Alan would ascend to assistant engineer in the Beatles era, working on the albums Let It Be and Abbey Road, including the final “rooftop sessions” at Apple Corps. He went on to engineer the landmark 1973 Pink Floyd album, The Dark Side of the Moon, whose recording quality and originality turn heads to this day. Then, with singer and songwriter Eric Woolfson, the skills that had assured Alan’s place in history as a superlative “sound guy” would be focused on his own music in the Alan Parsons Project. Lush, wall-of-sound production was one sonic signature of the APP; another was an abundance of unique keyboard sounds. This is no less true of his recent Grammy-nominated solo release, A Valid Path.
Alan took a break from making his upcoming instructional DVD series The Art and Science of Sound Recording to share studio secrets from both the Floyd and the Project.
THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE
In 1972 there were just a few synths available — the Moog, the ARP 2600, the EMS VCS3 and Synthi AKS,” says Alan. “Nothing could be stored and nothing was polyphonic, so Pink Floyd’s synth parts were performed organically and built up in layers. The famous sequence from ‘On the Run’ was a Synthi AKS, [an upgraded VCS3 with a touchplate keyboard and built-in sequencer –Ed.], and all the filter changes you hear are from turning knobs in real time. I remember thinking the hi-hat part sounded uncannily like the real thing, though it was actually a filtered noise generator. For live shows, rather than using a tape, David Gilmour programmed the sequence nightly on a Synthi AKS, so that it could be reproduced onstage straight out of the synth. He’d play it in slowly in step time, then speed it up.”
Another Dark Side track, “The Great Gig in the Sky,” is a study in stellar rock keyboards. Clare Torry’s wordless vocal solo emerges from a plaintive piano figure and explodes over a thick bed of Hammond organ. “The piano was the Steinway concert grand in studio 1 at Abbey Road,” explains Alan, “I miked it using classical techniques: Putting nothing too close to the instrument itself, and capturing the ambience in the room. I used a pair of Neumann M50 omni mics. Compression? No! I added a little plate echo to compliment the natural ambience.
“On the Hammond, I used one mic on the Leslie’s lower drum and two on opposite sides to capture the active horn of the top pair. On Leslies I’d use Neumann KM86s as a rule. I got the best results for the horn by not getting too close, as this would result in an over-accentuated swish as the horn crossed the mic path. I panned the top mics hard left and right and kept the bottom centered. In later years, I felt I got better results by just using two mics: one top and one bottom, with a narrow stereo spread between them.”
THE PRE-SAMPLER SAMPLER
“The Projectron was essentially an analog, keyboard-based sample player,” says Alan, describing the one-of-a-kind instrument he helped create in the days before samplers officially existed. “The idea came about after Roger Waters and I recorded some loops of rubbed wine glasses and he said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have different pitches of that, playable from a keyboard?’ I went to audio wizard Keith O. Johnson and asked him if he could make something that could trigger individual multitrack tape tracks from a standard keyboard — and he did.”
How was a Projectron patch created? “We used only continuous sounds. For instance, we’d record ‘ahhs’ on C for as long as the singer’s breath allowed. This was on multitrack, so not only could we layer the same note for thickness, we could also record a number of notes, usually a major scale. We’d then mix each note to 1/4" tape. We had to build a 1/4" loop from some point after the singer had started singing, but before he or she had run out of breath. Sometimes we’d make a very long diagonal splice so you wouldn’t hear a glitch, or we’d record directly to a blank loop and gradually pull the tape away from the erase head, then the record head, using a pencil. Getting a seamless loop was very much a trial and error thing — we were basically trying to find a ‘zero crossing’ without a waveform display!
“When we had good 1/4" loops for each note, we recorded them back to multitrack so that each track was one note. To get ‘black notes’ not in the major scale, we’d cheat using varispeed, and individual tape tracks were triggered from notes on the Projectron keyboard. ”Some of the more interesting ‘samples’ were treble, descant, and bass recorders blown by a vacuum cleaner — you can hear this on ‘Some Other Time’ on the Pyramid album. Continuous, rapid hits of hammers on a vibraphone was a section of the title track of I Robot. Female ‘ahhs’ featured most noticeably on ‘Breakdown’ and ‘Shadow of a Lonely Man.’”
ALAN PARSONS LIVE
In the ’70s and ’80s, the Alan Parsons Project didn’t play live concerts, partly due to the difficulties in recreating the albums’ orchestral and synth-drenched soundscapes. Thanks to such synths as the Yamaha Motif XS, though, the Alan Parsons Live Project gives the fans’ ears what they want. “Especially if a sound was originally created organically, or using myriad analog components, it can be nigh impossible to recreate onstage in the same way,” says Alan, “So, sometimes I use samples to capture the amalgamated sound. Programming them is a skill you amass over a number of years. It’s really all about developing an understanding of musical tonality. Some people are incredibly good at hearing a sound and knowing how to recreate it. Inside knowledge — which you now have — can also be an advantage!”
Learn from the Master
Alan Parsons’ The Art & Science Of Sound Recording DVD series, produced by Keyfax New Media, covers everything from recording live drums and guitars to the inner workings of mics, preamps and compression — all as it relates to cutting-edge, DAWbased music creation. Details are at www.artandscienceofsound.com.
Five Alan Parsons Project Sounds You Should Know
The “I Robot” Bass Sequence This was an EMS Synthi AKS. I programmed it using the onboard sequencer. Because all the notes in the sequencer are at the same intensity, the downbeat could be anywhere in the sequence, and is only defined to the listener by the entry of the drums. Ambiguous downbeats were something of a trademark of mine! [To learn to create and play the “I Robot” bass line with today’s soft synths, see page 48 of the April '09 issue - or click here. —Ed.]
The “Games People Play” Repeating Arpeggio People often think this was a Fairlight sample, but this track predates the Fairlight. We recorded a number of acoustic keyboard instruments at 15ips [inches per second] and edited the tape into a continuous loop, which we then played back at 30ips. Instruments would have included regular piano, jangle piano, harpsichord, and clavichord.
The “Psychobabble” Chiff Flute This was a Fairlight sample. The Fairlight at that time really only had a small number of decent samples on the disks that they supplied with it. One of them was called “Panpipe,” I think, and that’s what this is.
The “Days Are Numbers” Plucked Sound This was a Yamaha DX7 Clavinet sound which I programmed myself. I didn’t really know what I was doing editing a sound on the DX7 — nobody did — but in this case I got a good result. I sequenced the part on a Roland MSQ-700.
The “Eye in the Sky” Wurly This was the in-house Wurlitzer electric piano at Abbey Road. Eric Woolfson double-tracked the part with the tape running slightly fast. Then, we recorded the second pass slightly slow so that it sounds a bit sharper at normal speed. I still think this gives you the best chorus effect, and unlike harmonizing, there are no glitches and no phase problems.
Online Extras: Transcripts from Alan Parsons' Art and Science Sessions
Raw Transcription
Interview with Rami Jaffe (Foo Fighters, Wallflowers)
[Begin Recording]
RAMI:
So, you guys have been all over.
ALAN:
Yeah, a lot of footage, as you can imagine, to go through.
RAMI:
Bonus materials.
ALAN:
Yeah. I mean, it’s going to be a combination…this series, it’s actually three DVD’s, and it’s going to be a combination of interviews and me talking to the camera and a lot of different things. But, it’s all about recording. It’s very focused.
RAMI:
Cool.
ALAN:
You know, we’re not talking about people’s cats or DVD [inaudible] or what such and such a song was about or whatever. So, yeah, it’s very focused on the recording experience, specifically. Okay, are we on?
JULIEN:
It’s on.
ALAN:
Well, Rami and I decided to get our haircut together today.
RAMI:
Welcome to Rami’s hair shop?
ALAN:
At least, that’s what it looks like. But, this is actually part of Rami and his partner, Jeff?
RAMI:
Ron.
ALAN:
Ron.
RAMI:
Yes.
ALAN:
Sorry. Just a beautiful complex consisting of a very nice recording studio next door. And, this is the presumably a videography and still photography studio. How did this location come about?
