"Piano Phase" - Steve Reich (1967) - modular synthesizer arrangement

video upload by glkibler

"My modular interpretation of Steve Reich's 1967 landmark piece, originally composed for piano and tape machine. I've shortened the typical 15 minute duration with a version that is about a third as long by speeding up the phase a bit.

The 5U modulars I'm using here are two prototypes I hand-built in 2014 using mainly Yves Usson's (Yusynth) circuit designs - ones, I might add, that I painstakingly transcribed from his original printed circuit designs to my own veroboard layouts. These were originally housed in cheap Ikea bookshelves but last year I broke down and bought two very nice-looking Synthesizers.com cabinets, though I retained my own power supplies. The two 960 sequencers above are simply Behringer 960s I had re-housed inside full-size matching Synthesizers.com panels and cabinets.

I am using Ableton to supply the midi that shifts the phase and it is what is driving the two modulars. Each modular has its own built-in sequencer though and while I have done a version of this piece using those, the results are too variable since I'm basically setting the speed of the two by ear.

The MIDI visual that shows intermittently here is some freeware called MAMPlayer (Music Animation Machine MIDI Player)."