sounds of Commodore, Atari and Apple II. Both Passport’s SOUNDCHASER and the ALPHA SYNTAURI are great musical teaching tools. Both companies offer multi-tracking sequencing software. Only one of the companies has really embraced MIDI, and they are Passport Designs.

Passport has recently started shipping MIDI interface cards designed for the Apple II and I, manufactured here in the States for Commodore Computers. Passport is also developing and selling (through retail outlets) a number of different MIDI software packages, including a four-track recorder and a program called “Polywriter” which allows you to input music from a MIDI keyboard (or Passport’s SOUNDCHASER Apple/synth series) and have it printed out on a dot matrix printer in traditional music notation. The four-track sequencer will sell for $99, and the “Polywriter” for $495. This is only the beginning, folks.

PPG

Thomas Dolby should be given PPG synthesizers for life. It was Dolby’s use of PPG WAVE digital synthesizer on the Golden Age Of Wireless and Blinded By Science albums that put the synth on the map. Now used by various artists like Stevie Wonder, Ultravox and Missing Persons, the WAVE is a combination of the analog and digital synthesizer. This includes a built-in sequencer and an optional computer/terminal called the WAVETERM, designed for complex sequencing and the digital sampling of sound. The WAVE is designed and manufactured by PPG, Germany’s answer to Emu. The WAVE has a velocity/pressure sensing keyboard, 100 on-board presets with two variations per preset (or effectively 200 different patches), and some great and unique sounds. This is not an entry-level synthesizer—being extremely variable and complex in its programming — and is fairly expensive.

CONCLUSION

So what’s the conclusion from all this? Hopefully, it’s that there isn’t a conclusion, and that the developments in keyboard electronics will reach escape velocity and propel all of musical electronics into a new and more creative union with computers.

A little further off (but getting closer all the time) are projects already underway investigating actual brain wave control of computers. Add MIDI, and you’ll be able to control creative equipment as well. This may sound like sci-fi today, but then again, 10 years ago, wrist TV was something out of Dick Tracy.