RAMI:
It came out at a good time. I had my full studio in my house, I mean drums in the den, and a control room in the living room, the whole ordeal. And, I was remodeling my house and I was looking for a place to store it, all this great outboard gear and tons of vintage keyboards, and I was mainly thinking someone should use this, and I was also going to be on tour for a year with the Foo Fighters. And, I figured it would be sad to put this in storage—and pay for storage. And then, my old friend, Ron, was just building this complex. And, he’s a keyboard player and producer, as well, and I thought how perfect would it be to compliment your studio setup with my gear. And, it’s been a really good match up. And, all this stuff has been here for about a year right now, and hopefully for a long time to come.
ALAN:
How long have you been collecting keyboards?
RAMI:
Oh, God, I’ve been collecting like crazy. Fifteen years ago is when I just I came into some money and put it right back into the music world. And, back when the Wallflowers used to tour around America, it was before the Ebay craze and it was so easy to find an old Farfisa and an old Minimoog in a pawnshop for $70.00. And of course, I would spend $500 shipping it home from somewhere in Ohio. But, I collected a really great array of keyboards and other…even guitars at one point. And now, there’s a good home for it.
ALAN:
Excellent. What’s your pedigree? What got you started? Did you go to formal training, formal college?
RAMI:
Yeah, I actually took classical piano lessons as a kid, kind of not really forced. My older sister was kind of forced to do it, and then I was jealous, so as a four-year-old, I was begging to take lessons. And maybe around 12 or 13 years old, I completely dropped learning, especially classical. Even a little before that, I tried to get into some more popular, “Let me play Stairway to Heaven. Teach that to me,” telling a Spanish classical piano teacher, that was another story. But, growing up, I was playing in bands since I was in fifth grade. It seemed like there was a lot of musicians, and we were all spoiled enough to have our parents get us electric guitars, electric keyboards. And, I remember my first gig was in my fifth grade. We played Surrender by Cheap Trick and Bye Bye, Love, by the Cars. And looking back, I’m like, “Fifth grade? That’s pretty young,” but there was some talented kids in the school.
ALAN:
So, when did recording enter your life?
RAMI:
Gosh, not until I was teenager. I was always pretty nifty with a little 4-track, with the little tape cassette 4-tracks.
ALAN:
What age are we talking about?
RAMI:
I was doing that maybe at 13 or 14, not so young. But not until I was 18, when I met up with the Wallflowers and we went in to do demos at A&M Studios, while it was still A&M, and that was being in a real studio with tape and compressors, things I never even dreamed of. When you have a 4-track, you don’t think of mic pre’s, and I didn’t even know what they were. But, yeah, so I really started learning about gear.
ALAN:
But, you learn something for the home studio, the simple home studio experience don’t you?
RAMI:
For sure. In fact, now you really start thinking about those days, because without all the fancy gear, it was about playing a great part and the mix and levels between drums and bass and guitars and vocals, which never changes no matter how fancy the equipment is. And now that there’s so much great…what is it, digital gear, that you can just get crazy with forgetting to put in…use the best compressor you have, because you didn’t patch it in at the exact time you were writing something, and the part is perfect. You know, sometimes you don’t need all the fun stuff.
ALAN:
Do you have any favorite compressors or favorite recording gear as opposed to the keyboards themselves.
RAMI:
Yeah. Oh, gosh, my ultimate favorite is an 8-channel 2 console by Inward Connections. A guy by the name of Steve Firlotte made it for a while, kind of boutique audio copy of the Pet Sounds tube console. Becaues, I’m not much of an audio file, as much as I’ve been doing this for years, you know, to me if it sounds good, feels good, it’s great. I don’t have to know the exact channel it went down, if the performance great and…
ALAN:
Well, audio files have always kind of separated from pro audio people anyway. Pro audio people say, “It works and I can use it.” And, otherwise, an audio file person would say, “If I spend another $5,000 on this equipment, it would be so much better,” you know.
RAMI:
Yeah, it’s a trap. It’s at trap. And then, you don’t have the right guitar players or people recording into it. But, what was I saying? The tube console, when I go from that to, let’s say some EMI pieces or a Neve channel, I think that the other ones are broken. They sound so bought at a toy shop, which has its own character, which is great. But, the fidelity, it’s almost like I thought the tube console was going to more of a character situation, but it almost sounds so grand and high-fidelity compared to all the other pieces, I just…I stick with that. And, obviously, in tracking a full time, I only have 8 channels of that.
ALAN:
Do you have that here do you, that console?
RAMI:
Uh-huh. It’s a great piece. We actually…
ALAN:
Cue to cut away to a shot of that console.
RAMI:
Yeah, exactly. And also Ron…that was my contribution to the studio, and he has 8 channels that he always relies on, which is a Shadow Hills product, 8-channels, not tube, but very fancy mic pre’s. And we just did an A and B. We did the same drum kits, same drummer, and plugged it in, and you could start hearing the character differences really when you put them up against each other.
ALAN:
So, when did you feel that change happen between being a keyboard player in a band to really taking an interest in recording and discovering engineering sequence and so on?
RAMI:
Probably about ten years ago. There’s a keyboard player named Benmont Tench of The Heartbreakers, Tom Petty’s band, and about 15 years ago he kind of sought me out and said, “You know what? There’s a ton of session work I do that I don’t have time for.” Tom, you know, goes on the road a lot, and he wanted to do a lot of writing in Nashville. And, he gave my number to a handful of producers. And within months, I was playing on every record and running around to studios I never dreamed of being in, let alone recording in.
ALAN:
Was that fulfilling, being an in demand session player?
RAMI:
Oh, it was great. It was fun. I mean, my band, The Wallflowers, that was my main focus, but we weren’t such a heavy touring band, so it seemed like I had a lot of time in LA to run around and overdub or track with bands. And, it was fun, but that’s where my love of other gear, outboard gear and recording gear, came. Because, I never really knew of all those pieces, and a lot of the studios you’d hear a certain sound and you’d kind of look, “What am I running in to?” And, “Oh, that’s LA 2A.” I’m like, “There is that thing again.” I never even thought about it. And, of course, I bought a bunch of my favorite pieces from exploring them in other studios and have been using them ever since.
ALAN:
How do you feel most comfortable, working with yourself as engineer or working with an engineer?
RAMI:
I hate engineering. Well, everything moves so quick. You know, my Pro Tools setup of five or six years ago is so outdated now, and of course as I moved in here a year ago, the only problem is, is it’s still Pro Tools, but I don’t know these plug-ins, I don’t know this font. I mean, even the picture changed. So, the learning curve… And, I’m sure if I sat there for three days…but I’ve been lucky enough; Ron is a great engineer, so…
ALAN:
Three days? Try three days.
RAMI:
Yeah. Well, sometimes three days just gets you in the door, and then three years is when you kind of… Yeah, three years, the problem is three years you’re like, “I mastered it.” Oh, upgrade to 7.something else, and it’s a different, you know, completely different look.
ALAN:
Well, what I find is if you don’t do it everyday… You learn stuff, and if you go away for a month, you’ve forgotten it again.
RAMI:
It disappears.
ALAN:
And, “How did I do that? It was really easy. All I had to do was this and this and this.” And then, you scratch your head and you can’t find it.
RAMI:
Uh-huh. One of the times, I learned that half speed, you know when you used to VSO the tape to half speed and hear it [slows down speech] like that, then you’d get your little chops going and then you’d play back and it’s just this wonderful crazy Beach Boys thing, I forgot what it was, and I remember it was like the easiest thing. It’s like Return, Apple, spacebar. I mean, it was almost so easy, that I was suspicious how could the weirdest effect that probably no one is ever using be just like one of the most obvious keys. But, yeah, if you let it alone for a week, you’ll forget all your shortcuts or, you know, it gets by you.
ALAN:
So, Ron is normally the engineer you work with?
RAMI:
Oh, yeah. Especially if I’m producing anything now, and his ideas are great… I mean, even with Francesca, we’re writing together, even producing together. My favorite thing about music is playing with people, an ensemble of producers and, you know, get everybody on the same page. I mean, obviously, there could be too many cooks in the kitchen, but it’s a special thing when a group, more than two people, more than one person, obviously, but as big as a number you can get to all agree on something. And, if we could all leave this room, you know, like everybody thinks this is great, that’s enough for me, you know, it’s a good sing.
