Here’s an interesting topic.
Does anyone know how big Wendy Carlos’ recording rig was in 1968? Knowing such information could shed some light on how many parts were arranged and recorded on each of the tracks on the original Switched-On Bach album.
It’s so wonderful to imagine 24 tracks of Moog synthesizer. Is that what she used?
She used a grand total of eight tracks to record and a further 2 to mix down to.
The eight track was custom built from surplus parts. Check out Wendy’s website for comprehensive info.
Her main thing was being patient and hard working to get those great recordings done. Of cause the Moog made the sounds, but 8 tracks of Moog will sound as thick as mud if not using good sounds and a good thinking ahead when recording the individual tracks one by one, voice line per voice line, sound per sound. And no patch memory available to easy redo a sound from the track recorded before.
Her music, especially her own track “Timesteps” (from the Clockwork Orange soundtrack is still amazing after all those years.
Thanks to both of you.
I can appreciate the virtue of being patient with a big synthesizer without presets. For five-to-six years, I didn’t have an analog synthesizer that I could use to create my own digital patches. I became just as adept at twiddling knobs and sliders as with pressing the buttons. 
All I had was an ARP Axxe and a Roland JX-8p that didn’t belong to me. What can you do?
Dont forget that she had to make patches to compensate for all of the intonations available to all of those instruments that she had to emulate. Its not as if she just made 1 french horn patch and recorded it…there were probably 5 or more french horn patches recorded seperately and then spliced back together to make it sound as if it was played by a single instrument.
That brings to light the question of how many oscillators Wdnay’s synth has. For me, every oscillator per voice per synthesizer of any kind is like a seperate musical instrument. I’m sure that Wendy’s Moog has, at least 3 VCOs, if not 4.
Sure, you have a point, Array. The notion of tape-splicing and bouncing is something that’s not alien, today.
The Switched on Boxed set has a good amount of technical details and even outtakes.
I see a 901, 2x 901A, 6x 901B for a total of 7 oscs + a self built Polyphonic Oscillator Bank in a 1968 photo
Carlos’ Moog got bigger as they years passed. Also the original oscs (900 series) were replaced with the updated (920 series) ones in the early 70s.
Don’t forget Carlos tracked almost everything at half speed playing an octave down with the patches tweaked to sound good at normal speed playback.
Wendy Carlos also tends to hocket whenever possible. Instead of playing all say a horn part in one patch she tends to break it up in short phrases and play each phrase in a different patch
Wendy’s website is a great source of information. Her album Secrets of Synthesis is also recommended for the very helpful discussion of techniques such as hocketing.
On the subject…
What is the deal with Walter Carlos? Is it in poor form to ever discuss that? Is this post going to be deleated?
Even in this interview I heard with Bob Moog the other day he always refers to just “Carlos”.
All that can be said is that Walter Carlos disappeared, and Wendy Carlos is who we all know.
She choosed to be a woman.
So she had to change her name (and not only her name) from Walter to Wendy. I don’t think we should emphase this too much. It was her personal and very private decition.
I like her music very much, except the “Beauty and the Beast” scalling experiments.
That was an extremely brave thing to do at that time. Sex change operations were very new. Plus being well known it could have (and might have) affected her career.
My friend went to Bob’s memorial service in Ashville this week and met her. He said she was very nice. He conversed with her about music and came away very inspired.
[quote=“Qwave”]She choosed to be a woman.
So she had to change her name (and not only her name) from Walter to Wendy. I don’t think we should emphase this too much. It was her personal and very private decition.
I like her music very much, except the “Beauty and the Beast” scalling experiments.[/quote]
While I agree that there is no need to focus on Wendy Carlos’ sex reassignment, I must disagree with your first statement which, respectfully, is a wild misunderstanding. She did not choose to be a woman any more than anyone chooses to be male or female. She was always a woman but was born in the wrong skin for a woman.
I remember the first time I saw the great guitarist, Leslie West. He came out on stage and was quite fat. The audience–about 10,000–exploded in laughter. And then he played. The audience exploded again, this time in appreciation for his brilliant playing.
We can make judgements on the way a person appears or on what a person does. I prefer the latter and am far more fascinated by Wendy Carlos’ originality and musical brilliance than on her physical appearance.
While I agree that there is no need to focus on Wendy Carlos’ sex reassignment, I must disagree with your first statement which, respectfully, is a wild misunderstanding. She did not choose to be a woman any more than anyone chooses to be male or female. She was always a woman but was born in the wrong skin for a woman.
