Sound Creature tranlation project to press on..

>
> As I mentioned previously, translating S.C. has been tried
> before, without success;
>
> It also implied that the list would want all of the Japanese
> releases translated eventually, which is a whole lot of work.
>
> Ben

A) I suggest that we make a focused effort to get Sound Creature's
text tranlated and not look beyond that to translating stuff from
other albums, at least for now. Sound Creature differs from Tomita's
other records in that it is not so much an artistic presentation. It
is, or appears to be, more intructional and educational. Judging from
the diagrams and the way the recording is presented and indexed, it
may teach us more about the technical part of how Tomita worked.

B)If previous attempts to do this failed, it's probably going to be
tough to get the job done....but that doesn't mean it can't be done,
right? Will just take persistance and patience.

C) We don't really know what's in that text. If it turns out to be
nothing more than a basic synth primer course, well so be it. I
suspect there is more than just that. Side 1 and most of side 2 of the
first record are clearly meant to show the evolution of specific music
segments in Tomita's work. Parts are repeated showing the stages of
development from a raw tone to the finshed sound. Each stage is
indexed with metronome-like beeps. I have to assume that somewhere the
text is going to make references to those indexes. Considering what is
on the records, I think it would be worth knowing what the text says.


r

 

Digiboy wrote:

> A) I suggest that we make a focused effort to get Sound Creature's
> text tranlated and not look beyond that to translating stuff from
> other albums, at least for now. Sound Creature differs from Tomita's
> other records in that it is not so much an artistic presentation. It
> is, or appears to be, more intructional and educational. Judging from
> the diagrams and the way the recording is presented and indexed, it
> may teach us more about the technical part of how Tomita worked.

Agree 100%


> B)If previous attempts to do this failed, it's probably going to be
> tough to get the job done....but that doesn't mean it can't be done,
> right? Will just take persistance and patience.

Agree 100%

> C) We don't really know what's in that text. If it turns out to be
> nothing more than a basic synth primer course, well so be it. I
> suspect there is more than just that. Side 1 and most of side 2 of the
> first record are clearly meant to show the evolution of specific music
> segments in Tomita's work. Parts are repeated showing the stages of
> development from a raw tone to the finshed sound. Each stage is
> indexed with metronome-like beeps. I have to assume that somewhere the
> text is going to make references to those indexes. Considering what is
> on the records, I think it would be worth knowing what the text says.

Yes it could be more, and in any case, it's worth finding out.

By the way, I don't know if anyone else has thought of this (and you probably have,
but...) of all the synth musicians out there, only Tomita put his equipment list on most
every album - _and then_ created an album (sound creature) to help others follow in his
footsteps!

This is (one more reason) why the translation is so important.

My 2cents.

Kevin

 

> Hi Nick,
>
> I have a stupid question.
>
> When you say "half speed mastered audiophile LP" do you mean that it plays correctly
> at 16rpm instead of 33rpm? Or....
>
> ... in any case, it seems to me that a 45rpm record would be higher quality then a 33, not
> a 16. Hmmm.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Kevin
>

it plays back normal. the concept was during the creation of the
manufacturing elements to turn the record cutting lathe at half speed
and play the master tape at half speed and wind up with a better matrix
or whatever you press vinyl from. Then they used better more expensive
vinyl to wind up with more accurate detail in the final vinyl at maybe
double the list price



>
> By the way, I don't know if anyone else has thought of this (and you probably have,
> but...) of all the synth musicians out there, only Tomita put his equipment list on most
> every album - _and then_ created an album (sound creature) to help others follow in his
> footsteps!
>
> This is (one more reason) why the translation is so important.

for what its worth, I guess Beaver and Krause kind of did it first with
the Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music back in the late 60s. Then after
Sound Creature, probably by coincidence, Wendy Carlos started doing it.
She's been documenting her work more and more thoroughly since the 80s
and did an album "The Secrets of Synthesis" along the same lines as
"Sound Creature", only narrated and promoting additive digital
synthesis. The CD reissues of the Bach albums have lots of "making of"
material added via audio demos, text and html pages in cd-rom format.

> ... has anyone come accross a really good (easy to understand) book
> on programming and using modular synths? A "mod-synths 4 dummies"
> type book with some nice pictures?
>
> Are there web pages like this?

as for books, I guess most people think Roland's english language set of
4 paperback books "The Synthesizer" was the best book for beginners,
though with all these books the major concern is if they use a specific
synth as an example (in this case the System 100M) then they teach you
lots of potentially confusing quirks and work arounds for their system.
... and its out of print and fetching fairly high sums at auction,

Conversely if the book is extremely generalized like the Allen Strange,
"Electronic Music Systems Techniques and Controls 2nd edition"
astrange at e... which is the only serious modular book in
print, and fortunately probably the best, but has a downside that its
far harder to follow because it purposefully shys away from specific
systems, but goes quickly into some serious patching

my friend Andre Stordeur, who was a top pupil of Subotnick has a $15
course you can buy online. I guess the downside is I've heard second its
pretty Serge-centric and Serge synths tend to do a lot more so they are
hard to duplicate with basic modules

http://www.angelfire.com/music2/theanalogcottage/adsnews.htm

the whole site is fantastic and a little esoteric. Andre is in a live
synth ensemble with both John P who does the Serge Egres site and Grant
Richter who builds the deservedly legendary Wiard line of modular synths

this might be fun because its a smaller version of what Tomita has
http://www.enteract.com/~mghall/moog/sys15/moog15.html

Theres lots of stuff on the Nord Virtual Modular and Native Instruments
Reaktor. While these and some less popular software apps simulate
modular synths that also make common sense moves to simplify things,
like having a VCA built into every ADSR on the Nord for an example, and
Reaktors abstraction of making what are essentially macros out of a lot
of simple processes into sort of a custom module, so the upshoot is its
probably easier to translate a patch in a book into their modules than
it is the opposite direction, take their patch and quickly translate it
to say moog.

http://www.doepfer.com/home_e.htm
has examples and a pretty good manual to every module they make online

my friend sunao inami had his students in Kobe make this page.
http://ds.kobedenshi.ac.jp/doepfer/
there is a whole collection of patches with audio demos of each patch.
If you can't read the patch sheets you can check back at doepfer's site
for more clear illustrations of the numbered modules (the numbers are
easy to read) I notice he obviously doesn't believe in .mp3 files as
there are huge uncompressed file examples

In his class every student can use an individual small doepfer and other
basics to make class projects. You can't really learn synthesis just by
looking at the web page, but the opportunity to see and hear simple
modular patches and try to recreate them is very valuable

nick