Here’s an excerpt from a track I am working on for a remote, collaborative project between myself and a couple of talented artists who I’ll name at a later date. I combined some dense harmonic structures using the Shō sound I presented in Synthesized Reed Instrument Japanese Shō along with a sequence on notes that I played in seven-four time.
Synthesized Shō in Seven
I programmed this patch on the Roland MKS-80 to simulate the sound of a Sho – a traditional Japanese reed instrument capable of playing dense and eerie harmonies.
Because of the nature of the instrument and how it’s played the reeds tend to vary in pitch so I added a touch of subtle modulation with a slow rate LFO to the oscillator’s pitch so that it doesn’t sound perfectly in key.
Of course my intent is not to duplicate the instrument (it would be impossible to accurately represent the nuances of this fascinating instrument with any electronic device), but to create a synthetic simile with a character of its own.
Image used courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Synthesized Japanese Sho Reed Instrument
On June 4, 2011 the Battle of Everyouth was staged and performed outside of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). I performed improvisational music non-stop for three hours with Luke Anderson (electronics), Jon Davis (bass, bass clarinet), and Graham O’Brien (drums, percussion). This video documentation is accompanied by bit and pieces from the board mix during the event. My instrumentation included the Rhodes electric piano, Sequential Circuits Pro-One, Electro-Harmonix Memory Man Delay, and Korg Monotron.
Here’s another attempt at programming an effective bass patch on the Roland MKS-80. This time I put the oscillators in sync using the square wave for both the upper and lower partials. Then I tuned the synched oscillator until I heard the most bass. For some odd reason it ended up being tuned to the D# above C. In other word a minor third above created the thickest bass result. What’s nice about this patch is that I can adjust the filter to make it a bit brighter if necessary and it still maintains the bottom as long as I don’t turn up the resonance too high. It sounds the most bassy with the resonance all the way down. I added a touch of reverb for presentation purposes.
The Quest For Bass
The Roland MKS-80 is an exceedingly versatile synthesizer, but one thing that it seems to be known for are punchy brass patches. These are probably a result of the sawtooth waveform available on each of the sixteen voltage controlled oscillators and fast hardware envelopes. Here’s a brassy string patch I programmed for a melody line in a piece I am working on.
Brassy Strings