ALAN:
Do you think sometimes the producer has to have the casting vote, especially working with a band, when there’s conflicts and…
RAMI:
Sure. I always tell people the best thing about my producing career is that I haven’t done anything for a major label, so people listen to me. Or, you know, there’s really a good rapport going, because I want to make it…I want the band or singer to be happy with the product, and I want to be happy at the same, and that’s the greatest thing to do. When you do a big major label thing, which I have been not an outsider, because on the session or something as a keyboard player, but you see how the politics go down. And, it’s such a shame with the psychology and politics. You know, the A&R guy is saying something while the singer [inaudible] is on mute, and they’re just going at it like, “She should sound like this. It’s awful. It’s…,” whatever kind of crazy thing. And the take is over and they unmute it and they go, “Fantastic. It’s just kind of like… And, I’m sitting there going, “I think I’ll go out for a cigarette.” Yeah, it’s very scary. And that’s, you know, it’s all a harmonious thing.
ALAN:
When you’re producing, and obviously I would imagine everything you do, you play keyboards on, right?
RAMI:
Sure.
ALAN:
Every production.
RAMI:
But, there’s some great keyboard players around, and I would like to sit back and watch and, “Take out the 3rd there. Take it out,” you know, for once.
ALAN:
Speak their language, yeah.
RAMI:
Yeah.
ALAN:
So, I mean, when you are playing, when you’re making a contribution to something which you are producing, does the producer in you go on autopilot, or what happens?
RAMI:
It’s different levels of that, and it’s really tough. Because, producing, when you’re sitting back there, he could hear how busy everybody is and completely play a quarter of that [inaudible], and just on que… Even on my own session, I’ll go over and start playing and just be like Dr. John over there, and I’m like, “Stop that.” The guy over there just knows it’s so polluting the song. But, you know, so it takes a second, but I still have this childish piano organ playing way. And, the thing is, a lot of people hired me for that as session keyboard player, because I wasn’t a normal session keyboard player. I’m not a Randy Newman or a Leon Russell. So, I have this, you know, kind of a band sense of playing keyboard, so it’s more playful. So, sometimes… And, I could see both kinds of approaches, so I could always tell a producer, “Should I make it more playful, or should I hold back a little bit?” You know, it’s different options.
ALAN:
You obviously work with a lot of different engineers and producers. Are there any individuals that stick in your head as the ones you really enjoyed working with?
RAMI:
Oh, gosh, there’s so many of them. And, I enjoy almost all of them, and the ones I don’t enjoy, I say, “I’m really busy,” you know.
ALAN:
I remember that when I called you. [laughs]
RAMI:
“I’m on tour.” And then, you check the Foo Fighter schedule and I’m completely available. Don’t worry; I’ll leave the Foo Fighter story to [inaudible].
ALAN:
So, why the Foo Fighters? Why did you… I mean, presumably, it is taking a lot of your time?
RAMI:
It is. But, it’s a very odd situation, because the Wallflowers kind of really eased back on things about four years ago, which was good, because then I started pursuing more producing and it’s just great to be around town. And the Foo Fighters, it was a complete fluke. I played on their records as a session keyboard player. They never had a keyboard player before. And a couple records into it, Dave wanted to do an acoustic tour, which is completely a departure from what they do, and he said, “We can’t go on tour without keyboards.” And, he said, “Would you be able to do it?” And, I said, “What kind of tour?” “A few dates here and there in theatres.” I said, “Perfect.” And then, it was a great…
ALAN:
But, it is a guitar band, really, isn’t it?
RAMI:
Oh, gosh, more than I’ve ever heard anybody. And then, the funny thing, that was a couple years ago, and then they said, “Look, we’re going to do a tour, where we’ll feature an acoustic type set in the middle of the arena on a different stage, and you won’t play on the crazy proggy hardcore guitar music,” and I said fine. I mean, he’s such a great…that whole band, just the nicest people to be on tour with. It’s a hard thing to be on the road, you know.
ALAN:
Tell us about Taylor, because we talked to him this morning.
RAMI:
Taylor is amazing. He’s really…he has a such a… I mean, people say drums have to be pretty technical and dialed in, and as a producer you know that it’s the main thing you’re thinking about when a track is forming, just out of habit, just because there’s a lot of danger in the future if the drums aren’t right on. And, his feel is so great, because he has the chops where, you know, it’s not completely drifting into hell, you know, tempo-wise, but there’s so much character. And, it’s really hard to have character as a drummer, as well as have the timing and all that stuff under control. It’s usually one or the other.
ALAN:
And, you’re also having to answer to another drummer, right?
RAMI:
Yeah, gosh. How could Taylor…yeah, that would not be fun. Well, he knows that Dave thinks he’s amazing, and so if anything, when you have a drummer saying, “You’re great,” that’s like the best vote of confidence to go on and rock.
ALAN:
I mean, Foo Fighters aside, or maybe including Foo Fighters, what do people want from you as a keyboard player? Do they want your playing ability? Do they want your ability… Do they want your collection of keyboards? Do they want your programming abilities? What do you feel you give to people?
RAMI:
For sure, throw out the programming ability, because I have non. And, it’s so bizarre to be a keyboard player and…just hooking up MIDI for the first time here in this studio last year, and I was like, “Can you really do this?” I played a part and, you know, “Well, we’ll take out the 3rd here.” He took out the 3rd on the MIDI.
ALAN:
On a screen? You mean, just…
RAMI:
I’ve never had [inaudible] screen up. I’ve never. Well, the funny things is there was a period of my life where, you know, when I became wanted as a keyboard player in a studio, the main reason why I was getting the work was because they did not want a program MIDI guy. I had the broken keyboards and, “Here’s my Farfisa. This note doesn’t work. That note doesn’t work. It takes 45 minutes to warm up, and we’re going to have a great time.” You know, people were like, [makes clapping sound], you know. I don’t know how they paid me for that. So, that was mainly my thing. So, if anything, I was like do not show me any MIDI, because I’ll probably never work a day in my life…you know.
I had a deal with Yamaha and I was actually enjoying the Yamaha Motifs. I was like, this is incredible, you know, and I was doing certain things. The sound has four patches, you know, four drawbars, that affect the sound. So, here would be a cheesy guitar picking noise, you know something that would be on Seinfeld in between the credits, but you’d mess around here and you’d take out the attack and then you’d just have the feedback, and then here I have this sound that’s like this backwards Strawberry Fields flutes, but more interesting because it’s not the Strawberry Fields. So, it has these incredible sounds. They’re just right there, and I, you know, there’s so much great things that could happen. It not necessarily has to be MIDI, just these great things that, you know, are for sale.
ALAN:
So, you’re saying you’re a player, not a programmer, not a sounds guy particularly.
RAMI:
Sounds, yes.
ALAN:
I put that the wrong way. You don’t like getting right inside the machine to find out how sounds are generated and, you know, oscillate a level and all that kind of stuff? You’re not interested in that?
RAMI:
Well I’ve messed around with it, and if I got deeper into it, I would use it much more, because I would be a little more fluent in it and it wouldn’t be a searching game. But, with moos and other old synths, it’s almost…I like how it just starts fresh. There is no program. There is no… You know, you’ll be lucky when you tune oscillators and it’s in the track. But, I’m a per track player. You know, I want to hear it and just immediately go, “Oh, my Gosh,” turn on something and, “This is perfect.” Or, you know, “That’s definitely the wrong octave,” immediately you could… So, if I was a MIDI guy, like, “Here’s what I have in my wallet,” but you haven’t heard the track, yet. How do you know if your little famous tank of sounds… That’s why I love…
I’m really a B3 organ player. That’s what… My answer to what people usually get out of me is, “Play the B3. Do your thing.” I love it. The drawbars are like an equalizer. You’ve got some lows, you’ve got mids, you’ve got some highs. I can make any part fit into a song. You just, the minute you get into a track, you can hear what exactly fits. No one has to EQ and find your…
ALAN:
And, presumably a really good Leslie or, I mean…
RAMI:
Of course, yeah, a great 122 Leslie or any of the other [inaudible] ones. But, that’s my main rig. That is usually…
ALAN:
Any organ heroes? Brian Auger, maybe?
