3 Electronic Maestros Interviewed

thesixthreplicant writes "New Scientist interviews 3 pioneers of electronic music: Bob Moog, the inventor of the first commercial synthesiser, the Moog; Australian Peter Vogel, creator of the first electronic sampler, the Fairlight (16 bit sampling in 1979!); and Dave Smith, the father of MIDI."

Comments

The Fairlight wasn't 16-bit until 1985

[Anonymous Coward]

The Fairlight wasn't 16-bit until 1985, when the Fairlight Series III came out. The Synclaviar was 16-bit before then (I think 1984 or so) and AMS had a 16-bit digital delay that could work as a primitive 16-bit sampler (Used in "Joanna" among other songs) around 1983 or 1984.

Just in case...

[ImaLamer]

From Wikipedia:

One of the most mispronounced names in popular culture, the surname "Moog" is of Dutch origin, and is properly pronounced "moague", to rhyme with "vogue" and "rogue".

'gue' ? more like *horrible choking sound*

[Animaether]

The 'gue' in 'Vogue' and 'Rogue' is quite different from a 'g' in the dutch 'Loog', 'Toog', etc.

That 'g' is more like a horrible choking sound - I'd sound it out and put it on my site (I'm Dutch), but no thanks :)

Early Fairlights were the true classics.

[Dzimas]

Hmm. E-mu Systems released their first 8-bit sampler around 1980, as I recall - within months of the first crude Fairlight.

The classic Fairlight sound came from the Fairlight Series II (1982) and Series IIx (1983, with faster processor and factory-MIDI) defined the classsic "Fairlight" sound, not the Series III - so 16-bit is meaningless here. The Series II used variable speed playback, rather than skipping samples in a wavetable to speed up/slow down the sound. When combined with some fantastic analog filters, the sound was something special, with a great low-end. The other part of the magic was "Page R" -- the realtime 8-track (single note) sequencer that allowed you to work with the Series II's lightpen in a pseudo-graphical environment (ASCII characters in a music sequencing grid).

By the time the Series III came out, E-mu had released several samplers including the Emulator I and II (both 8 bit, although the II used companding A/D-D/A converters to give a higer signal to noise). The Series III lost the coloured magic of the Series II sound by using increasingly perfect 16-bit recording, and it wasn't long before companies like Akai started making $5000 16-bit samplers that put Fairlight out of business.

Yes, there were other, even commercial, pioneers

[antispam_ben]

the man that fucking INVENTED sampling

'Sampling' was first done in the analog domain, by an instrument named the Mellotron. It had an organ keyboard with a magnetic tape, tape head, and capstan mechanism under each key, and activated whem the key was pressed. The samples were factory-recorded (for new sounds you had to record a new tape for each key) and the machine was playback-only, but it fits the name sampler. It was used by the Beatles ("Strawberry Fields Forever"), King Crimson, and most of the Moody Blues albums of the '60's and '70's, among others. And yes, the Mellotron was a commercial product.

And what about Les Paul

[gnu-sucks]

Lets see... Les Paul invented:

1) Multitrack recording

2) Echo, and flange effects

3) Electric Guitar

4) Electronic Synth

I mean, come on people...