Ring Modulators - Roger Smalley - H&N

[Quarky]

Most impressed!

[Quarky]

More archaic gadgets on Between the Ears last night.

Would a currently active musician put aside his laptop and afford the time and effort to mess about in the workshop with neon tubes and relaxation oscillators?

[Serial_Apologist]

More archaic gadgets on Between the Ears last night.

Would a currently active musician put aside his laptop and afford the time and effort to mess about in the workshop with neon tubes and relaxation oscillators?

Well Stockhausen continued to make use of 1960s technology to the end, and one gathered from what he said that the finickyness and effort therein involved made for discoveries that might otherwise have passed him by.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

..if threads could be framed this one qualifies imho

[Richard Barrett]

Well Stockhausen continued to make use of 1960s technology to the end, and one gathered from what he said that the finickyness and effort therein involved made for discoveries that might otherwise have passed him by.

That's no doubt true for Stockhausen, but he was born in 1928. If I want a ring modulator I make one in software, as MrGG suggests; and I think the ability to make discoveries and exploit them musically has far more to do with the composer's mind than with the technology he/she is using.

The main reason Stockhausen was so keen on this technique was that it allowed a single parameter (the frequency-relationship between - usually - an input from an instrument and another from a sinewave generator) to govern a continuum between "pure" and "noisy" timbre, so that this simple principle could be used in many sophisticated ways that were integrated with the way Stockhausen conceived the other aspects of composition.

[MrGongGong]

That's no doubt true for Stockhausen, but he was born in 1928. If I want a ring modulator I make one in software, as MrGG suggests; and I think the ability to make discoveries and exploit them musically has far more to do with the composer's mind than with the technology he/she is using.

The main reason Stockhausen was so keen on this technique was that it allowed a single parameter (the frequency-relationship between - usually - an input from an instrument and another from a sinewave generator) to govern a continuum between "pure" and "noisy" timbre, so that this simple principle could be used in many sophisticated ways that were integrated with the way Stockhausen conceived the other aspects of composition.

I might make one in software also
BUT I would still hanker after one in a big teak box with a lever that looks like it came out of a Victorian signal box !
I think there are some really interesting areas (that you are no doubt aware of !) where a more hybridised approach to working with technology is having some really interesting results , particularly in the domain of live performance, the STEIM blog is the obvious place to find some of this (as is DMU etc).
I've also experienced some rather unsuccessful Max simulations of analogue systems , much more portable but a bit like vegetarian sausages ! I'd rather have a real tape loop / VCS3 / B77 than a simulation.

[Richard Barrett]

a bit like vegetarian sausages ! I'd rather have a real tape loop / VCS3 / B77 than a simulation.

Me too, but I guess I'm less interested in simulating analogue principles than in exploring what's native to the digital domain, even though as you say there are many people doing interesting things by combining the two.

[MrGongGong]

Me too, but I guess I'm less interested in simulating analogue principles than in exploring what's native to the digital domain, even though as you say there are many people doing interesting things by combining the two.

Are you "channeling" Jonty ?

[Richard Barrett]

Are you "channeling" Jonty ?

I hope not.