RAMI:
Oh, gosh. Well, Benmont Tench of The Heartbreakers is one of my organ heroes, because he taught me how to play very important simple things. If you hear Tom Petty’s stuff, it’s not busy, it’s not complicated, but the little pieces that are there are so important and so great and as strong as the lyric in the song to me, and to a lot of people, too. And, that’s what I try to do when I produce, is I want… I mean, people should be talented, you know, you should for sure be talented, I’m not saying that, but at the same time, you have to put out one piece. Like, with an opera singer. She wrote some amazing melodies for a song I sent to her, and it’s so complicated and almost too flashy, and…
ALAN:
Her vocal part was too flashy?
RAMI:
And it was all just her vocal, and that was just one vocal, we didn’t to the harmonies. But, I think the music audience today is a little suspicious when they hear anything too good, which boggles my mind, because it’s like well good is good. I mean, whether it’s MIDI or some great vocal line that’s crazy or weird time signature, but you have to deliver it in a certain way that makes even the most suspicious…like, “That’s too good,” or something. I don’t know what the chip on the shoulder is, but it seems… You know, I don’t really have that, but a lot of the music audience has that.
ALAN:
Have things changed for you since the digital audio workstation came along, you know the ability to cut and paste and move timings and stuff? Or, do you prefer sticking to the old school way?
RAMI:
You know, I love comping, and I don’t even do it the simple way, where I guess in Pro Tools you have them under. I don’t even know that mentality. That’s too scary. I need to see them. But, I love the screen. I mean, we’ll be tracking and I’m looking at the screen, and people are like…
ALAN:
But, you don’t have the mouse in your hand?
RAMI:
I don’t have the mouse in the hand when I work at the studio, because Ron does, which is great, because, that’s awful. You know what, when I had the mouse in the hand, once I hear something, I’m tuned out, because I’m a one tracked mind and I’m trying to fix something while going, you mind as well hit stop, because everyone’s thinking, “You like that bit at the end?” and you’re like, “All I heard was the little pop sound in the first bar. That’s all I could think.” I mean, I can’t even… If I have to pee, I can’t play a piano part. But, I love Pro Tools. I love the speed of it.
ALAN:
Using Pro Tools, does that come into your job description as a session player or not?
RAMI:
It does. You know why? For years now, 99% of the sessions I do, whether or not the session is down the block in Hollywood, they still… I come over, throw it into my hard drive… Or, actually they send me an mp3 on email with a, you know, “Do some cool little things in the chorus. Maybe take a stab at some verses.” I mean, this is huge projects, big bands, fancy producers and lots of political A&R people, and somehow I slip through the cracks. I’m allowed to do it by myself, come in with a B3 busy [phonetic] and a B3 safe, you know. Or, you know, I’ll nickname them, you know, depending on the song, just so I covered a little bit of bases, because I am consolidating solid files; I’m not sending them a mess of click and pops. But, I do it all myself. In fact, I don’t even…
ALAN:
So, it’s correspondence recording, right? It’s like sending files back and forth.
RAMI:
Yeah. And, I usually deliver it there. For some reason, uploading is never as easy. Downloading is simple, mp3, two seconds on your desktop.
ALAN:
You don’t miss the experience of, you know, saying here’s what I got and playing it in front of…
RAMI:
I love it. No, it’s really dangerous to…the bigger the project and I’m doing it over here with the whole band… Like I said, all the psychology and the politics, I almost need that to know exactly what I’m getting myself into. Because, I just want to please. I’m not one of these, “Here’s what I do,” that’s it. You know, I’m like, “I hope you’re happy with it, and I hope you don’t mute it everywhere,” and I can adjust. I mean, there’s so many ways to go.
ALAN:
Do you think we’re entering an age where, you know, literally every part might be phoned in, literally phoned in or just done on the Internet?
RAMI:
Well, no, the biggest thing I really miss is playing with everybody. And especially as a keyboard player, when you’re tracking with a band, the mentality from a producer’s…dialing the drummer in and a little bit of a bass and a little bit of guitar, and then keyboards are such a final icing, that by the time there’s a take, I’ve got the coolest part under the sun, you know. That’s the problem when I have to do it myself, that I’m not with everybody and hearing everything grow organically. And, I think that’s [inaudible].
ALAN:
Would that always be your preference, to be in a room with a band playing?
RAMI:
Oh, for sure, hands down. Because, way more special things can happen. When I do it myself, sure, for the most part we’re hoping for a really happy accident, which is also special, I hope, you know. But, I think, oh, gosh, when I’m in the room, just personality wise, just [inaudible] the right character, I thinks that’s the most important thing about music. Sometimes, they’ll be great players; they don’t connect. This bass player is not into that drummer, this guy is not into that, mentally, musically, and it’s just not going to go. As great as the song is, as incredible are the players, and for the most part it is sounding okay, there’s something that when it goes out there into the world, that it rubs somebody…you know, they change the channel. I always believe that. I don’t know.
ALAN:
You don’t think the modern age, the digital age, the mp3 download age, has it made everything too sterile, or is there still good music out there? What’s your attitude to how things have changed, say, in the last five years?
RAMI:
It’s so funny, because I am usually known as Mr. Rootsy, but I’m telling you, there’s some incredible MIDI sounds. Mp3’s, as shelved off as they are, is kind of my style of compression that I was really jiving on before this digital age really took off. So, when I came up, all these L2, or how you, you know, if you see the mp3 on a track and there’s no dynamic, I don’t know, maybe I’ve turned into one of these new generation people, but it speaks to me. As much as there is no dynamic, I’ll use my imagination during the verse. “That’s totally dynamic,” and then, “Wow.” I mean, I don’t know. It’s worked on me, which...
ALAN:
What about the mastering war, the level war, you know, keeping it loud?
RAMI:
Oh, gosh, it’s so… When I first picked up on it, or heard it through the grapevine that this is what’s going on… Because it is subtle. You know, you don’t, for the most part, you listen to something and it’s a little bit louder and you think it’s a little bit better. But, you know, what a trickery game for A&R people. And usually, around mastering is when the corporates come into the room, you know, “We’re getting to the end of this. What do we got here?” And that’s usually the mastering, and so if one guy is pushing it a little into hell, even though it’s distorting and obviously just deteriorating, it’s a little louder. And the A&R guy has his fancy…I don’t know what he’s got in his office, and he knows that knob goes to here when it points to a picture of his wife, I don’t know, but they usually…they know that. So, if they hear something slightly louder, they’re like, “This guy is really a great mixer, or you know, mastering. Pick that mastering.” And, it’s so sad, because…
ALAN:
I mean, my attitude is that it’s all going to be compressed to shit anyway on the radio, so why worry.
RAMI:
It always has been.
ALAN:
Why worry about whether it’s a couple dB quieter in your living room?
RAMI:
Sure. And, slightly distorted, I think cuts through more. I was trying to fuzz out bass way back when, you know, in the beginning of the track. It’s perfect now.
You know, I love…radio always had that tube compression just max leveled out. I was always like oh, I love that sound. That’s why when I got into compressors, I’m always like, “More. Go until it’s completely…” It starts sounding… You know, it’s funny, because subliminally, to me, it sounds like an old Aretha vocal how it’s distorted, and I never put my hands on it that it’s distorted. That’s its weird character that’s amazing….blues singers from belting out, though it’s slightly distorted….
[end part 1 of recording]
[begin part 2 of recording]
ALAN:
Okay one of Julian’s questions, which I think is a good, when does keyboard playing stop and arranging begin?
RAMI:
Well, arranging in the sense of producing or writing, I think it’s all in the same umbrella for me. My first love is playing keyboards, and writing is just fun to do. It’s another way to, you know, invent a project of the day to get this music on the road. I have a lot of fun doing it. It’s just another way to get people in a room and make music.