I agree, Don, let’s focus on the incredibly original and brilliant music Carlos has made rather than delving into the vast misunderstanding that people can actually be born into the wrong skin. I can appreciate his/‘her’ music without respecting the personal CHOICES made.
Hello
I have emailed a track from “Switched on Bach 2000” to a pianist and he found it “interesting”. In the liner notes one can find lots of information on how she approached the synthesis of the sounds, the recording and everything else. She mentions that a great deal of how the record sounds comes from the individual tunings which was those of the Bach’s days (or she is convinced this was the case).
Indeed I agree that she must be a very patient person. Another example of what patience and practice can do!
A key factor is the mere fact that Wendy (like Emerson, Wakeman and Geoff Downes) has training in classical keyboard technique and orchestration. Such attributes never did anyone any harm.
The point: any musician can attempt to make a similar album to Switched-On Bach, but most can only go so far without all the tools. Even if they had a Memorymoog or Prophet 5, as opposed to a monosynth.
“I like her music very much, except the “Beauty and the Beast” scalling experiments.”
Funny, because I find that be be the most interesting thing she’s done since Clockwork Orange. There’s only so much imitative synthesis and classical music I can take. She both invented and beat to death the genre.
Actually Vangelis tends to upset a lot of his peers going around saying it’s not necessarily a good thing for all artists. He refused lessons and feels he would never have developed significantly had he continued. He’s surely not trying to inflame people, he’s just saying “to each their own”.
Some people succeed with very limited training. Some people fail because the training is an end to itself, they fail to see it as a jumping off point.
I don’t think anyone can draw a complete conclusion beyond the fairly obvious. For instance if your material is of Classical origin (unless you are creating variations or improvisations on a theme) then you probably will be working with sheet music . And if you have a musical skill already, chances are you can wisely apply it to the task at hand.
As for tools, it’s all about being sensitive as to what they have to offer. Approching a synth from the standpoint of a piano or organ or orchestra is definitely not necessarily a good start and believing that technology will solve creative issues never is.
Hello
in fact Vangelis did have some classical training. He is also aware of concepts of byzantine music. (I have seen little stickers placed on an Emulator of his with mystery symbols).
My personal opinion is that Vangelis (or most successful artists) would never take lessons of any kind. My piano teacher didn’t like him, he always said to me that his music is relatively simple and that he tries to hide himself behind massive pads and arpeggios. However, I don’t see why music has to be complex to be beautiful. Moreover pianists hardly recognize how much time it takes to synthesize a nice sound, what cutoff frequency is, what an lfo does and so on. So I guess a lot of people envy them because they had enormous success and people without commercial success hate that. It stinks. You spend all of your life trying to be recognized and what that happens you get despised because others didn’t make it (for various reasons). Of course they neglect that when he was releasing his first electronic albums millions of other people were in their cradle and didn’t believe in them. Same goes true about Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre (his arguments with Dreyfus), Leon Tcherepnin and of course our beloved Moog.
On a different aspect, Jean Michel Jarre was interviewed in a greek tv channel, the journalist asking him whether he would consider co-operate with Vangelis on a record. He said ‘yes’ but of course if you read between the lines you will recognize why this is highly unlikely.
And, again on a different aspect, you can read in a well-known magazine what Klaus Schulze said about musicians of lesser magnitude: “[these people, i.e. hobbyists] are not teenagers anymore”. Let’s hope that he refers directly to “easy synthesizers” and not directly to people although again I think this is hardly the case (in any case I consider this to be a direct insult since it is implied that only professional music is good music. And he concludes that “… when I hear something that clearly sounds like me and the artist proclaims that he has found his own way, it’s just laughable. We are all human beings and would love to be acknowledged but when someone profits on account of someone else it just stinks.” Since when any electronic composer of any magnitude claimed originality of any music? Of course Schulze’s opinion could be expected: “I am not aware of any people who listen to his [Stockhausen’s] music voluntarily”. Of course he was referring to people using samples of his tracks in same-context music, i.e. electronic and although he is one of my favorite composers I am convinced that his tone is rather arrogant.
For what it’s worth I understand that Vangelis studied art (as did Brian Eno).
The goal is to find the inner way whatever it is you want to do works. Not necessarily in a technical sense but in a practical sense that shows understanding, If the formal training helps you get there then thats all the better.