Via Peter Grenader of Plan b/EAR.
"The following was written by Morton Subotnick in 1972 for the long-
defunct Synthesis Magazine in which he talks about his use of control
tracks in Sidewinder. This piece was actually published before that
album was released."
Title link takes you there. It's at the top of the page that reads "Click here for an article written by Morton Sobotnick on his use of control tracks on Sidewinder."
Update 12/7/2009:
Morton Subotnick - "Sidewinder"
YouTube via fallonmccoy
"american electronic composer Morton Subotnick's fabulous work"
Thursday, March 15, 2007
9 comments:
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MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH
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MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH
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Great read.... and no Midi zippering!
ReplyDeleteHere's the wacky thing, though... I always thought Sidewinder was done on a 200 system, but, other than the "new '200' model envelope detector" mentioned at the end of the article, the examples uses the 100-series term "attack generator," plus a couple outright 100-series modules in the patch diagrams: the Harmonic Generator & the 10-channel gate mixer.
ReplyDeleteBut the cover of Sidewinder has a picture of Mr. Subotnick at the wheel of a 200. What gives?
Great! Thanks Peter!
ReplyDeleteMr Matrix, please put a Buchla tag on this one so we'll find it later.
Very interesting. Modulating data onto a carrier tone in that fashion was a common technique used for aircraft and spacecraft telemetry back in the day. I've got an old book that describes all kind of wild modulation schemes, combinations of AM, FM, PM, and some other funky stuff like pulse duration modulation (PDM, not PWM). Given that JPL was pretty much right up the street from Cal Arts, I wonder if Morton got the idea from them, or if he came up with it independently.
ReplyDeletePeter: Thanks for the info.
ReplyDeleteWow, Peter, thanks for making the call! I always figured the 191 variable bandpass was responsible for that sound. Verbos & I tried to get its lowpass section to feed back one night & the results were pretty ugly, but I'll have to try the same trick in bandpass mode.
ReplyDeleteHey Pete, i've got a job for ya ;-)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, what's so special about the 191? (I have not tried one myself) how does it differ from the 291? If it's so fantastic why isn't there a Plan B Model 11?
The 191 Sharp Cutoff Filter is a big, ugly, oddly laid out module that sounds mean as hell. Unlike the 291, it is switchable between bandpass & separate lowpass/hipass filters. Also unlike the 291 it has no Q control, but, honestly, the sound is so different it doesn't make much sense to compare. It's just 24 dB/Oct of meanness. I think I keep saying "mean" because I like the way it distorts when you run +4 200 stuff into it, but even when you run the right 0dB levels into it you get a nice, gritty, musical sound.
ReplyDeleteI have the impression it is pretty rare too, isn't it? Damn, I don't seem to have the schemos for this module. It would be fun to try it some day.
ReplyDelete