ALAN:
Tell us about your collection and why necessarily you would rather use the real thing, you know, a real B-3 and a real Wurlitzer as opposed to a soundpool of the same?
RAMI:
Well, when I’m crossing that bridge finally, where sure, all these vintage instruments, this is what I’m known for… Well the Hammond B-3, again, is so diverse and you can just make so many different sounds. It’s not just an organ. That’s, you know, you get in there and it makes a lot of fun stuff. But, MIDI gear, like is said, last year is the first year I actually played a part on a MIDI keyboard and then changed the sound to the same part or added…[interrupted due to background noise] Van Nuys Airport, all the private jets.
ALAN:
Why don’t you backtrack and run that again? That was interesting.
RAMI:
Although I love most vintage keyboards, especially the Hammond B-3 organ, I mean, they make so many great sounds and have so much character. Sometimes, even the buzz on some of them, people are like, “Can you play that?” I’m like, “That’s something when I…it’s a malfunction.” It’s a perfect malfunction, and I’m trying to get it over and over. I lost my mic. [fixes mic]
ALAN:
So, I need to backtrack again.
RAMI:
Yeah, yeah. Although most of the keyboards I play are vintage and Hammond B-3 organ and Wurlitzer’s, they make incredible noises, even sometimes the buzzes can be musical, recently plugging in a MIDI keyboard and actually playing one part to a certain sound, let’s say mellotrone flutes, and then…the touch, as hard as you hit it, and exact notes come through with changing every sound, it’s incredible. I know it sounds so basic, and I remember that was…I remember hearing that that’s what MIDI is, for the most part, is for keyboard players, but it’s incredible. Because, then you can throw on sounds that have completely different attack and you could combine them, different levels, and sometimes the original sound you started with is abandoned, and you’re like, “This is incredible.”
ALAN:
Is it sometimes hard to make a decision when to commit, knowing that you can change the sound if you have the MIDI track?
RAMI:
I am definitely… The hardest thing for me, most recently it seems like artists are, “I want it very sparse. I don’t want a wall of guitars in the choruses. I don’t want way to much lush overdubs and things,” and I love those things. And with Pro Tools and MIDI and all these great keyboards all under the same roof, I have trouble stopping and holding the reigns, because if it sounds good, it sounds good. And a lot of people, you know what, I think maybe they’ve heard some Ray la Montagne record and, “I want it completely sparse,” you know. The song doesn’t call for it; you’re just a fan of some other song and you’re trying to contaminate the session. But, yeah, I definitely have trouble knowing when to stop, because there are so many great options.
And, everything has its place. I’m not saying everything is full on and volume. I really, you know, I love the puzzle game on Pro Tools, when you put down a lot of different ideas, this is great right here, this is great right here, and sure it’s not thinking of a band performing it at a club down the street, because how is he going to switch around, but it makes the song sound great and it adds a lot.
ALAN:
Do you ever think, when you’re either playing or producing, do you ever think about how it’s going to transfer to the live stage?
RAMI:
It depends. For sure, when I’m recording keyboard… A lot of the time I have this problem with most sessions, the band says, “Now we have to get a keyboard player,” because I went in to play a little something over the chorus on a single to make it sound expensive, I don’t know how. And then, you know, “Can I try something in the verse,” and all of the sudden, I’m playing from the top of the song to the end. And then, “Can we put up another track? Can we put up another track?” “Sure, sure, sure.” And then, it’s part of their sound for that record, and then they have to go get a keyboard player to tour and stuff. But, I don’t mean to… I’m there, again, to make people happy and, you know, for the most part, they do get a keyboard player and it works out great for them.
ALAN:
When you consider a project is finished, do you take on an independent mixing engineer or do you do it in-house, you do it with the same team that you recorded it with?
RAMI:
The stuff I do, when I do it, Ron is a great engineer and mixer, and this is an amazing mixing facility, because I put all my gear and his Trident 4 [could possibly say “Ford”]. It’s over the top, even as a mixing room.
ALAN:
Have you ever been pressured by A&R people to take on somebody else and you’d rather not?
RAMI:
I’ve been lucky that the projects I’ve done either the A&R people are “do you own thing,” and it’s just been that kind of, you know, nothing major label and scary brask [phonetic] coming into the room. And, I don’t know if I’m ready to take that plunge ever, but for now, it’s been fun and…
ALAN:
Do A&R people intimidate you?
RAMI:
They don’t intimidate me, but they have a job to do—and then it conflicts with the job of everybody else. You know, I want the musicians and the artists to be happier than an A&R person who had a certain day and is just coming and dumping on…you know. But, just the same, I’ve heard A&R people with very smart advice and very direct, you know, getting a feeling from them that this is actually what they want, and that band actually signed a contract to, you know, work together. So, it’s a happy medium somewhere between…
ALAN:
Very good. I think we’re covered.
JULIAN:
One question.
ALAN:
Yeah, go ahead.
JULIAN:
You work with a lot of kind of younger people, who you’re kind of doing pre-production and development stuff. How do you kind of help younger people, younger bands or artists, in a studio feel comfortable? Is there a kind of process that you do to make people feel comfortable?
RAMI:
That’s interesting, because I love that. Because, the one thing I’ve seen is producer’s bedside manner, if that’s the right kind of word, where it’s like a psychology certain game to make the artist comfortable to get the best product out of them, and I’ve seen so many producers say the wrong thing. You do have to have a certain bedside manner or, you know, kind of a small head game to make everyone as comfortable as possible to get the best thing. And, I’ve seen so many things. I mean, artists are an insecure breed, so it’s a very fine line to walk when, you know, saying, “Oh, this song has got to be way different.” And artists are, “Oh, you don’t like what I…” you know. There’s going to be a “You don’t like what I do” before, “Great, let’s make this better.” So, you know, there’s a way of saying things, and I think that’s the biggest, the best thing I can do as a producer is make people feel comfortable to get the best possible product.
ALAN:
Just one last question. You’ve covered an incredible wide range of musical styles, Stevie Nicks, Garth Brookes, Go-Go’s, Ziggy Marley, LeAnn Rimes, Keith Urban, Rich Sambora, I mean…
RAMI:
Johnny Cash.
ALAN:
Johnny Cash, as well?
RAMI:
From Johnny Cash to the Foo Fighters, everything in between.
ALAN:
And, does everybody get the same kind of treatment or do you sort of treat one…do you sort of put on a country music hat when you’re playing country music and say this is what they would like, or do you try always just to be a fresh approach to it and…
RAMI:
I’m definitely a chameleon of sorts. I might grow a beard before I go to Nashville. No… I am a chameleon. Again, it’s part of the put on the right hat to please the next, you know, thing, but maybe not literally the hat. But, I do go in… But, sometimes it could be something different, you know…
ALAN:
And when you’re traveling to another studio, I mean traveling to Nashville, do you find you wish you were back here with your own collection of keyboards, or do you…
RAMI:
Sometimes. I always used to feel that way when I went to Hollywood for a session. Maybe a Cardige [phonetic], a B-3, and a funky upright piano, but there’s a billion toys when I get there, and I hear gosh, I wish I had this little Casio to whip out and show them this bizarre little thing over the bridge, but it’s not here and they can’t even rent one. I’d have to drive home and get it. And just mentioning that to a producer would be like, “We’ll move on from here.” I mean, it’s just…
ALAN:
There are some studios, particularly in Nashville, that have their own good connections.
RAMI:
Sure. Well, in Nashville I usually strictly am there to play B-3 organ, because every time I’m there it seems like there’s a person for everything. There’s a piano guy, a kind of guy who does accordion once in a while, I’m the B-3 guy. I mean, they are to the dime of just a really well oiled machine. Like, LA has never been, well at least in the 90’s, you know, since I’ve been recording… It’s really so together. You know, there’s one guy plays acoustic rhythm guitar, and next to him another guy who plays acoustic lead guitar, and very sparsely, you know, they don’t just cake it on. But, instead of one guy, you know, “I’ll play that part.” Usually, I’ll play all kinds of keyboards. On Wallflower records, I was playing some guitar. I have this weird guitar part with this whammy thing, Bigsby [phonetic], “Well, come on and do it,” you know, even beyond keyboards, but… In Nashville, it seems everyone has their place.
