I have mentioned before that it was the title theme to the movie A Clockwork Orange that first introduced to the Moog sound. I’m pretty sure Walter Carlos used a Modular unit to get that sound at for the opening credits but is that sound attainable with any other moog units?
Yes, it’s a modified, non-standard Moog modular, plus a lot of great technique. When CO was done the main differences to the factory models were the spectrum encoder/decoder (vocoder) and the coincidence switch (never put into production as far as I know - though that may change before too long with luck), as well as the touch sensitive keyboards.
It should be possible now to get into those tonal areas, but don’t expect it to be easy. 
If I was trying to do this now, without a Moog modular, I’d either connect together a lot of Voyagers (expensive) and do a lot of tweaking, or mix the Voyager with sounds from the Arturia Modular V and use some imaginative signal processing.
I haven’t seen the movie. Which is the music for the opening credits? Would it be the `Title Music’ - the arrangement of Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary?
Wendy Carlos’s stuff uses a lot of very subtly constructed sounds. It’s a great education in making synth sounds that are organic and alive.
I’d recommend the Voyager/Arturia Modular V setup for an affordable expanded Moog sound. I also create Moog sounds and then sample them into a Roland V-Synth XT for development, which opens up a lot of new sonic areas.
Related:
In her instructional CD “Secrets of Synthesis”, Wendy Carlos describes many of the techniques used in her music, from S-OB to Digital Moonscapes, and including Clockwork Orange. For CO, however, the focus is the song “Timesteps” and not the opening theme (Purcell’s ‘Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary’).
The CD contains many audio examples of her work, including examples of the Vocoder and the coincidence switch mentioned by Sweep. If you’re looking to get a better understanding of Wendy’s approach to electronic orchestration and sound construction using the Moog modular and other gear, this is the CD to check out.
Secrets of Synthesis, East Side Digital #81702, 2003
Complete Original Score to Clockwork Orange, East Side Digital #81362, 1998
- Greg
Wendy Carlos sounds were crafted very well and with lots of attention for sonic details. I am not sure if one needs the vocoder or other special mudules to do her sounds. Most likely she did not use these modules an all or most sound at all.
But besides the technical problem it isn’t easy to redo her sounds. It is not the brush that will enable you do redo the Mono-Lisa painting. It needs skill. I am not that skilled in sound design to redo her sounds. But Howard Scarr is one of those sound designers that recreated so many famous synth sounds for certain non Moog synths. But no Wendy Carlos sound yet?
I’d certainly second Greg’s recommendation of Secrets of Synthesis. In fact I’d recommend it to anyone involved in synthesis regardless of whether they appreciate Wendy’s work.
I’d agree that there is no apparent use of vocoder on the title track mentioned. On the other hand there is significant use on the tracks “Timesteps” and Beethoven’s 9th 4th Movement (with the very obvious vocoded vocals).
Kenneth Elhardt made some mp3 files trying to recreate Switched on Bach sounds (not Clockwork Orange sound) and posted his results on the Analogue Heaven mailing list. He used an Andromeda A6 analog polysynth with analog IC chips that attempt to recreate modular moog filters. His results were quite good and of course the synth he used is polyphonic and multitimbral. (sorry I don’t have the links handy, Analogue Heaven does have searchable archives.
Actually I have to admit I once did my own copyright clear recording of the Funeral March for Queen Mary theme for the soundtrack for a filmmaker profile on the Independent Film Channel. While vastly inferior, I did attempt to do similar sounds by multitracking my Memorymoog+
Some of the techniques I think Carlos is using (in general, not so much on that track) and are interesting to me include some of the tracks recorded at half speed and sped up. This adds a brightness and snap so long as you remember to set the modulation at half speed too. She is also constantly changing the sound in ways that aren’t excessive. Certainly a touch sensitive keyboard helps (if of course the patch utilizes the touch info). What I often hear is people attempting a piece of classical music and just playing an instrumental part in a single unchanging voice until the end or a mistake. Some other techniques used were layering several sounds and octaves for dynamics that echo Bach’s era and it’s instruments having less dynamic range leading orchestrators to bring in and pull out players to create dynamic effects. Finally of course Carlos does lots of hocketing. It involves taking a musical part and giving short phrases or even single notes to several instruments causing the melody to sort of dance between several instruments rather than have one instrument play the melody.
Anyway, besides “Secrets of Synthesis” the “Switched on Box Set” comes with quite a bit of documentation and technical details about how all her albums just before “Clockwork Orange” were recorded.