Hello,
I am posting this because for a long time now, I have been wondering about how to get two effects that Morton Subotnick used in “Sidewinder”.
Here is a link to the piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rnIfw-49gA
The 1st sound you can hear right in the beginning. It is a synthetic sound emulating the rattle of a sidewinder (i.e. rattle snake). The reason I like it is that its high dynamic.
The 2nd sound I am interested in you can hear at around 1:18 in the video. I am not interested in the first 4 notes but the effect after it which is also extrremly dynamic. In fact, all the the burst of notes in this first part of the composition are extremly dynamic timbres.
I am not sure if a Voyager could do this or with a vactrol filter placed as an insert but any ideas on how to re-create these sounds would be greatly appreciated.
I think you mean Low Pass Gate, which is in part a filter but also has a gate (a.k.a. VCA, though not as fast acting as a Moog VCA for instance, hence the character), I just mention that because there are a number of vactrol based filters out there that are just filters though a couple not specifically billed as LPGs do function similarly (Wiard Borg).
Other factors involved include Subotnick using what sounds like nice plate? reverb.
Also to consider, Subotnick was into what he called “Ghost” Scores. He developed techniques to encode complex control voltage info to audio tape which he’d then decode during his realization (or performance) to generate repeatable complex channels of control voltage info that were beyond the capabilities of the sequencers of that era. He called then “ghosts” because they were tones not intended to be heard just decoded to control info. He’s use channels of this info to automate panning, as envelopes and to control pitch. I guess many are catching up with this concept using computer sequencers and MOTU sound interfaces that don’t block DC and the recently released MOTU VOLTA plugin.
Nicholas:
I appreciate the response. I do know about Subotnick’s ghosting technique and about vactrols. Subotnick did very effectively use vactrols on the Buchla music box to create plucked string like sounds which are very evident in “Sidewinder” as well as many of his other works.
However, if you listen to the specific part of the video I am talking about you will hear a four note sequence in which the vactrol low pass gate is clearly hears but then a series of what I can best desribe as pulses but much more dynamic than that. The effect might be partially do to delay and reverb but I don’t think using a low pass gate would duplicate the sound in itself.
It it’s ghosting I am not sure how. I am also aware of “Volta”. I low the idea of Volta unfortuntely I don’t have a Mac and right now, as far as I know, Volta is only available for a Mac. I am suprised I have not heard more about this product from the modular crowd. I know that one of the things that Subotnick used for his ghosts were envelope followers and frequency follows expecially used with his own voice at times. It gives a very human sound to the otherwise electronic synth sounds but without being obviously controlled by voice like vocodor or talk box.
If you have any more specifics I would love to hear about them and if you get a chance, go back and listen to the section of the video I am talking about. Again, I am not sure that vactrols and ghost tracks are entirely all that is behind this sound.
Thanks.
I listened a couple more times. Reminds me a bit of slapping a mic with the palm of one’s hand and sending it through a reverb. I would guess it’s some kind of acoustic event being used for control. I am hearing vactrol response though as I mentioned he’s got a reverb going. Perhaps a forum somewhere with more hard core Buchla enthusiasts would I.D. that sound better than a Moog board 
Well, I certainly do not intend to incite and east and west coast battle but I have never been much for dichotomies
I tend to mix my foogers with other things and Moog has long since withdrawn from the modular market but your suggestion to find a good Buchla board is a good one.
I don’t think its reverb alone. It could be some type of pulse and a delay with a high feedback setting but also some type of modulation. I also know that Subotnick used a lot of gestural side chains that were all part of his ghost tracks. Sometimes, these were even his own voice.
Side chaining, while still strong in compressors and ducking for drum tracks (and technically the basis for vocoders) is otherwise not much part of the musical landscape but I think its a very effective means of creating very dynamically rich works such as “Sidewinder”.
I will have to try using the MF-104Z and see what I get using various percussive pulse like bursts or from the Radius inside my M3.
Clearly there is also some modulation involved. I will have to see what I can do with that as well.
Update:
I have tried mic abuse to get this effect with the MF-107. Inital results were intriguing although having a mic anywhere near an amp playing back an MF-107 signal is like to produce feedback. I used a Shure SM-57. My equipment is on a poor man’s budget but perhaps a more directional pattern might avoid the feedback.
Anyway, the results were ballpark but not the modulation and the impulse was to soft. I did not get a chance to try it but I am going to see what I can do with getting a stronger and brighter pulse from the Radius inside my M3 and then using that rather than the pop from a mic and then using the low pass or perhaps ring mod to modulate the signal or even loop the signal into my Boss rotary peda. I should have more time in a few days to fool around with this and will post more then.