But, about putting on the right hat or right smile for a certain session, I’ll fly all the way to Nashville and get in the studio at Blackbird with Keith Urban and Dan Huff producing, and I’ll think, “I’m here for a country session,” and what they… I remember going over a song, everybody is in there playing. We heard a demo of a song. We started tracking, and I was kind of lost, because it’s a number…they do charts with numbers, which I kind of know what’s going on, but I try not to look at charts, because it takes me to a different place and it’s not what I’m known for doing.
ALAN:
Are you a quick learner?
RAMI:
What?
ALAN:
Are you a quick learner?
RAMI:
Not necessarily a quick learner, but I try to come in as a deaf, dumb, and blind boy. You know, I think that’s when my best things come out and something that actually has character and is simple at the same time. So, I don’t want to learn too much, because it makes me play special notes because that’s all I know right now. And, that’s what happened to the take of a song, and I swear it was just a few chord song, but I had one note going on the B-3 and bringing in and out and a little fuller [phonetic] in the chorus and it worked over all the chords. And, at the end of the take, Dan Huff said, “Come on in. That sounds great.” And, as I walked in, Keith Urban said, “That was the most incredible keyboard part.” And, I was looking around like I was going to be punked, and I was like “Where’s Ashton Kutcher?” Because, I swear, I was like, “You enjoyed that?” But, they were so relieved, because the organ player that they had before was two hands, and I mean, it was just a rock song, and you just have to come in and out and color it and make it sound like a band. And, they were like, “You sound like you’ve played in bands.” I’m like, “That’s what I do.”
So, it’s really what… Sometimes, you’ll think they want something and what you did by accident is what they wanted, so it’s hard to have the notion of where it’s going to go before you get there. You just got to… You could come in with a cowboy hat and they’re like, “We wanted to do rock.” And here’s a bandana, you know what I mean? I’m like, damn, I came in with the wrong hat. So, you’ve got to be careful.
ALAN:
Thank you so much.
RAMI:
Yes. Thank you so much.
ALAN:
That was great. Super.
[End Recording]
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Raw Transcription
Interview with Dave Smith, Designer of the Prophet-5, Evolver, and Prophet '08 Synthesizers
[Begin Recording]
ALAN:
I’m sitting with a gentleman who’s had a profound affect on music technology over the last few years, in particular the use of microprocessors in keyboards, the development of MIDI and right up to software synthesizers. Welcome, Dave Smith. Thank you so much for joining us.
DAVE:
Thank you.
ALAN:
Tell us a little bit about your beginnings. Did you start with electronics or did it start with music, or what?
DAVE:
I started with both music and electronics. I got a degree from the University of California at Berkeley in electrical engineering and computer science, and separately in high school and college, I, of course, played in bands, being in the 60’s. So, shortly after I got out of college, synthesizes were starting to become commercially available.
The first one I saw was a minimoog in, I think, probably 1972, and soon as I saw it, I knew I had to buy it. And, I went down, borrowed money from my company credit union, and bought the thing. It was $1,500. And, I took it home and started playing with it and fell in love with synthesis.
ALAN:
$1,500 was a lot of money in those days.
DAVE:
It was a lot of money, yeah.
ALAN:
Did you actually end up ever meeting Robert Moog?
DAVE:
Oh, sure, not till a few years late. What happened is I started building accessories for the minimoog, just for my own use, sequencers and little toys and so forth. And then, I started selling some of those things that I was making. And one thing led to another, and by the middle of the 70’s I had my own company, Sequential Circuits, building these accessories. And, I probably met Bob later in the 70’s when I was doing Prophet 5.
ALAN:
What kind of accessories were they?
DAVE:
Like I said, sequencers were the first thing, first in analog sequenced [inaudible] old three rows of 16 knob step sequencer. And, I think I sold four of those. The next one was a digital sequencer that stored like 256 steps, and you could program it from the keyboard and play it back. And then, the third product was a programmer for minimoog and ARP 2600’s. It allowed you to save some patch memory in the programmer and could switch quickly between programs, which wasn’t possible back then.
ALAN:
That was a major development, wasn’t it? I mean, being able to call up sounds on a synth…
DAVE:
Yeah. The problem was, since it was an external device, it couldn’t remember the whole program, but a lot of it. So, it was a big step, but it wasn’t a complete solution, which is one of the things that led me to designing to the Prophet 5 in 1977.
ALAN:
The Prophet 5 was an enormously successful instrument. Do you attribute the success to any particular aspect of its design?
DAVE:
Well, the Prophet 5 was successful for probably two main reasons. One, it was polyphonic. You could play five notes at a time, which was not usually possible back then. And, the second thing was that it had complete memory recall of all the parameters. And again, those two features together in one instrument was new.
It was the first musical instrument with a microprocessor, and that’s what allowed us to do that. And, it didn’t hurt that it sounded really good, also. So, it became kind of the product that everybody had to have in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
ALAN:
What about, you know, the fact that it combined digital and analog technology?
DAVE:
Well, like I said, it was the first thing that had…first commercial musical instrument with a microprocessor. And what the microprocessor did is all the housekeeping of tracking the keyboard and the knobs and keeping the memory and so forth, but the sound generation was all still done in the analog realm, so that’s why it sounded so good. So, it was kind of the perfect marriage of the two technologies. So, it didn’t have a digital sound, because, well, digital sound was still a few years away back then, but it gave you all the benefits of having digital control.
ALAN:
Has that philosophy continued to this day in your current designs?
DAVE:
Yes. Actually, my current designs are kind of a throw back. I’m doing digital control of analog circuitry again. There was a long period of time where pretty much everything was digital, and you know, after a while it gets kind of old to your ears. And, nobody else was really doing anything like this.
You know, Moog reintroduced the minimoog, which was very successful. And, I was developing the Evolver and the Poly Evolver lines, which are basically digitally controlled analog synthesizers. And, I think a lot of people forgot what they were missing. Because, they only subtractive synthesizes around were digital emulations or software emulations, so when they heard a real thing, all of the sudden the lights come on and they go, “Oh, okay, now I get it. Now I see what everybody is talking about.”
ALAN:
Let’s talk about MIDI. Can you give us an insight into, you know, how…did the idea just suddenly occur to you as a light bulb going off in your head, or did it develop gradually? How did it all start?
DAVE:
The idea for MIDI came about a number of different ways. The first step was, as I mentioned, our instruments had microprocessors in them. And after we introduced the Prophet 5 in 1978, over the next two or three years everybody else started making instruments with microprocessors also, and we all started developing our own digital interfaces to interconnect our different instruments.
Well, it became obvious to a lot of us that if the instruments could talk to each other but not to other brands, that that’s kind of silly and limiting for the customers. And, there had been some loose talks between some of us, you know, Tom Oberheim, Kakehashi from Roland, knowing that we needed to do something. So, that was kind of the start.
ALAN:
Why was it considered necessary for different synth manufactures to be able to communicate with each other? Was the notion that one keyboard would control another already in place at that point, or was it…
DAVE:
It was… Like, we could control a sequential keyboard with another sequential keyboard, or connect a sequencer to our own gear, but it wouldn’t work with a Roland or a Yamaha. And while in one hand it’s nice to say well, our stuff only works with ours and, you know, forget everybody else, I think a lot of us realized that for the industry to go, we really had to have a common interface so everything connected and not just individuals. So, it seemed to us to be an obvious need.
ALAN:
Did you find it was a battle to get the corporation [inaudible] to manufacture?
DAVE:
Yes. Basically, what happened is after some initial talks, I decided to take the bull by the horns, and I actually, at Sequential we wrote up an interface as kind of an example and a proposal. And, I actually gave a talk at the 1981, I believe, AES Convention in New York, and pretty much putting this out as a proposal, kind of a call to arms to all the companies, saying let’s do this, here’s an example, it doesn’t have to be this, but we really need to do something. So, that was the first step.
And then, three months later, at the January NAMM Show in Anaheim, I organized a meeting, and we invited everybody who had anything to do with synthesizers or keyboards. And surprisingly, most of them came. We had just about everybody there, and, I did the same pitch. I said, “Here’s something we can start with. We really need to do something. You know, who’s on board?”
