MATRIXSYNTH: Cowboy and the Vocoder by Redmartian


Thursday, September 26, 2013

Cowboy and the Vocoder by Redmartian


The track is now available here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/redmartian9

"The song was recording using the MMM for bass and vocoder carrier. The lead is a jupiter-6 and the drums were done using a Sequential DrumTraks. The lead and vocoder (Roland SVC-350) parts were played manually along with the bass/drums which were sequenced using midi via Logic."

Some of you might remember Cowboy and the Vocoder from these previous posts.  The story behind this track has a somewhat intersting and quirky history.  Cowboy was VoiceEncoder's dog.  VoiceEncoder is known for his vocoder videos and demos that became somewhat of an obscure synth meme.  His demos actually came up in a recent conversation I had with someone.  VoiceEncoder would often feature his dog Cowboy in his videos.  Cowboy would just be lying on a bed somewhere while VoiceEncoder talked to him through a vocoder.  Sadly Cowboy passed away on Monday, March 23, 2009 (click through for a tribute post).

The second half of what makes this track special is that it is one of the first tracks predominantly featuring the Mattson Mini Modular (it might actually be the first) [Update: according to Redmartian, "it was the first 'song' on the MMM. I did a few musical demos and orchestrated lute pieces, but this was the first 'pop song'."] It was composed by Redmartian as a tribute to Cowboy.  The lyrics are a dedication to Cowboy and the videos he was featured in.  Below are two videos for the track.  The bottom video was taken at the 2009 PNW Synth Gathering and features the Performance Music Systems Syntar in place of the Jupiter-6 for leads.   The Syntar was the first fully contained keytar synthesizer created by George Mattson, the man behind Mattson Mini Modular.

Cowboy and the Vocoder and the MMM

Uploaded on Nov 5, 2008 redmartian·73 videos

"A song written for a dog who likes to listen to the sound the Roland SVC-350 vocoder. This song features the MMM as well as a Sequential Circuits Drum Traks and a Roland Jupiter-6. (I don't have a Poly-800 .. sorry cowboy).

Here are the lyrics:

Do you know Cowboy
and the SVC-350?
Do you know Cowboy
and the Roland Vocoder?

Hey there Cowboy
I see you there
Lazy gazing
Gazing lazy
Whos my sweet boy?
You know its you.
I like to vocode and you do too.

No Poly-800 to drive the SVC
So I use an MMM as my carrier wave
No Poly-800 but Cowboy doesn't mind.
We all know its the Roland SVC-350 vocoder time.

Audio version can be found here:
http://redmartian.com/napster/Red_Mar...

Don't hate the dog or the vocoder."

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