And that’s when we starting getting the push back. A lot of companies either wanted these huge interfaces that nobody would use or would cost too much, or they weren’t interested in sharing with the companies, their technology, and just kind of backed off. So, that’s when we, later in that same show, we got together with Roland, Yahama, Korg and Kawai, and with Sequential Circuits we decided let’s just go forward and do it ourselves, we’re not going to worry about anybody else, but we know it needs to be done, so let’s do it.
ALAN:
So, was it you that came up with the five pin DIN connector concept, or was that…
DAVE:
It was a mix. As it turned out, I think Roland and Sequential did most of the product. Some of the other companies I think were not quite sure what they were doing there, but they knew needed to be there. The five pin DIN optical interface was actually Roland’s idea. So, Roland brought together quite a few of the suggestions, and we were trying to just make sure that something happens. So, we were very easy to convince to go one way or the other.
Because, actually, earlier on, there were a lot of complaints that MIDI was too slow. Well, at Sequential, our interface that we were using before MIDI was like 30 times faster than MIDI. But, we realized you have to compromise, you need to make something that everybody will agree to, so we decided okay, well, we’ll go slower and it will be okay. And, it was just a lot of work to get… You know, it was a compromise between the companies involved.
ALAN:
Do you remember whether you said to yourself I want to be able to control every aspect of another synthesizer through this new interface I’ve invented, or was it literally just to play one keyboard and make it sound on the other?
DAVE:
Well, that was the very basic thing, was the note aspects with some controller information. But, we were looking ahead even then to being able to do a lot more than just that. In fact, even the initial spec that we wrote at Sequential, we called it the universal synthesizer interface at that time, or USI. It had pictures of computers in there and showed connecting up keyboards to computers, and you know, we were already looking into that in the future, even though the computers at the time were like Commodore 64’s, I believe were the most popular computers being used. And, we purposely kept a spec open enough that things could be added later, things that we weren’t thinking about, like when people started adding lighting control to it or adding more timing information to it or MIDI files for samples and that sort of thing, so it…
The amazing thing about MIDI is here we are 25 plus years later and it’s still version 1.0, and you can still take any product that’s built today and connect it to something that was built 25 years ago and it will work just fine. You don’t find that anywhere in electronics.
ALAN:
Do you see that continuing? Do you that think we need to develop away from MIDI 1.0? Or, do you…
DAVE:
It would be nice to have a new interface beyond MIDI 1.0, and there are actually a number of formats that are trying to do just that. In a way, it was real easy when we did, because, like I said, there were only four or five companies. We were all synthesizer manufacturers. It was fairly easy to get agreement and get something done within a year.
Now if you want to do something, you first have to decide, well, where do you stop? Do you have audio on there, and if you do have audio, how many channels, and how many bits? Do you want to put video in there? How much control do you want? And plus, you know, the amount of companies that would be involved…you know, the computer companies will want to be involved, the software companies, the hardware companies, the lighting companies. Anybody who makes anything as a musical instrument as a piece of technology would want to have their input on it. So, I personally would not want to be involved in trying to get that many people to agree on something.
ALAN:
It’s fair to say, I mean, MIDI changed the world. Did you actually coin the phrase, maybe? Did you come up with that?
DAVE:
Yeah. Actually, I still remember when that happened. We had a meeting at Sequential in San Jose, and Kakehashi Sun [phonetic] was visiting from Roland. And during that meeting, you know, we already had decided that the USI name wasn’t going to work. Somebody had told us. well, you shouldn’t use the world universal, because you might get antitrust lawsuits or something, which was kind of silly, looking back. And, the Japanese companies came up with the UMII, universal musical instrument interface, and they thought it was kind of cute because it meant you-me and that’s how you’d pronounce it, so you and me can connect.
And in that meeting, I kind of said, well, trying to be polite I said, “I just don’t like the sound of that,” and we just kind of tossed around ideas, and MIDI popped into my head. I wanted musical instrument and not just synthesizer, and we didn’t want universal, and we wanted digital interface, because that’s what it is. And, it just kind of flowed and it sounded perfect, and that’s when it what was chosen.
ALAN:
Any comment on the expression on MIDI Interface, which is actually musical instrument digital interface interface?
DAVE:
Interface interface, yeah. Well, there’s a lot of ones. There are M.I.D.I. or M1D1 or… We’ve heard lots of variations. For a while, we were calling it “muddy” at first, because things weren’t connecting always. We found there were actually some interpretation differences from the spec. Like, Yamaha would interpret something a certain way that wasn’t the way it was intended, so we actually added a mode because they did it that way, and it was in the DX7’s. So, since there were 100,000 of them out there, we kind of had to incorporate that into the spec. So, the first couple of years were difficult.
ALAN:
Did you anticipate that MIDI would change the world the way it did?
DAVE:
Yes and no. Did I know it was going to be in something called cell phones, in billions of them, somebody? No. Did I know how annoying it would be when they were in cell phones? No. We did know they’d be on computers. We didn’t realize that it would be on a billion computers somebody, because it was hard to think of computers taking over the way they did back when, again, you were dealing with Apple 2E’s and Commodore 64’s.
We did think it was going to popularize synthesizers and take the whole industry forward, which it did. It pretty much created the home recording industry. Back before you can record audio, it was a way to connect drum machines and synthesizers and, you know, do some composing by yourself at home and have it all play back. So, in a way, it kind of was the birth of the home recording business. And, we foresaw some of that, but maybe not as much as really happened.
ALAN:
Let’s move on to soft synths.
DAVE:
Okay.
ALAN:
I think it’s fair to say that you were the first to come up with that notion, as well.
DAVE:
In a commercial sense. Obviously, soft synths have been around to certain degrees in universities and so forth. But, what we did at Seer Systems was we first developed a software synthesizer that was a general MIDI synthesizer. And, this is under contract to Intel, because they wanted new apps that would use a lot of processor power. This was way back when they…well, like now, they always want to sell bigger and faster processors. So, the first one actually would run on a 486, if you remember those, Pentium processor…or, right before the Pentium processors.
We then built a second generation soft synth that we licensed to Creative Labs that they used in the AWE64 sound card, which had 32 voices of hardware, and 32 voices of software. And, that was when Pentiums were around, so we were able to get more voices and do more synthesis.
And then, just after that, we developed the reality synthesizer, which was pretty the first professional real software synth, because finally the computers were just fast enough to actually do it. And that was, I think, ’95, maybe around there. And, it was pretty much the first thing, and it had a lot of different types of synthesis. It can do sampling and analog, subtractive synthesis and FM, and some physical modeling, and all in one piece of software. And, at the time, we actually called it the future of musical synthesis, which unfortunately we were mostly right on.
But, it was a first, and it was difficult to explain it to people. People would come at a trade show and say, “Well, what am I hearing?” And you’d say, “This is our new software synthesizer.” And they would go, “Well, what do you mean?” And we’d say, well, it’s a piece of software running in the computers. And they’d say, “Well, I don’t see anything. Where is it?” And, it was difficult to get the concept of a piece of software being a musical instrument, at first.
ALAN:
Even with a keyboard on the screen? Or, was all the incoming information coming through MIDI?
DAVE:
We would play it from a keyboard, usually, a MIDI keyboard into the computer would be the, you know, to show that it was a real musical instrument. But, it may have ended up confusing them a little bit more.
ALAN:
So, you didn’t at that time have a graphic display of a keyboard on the screen?
DAVE:
Yeah, we did. I mean, that was another way of doing it, but we were trying to sell it as a professional musical instrument, so we wanted to show people that you can actually play this with reasonably low latency from a real keyboard and hear it back out like a real musical instrument.
ALAN:
Being software, presumably, you’ve encountered piracy problems. Tell us about that.
DAVE:
Excuse me?
ALAN:
Piracy.
DAVE:
Yeah, there were piracy problems. I think, you know, we actually…I got out of that whole side of the business before it really took off. So, it was before there was much of a problem with that. My problem with software synthesizers—I kind of had a Eureka moment one day when I realized I was never playing the synthesizer. And, I always play with my own instruments. I mean, that’s half the fun of developing them is to be able to play with them. And, I started asking myself why, because it sounded good, it did a lot of different things.
And, I realized it was because I didn’t like having to use a mouse and look up at a screen and go over here to a keyboard and move back and forth and drag something with the mouse, and I just really didn’t like the look and the feel of it. And, that was kind of the beginning of turning away from software synthesizers and getting back into hardware for me.
ALAN:
So, it wasn’t the notion that you can’t pirate a hardware keyboard, but you can pirate a software keyboard?
DAVE:
Right.
ALAN:
Did that enter your head, that notion?
DAVE:
Ask me that question again, actually.
ALAN:
Pirating software is a problem.
DAVE:
Right.
ALAN:
With all areas of music technology. But, if you physically build a tangible object like this keyboard here, it can’t be pirated.
DAVE:
Right. Okay.
ALAN:
It can be copied, but it can’t be pirated. Did that notion, you know, did you give consideration to that when you decided to go away from software and back into hardware?
DAVE:
Piracy was a consideration. I don’t think it was the driving force, but like I used to say back then, hardware is the ultimate dongle. You can’t crack it, you can’t duplicate it, it’s… It’s part of the side of things. I didn’t want to keep building something… I used to predict back then, I said, “You know, someday, all this stuff is going to be free. There’s really not going to be much of a business in software synths.” I may have overstated that, because people are still selling software synths now, but you notice most of the software companies are building hardware now. They’re starting to build some…they start with little boxes and maybe whole instruments that house their software synths. Because, I think they’re finding that same thing, that it’s not a great business model.
You know, already if you buy an Apple computer, you get software synthesizers with it for free, you don’t even pay for them. So, in a sense, it is free to a large degree, and it’s hard to compete against free.
And, of course, even the hardware business now, it’s not like it used to be. If I had these same instruments I sell now, if I had them 10 or 15 years ago, I’d be selling tens of thousands of them. And, that’s not the case anymore, because we are competing with free.
ALAN:
We’ll probably move on to talking about your newest products in a moment and putting up one of the cameras to your handheld, but just a final question before we do that.
DAVE:
Okay.
ALAN:
When you look back at the developments that you’ve come up with in the context of how they’ve changed the music industry, that presumably makes you very proud. And, I think probably people would look at your work and say, “My God, he must have become a multi-millionaire through all these amazing developments. Can you just comment on that?
DAVE:
Well, the business side of things isn’t always quite as big as you would think. I remember when my kids used to give me a grief for not charging royalties on MIDI. I used to think…I used to say if I got a nickel per jack, I’d be a rich man. Of course, now, if I got a tenth of a cent per use, I’d be a rich man. But, we knew we had to give MIDI away for free, because we wanted to make sure it worked. We didn’t want to have ownership, we didn’t want to have to deal with that, we wanted to make sure everybody used it. So, no, I’m not a real rich person. I’m still working. I’m still designing synths, half because I need a job, and half because I really like doing it.
But, as an instrument designer, the payoff, of course, is always to go to a show and see somebody using it live, to listen to a record and know that your instrument is a big part of the sound. I mean, that’s…seeing how people use the instrument, that’s what it’s all about for a designer. I mean, that’s the payoff.
ALAN:
Excellent, great. Anything, Julian? Any requests from Julian before we take the camera off?
JULIAN:
[inaudible]
ALAN:
MIDI obviously has developed an enormous amount since the days when you first invented it and caused, you know, keyboards to talk to each other, synthesizer’s control of parameters in external equipment. In the digital audio workstation age, things become enormously complex, and our demands on a control interface between devices has become a lot more complex. Is MIDI going to last into the next millennium, or does it need to develop in some other area? Does MIDI have lasting power, or are we going to start using ethernet, or are we going to start using some interface that hasn’t even been thought of, yet?
DAVE:
Well, there’s two sides to the MIDI interface. Part of it is the physical side, and part of it is the, you know, the communication side of what’s actually being controlled. MIDI is flexible enough to handle things like control. You can have fairly high resolution, and you can control things. And already, MIDI is being run over USB and over ethernet and all sorts of different physical interfaces. So, you know, the old rap against MIDI used to be it’s too slow, but right now MIDI is actually virtual in most cases and runs as fast as your computer, because it’s entirely internal. Or, it’s coming over a USB cable, where it’s not stuck at the old MIDI interface speed.
But, the reason people are using MIDI is it’s the really great thing about having a real standard, is somebody knows that this standard has been out there for 25 years, so if they work within that, they knew that they’re going to be able to work anywhere they want to take their instrument or their software or whatever it is they’re working on. And, that’s the real power of having a true standard. It’s not an almost standard or one of three standards, but it’s the one single standard that everybody can work within.
ALAN:
Good. Your latest creation is the Prophet 8. Tell us about it and how it developed.
DAVE:
Okay. The Prophet 08 is new for this year, because it was actually 30 years ago that the Prophet 5 came out in 1978. So, that’s why it’s Prophet 08, kind of a year thing and a 30 year special.
Actually, it’s funny. When I started designing this product, I didn’t think I was building a Prophet. I was just building a low-cost analog polyphonic synth, kind of the old style, like in the 80’s. And, it was only when I was just about done and I started playing it a lot, and I realized how good it sounded and it did remind me of the old Prophets, and that’s when we decided to go ahead with the name.
But, basically, for $2,000, it’s got eight voices, a five octave keyboard with velocity and pressure, all the things that we didn’t have in the original Prophet 5. The original Prophet 5 was like $4,600 in 1978 dollars. This is $2,000 in our worthless currency of the day. So, needless to say, the technology has come quite a ways. But at the same time, the filter chips are the same Curtis filters that we used to use in the original Prophet 5. So, it’s got basically the same sound. It doesn’t sound exactly like a Prophet 5, because it is a different instrument. Just like a Prophet T8 didn’t sound like a Prophet 5, and a Pro 1 was different, and the Prophet VS was different, but it has the basic character of the Prophet.
And, it more or less reintroduces the concept of knob per function, which is missing in most keyboards and musical instruments these days. If you’ve ever played a synthesizer before, when you look at it, it’s like looking at an old friend. Everything is exactly where you think it should be. You know, the oscillators, then the filters, then the VCA’s and the envelopes and right there, and you don’t have to go through menus and figure out how to use it. You just grab a knob and turn it, which is great for people just learning synthesizers these days. You can just but it, play the presets and just start turning knobs. You don’t even have to know what they do. But, if you turn a knob, it will change the sound, and if you like it, you can save it. If you don’t, you can move on and make other changes. So, it’s kind of an update of all the modern features on an old classic.
ALAN:
And, it has MIDI, of course.
DAVE:
And, it has MIDI. I don’t even have USB on there, which every once in a while I gets complaints about. But, MIDI will plug into USB easily enough, so we kept it simple.
ALAN:
Good. And then, this piece here.
DAVE:
Should I just talk?
ALAN:
Yeah, absolutely.
DAVE:
This is our brand new product, which just came out a month ago. It’s called the Mopho which is short for monophonic synthesizer, and that’s basically what it is. It’s a single voice analog synthesizer in a small format. It’s got a limited number of knobs to make it very fast and easy to use, which is great for beginners, but it’s very deep. It’s got all the same controls internally as a Prophet 8 does. In fact, it’s almost the same as a one voice of a Prophet 8. It actually comes with a software editor for both the PC and the Mac’s, so if you like working that way, you can.
And, it has this handy little button here that basically will trigger sounds or toggle them on and off or start sequences. And so, we’re finding it’s a great little box for DJ’s, who just want a little something extra in their rig. They can just hit a button any time they want and get some incredibly loud and powerful sounds.
This thing looks tiny and small, but will actually put out some pretty amazingly large sounds, and it’s got a great low end on it.
ALAN:
But, only one sound at a time [inaudible]?
DAVE:
Only one sound. But, like I said, it will put up enough sound with that one voice, that it can be kind of scary, actually. You should plug it in.
ALAN:
Alright.
[End Recording]