Laurie Spiegel plays Alles synth - temporary replacement

[SPFXsynthesisers]

Laurie = genius synth babe.

[iain42]

This is great. Thanks for posting. Gotta love the pioneers of electronic music. :)

[johninfl]

I actually saw this video in a DVD from Netflix, about the history of electronic music...I think it was produced by "OHM"....Very cool...Thanks..

[DeRex9]

This is serious synth porn, btw when was this synth built, 60's ? can anyone answer please? Thank you for great upload.

[MusicMouse]

@DeRex9 "Synth porn"? I hope that isn't bad. This synth was built in 1977 by Hal Alles and his team at Bell Telephone Labs, Holmdel, NJ. It is all digital. There was no realtime digitial synthesis in the 1960s and this one-of-a-kind instrument was a first in many ways. Hal and BTL got a lot of patents out of it. There is a link on the video's page to a Computer Music Journal article that more fully describes it.

[DeRex9]

@MusicMouse Thank you :)

[6364gg2]

Put unix on it, and you've got the best computer in existance.

[MusicMouse]

@6364gg2 It wasn't that kind of general purpose computer. We could only program it remotely, from a PDP 11/45 in another part of the building over trunk cables. Those 11/45s did run early UNIX and the software I wrote for this interactive performance set-up was in an early version of C. - Laurie

[plungerdrum]

The control panel to the universe...

[goatgodagain]

On the random fun side of this synth, one could start the sequencer program, remove the end-of-buffer flag, and the poor LSI-11 will happily decrement down through RAM playing anything it runs across. Much of it was variations on puttering sounds but it would sometimes come out with brilliant and funny interludes.

[MrWillbloke]

@MusicMouse , second link doesn't work :-( .

I managed to find some info on Wiki but then got sidetracked reading about the Amy chip !

I work in a University supporting Music Tech , got really interested in early computer music when a Lecturer played me John Chownings Turenas on our Pro-tools surround rig !

[MusicMouse]

@MrWillbloke That second link is just one of those on the page at the first link. Look for it. I did that RAM-scan-to-DAC thing on Apple II but not on the Hal Alles synth, which had hardware FM osc, not software synthesis outputting to a DAC.

[MrWillbloke]

@MusicMouse . Is there any information of the system being used ? Block diagrams or schematics ? Thanks for sharing !

[MusicMouse]

@MrWillbloke Yes there is. Scroll down a bit on this page:

retiary.org/ls/obsolete_system­s

Detailed tech info on the instrument is in this pdf:

retiary.org/ls/obsolete_system­s/Alles_synth_1977.pdf

Thanks for asking. You're the first person who ever did.

[lordoid]

@MusicMouse Thank you very much! Interesting to read. I wonder if one of these ist still existant or in use. A somewhat ugly instrument in terms of looks (well that's of course a matter of taste) but you created some beautiful music with it. :)

[MusicMouse]

@lordoid "One of these?" There only ever was one. It was a prototype and test for many of its components and a proof-of-concept for a realtime digital synthesis musical instrument. Compared to the large room-sized computers used for making music at that time it was sleek, small and cute, and it was blue - beautiful and little in the context of its times. This instrument went o Oberlin College. I don't know its status there today, if it is still there or works.

[MusicMouse]

@lordoid It was a true prototype, so there only ever was one of these. After Bell Labs it went to Oberlin College computer music lab. I don't think they ever got it to work. Had to be programmed in the C language remotely over a UNIX network.

[MusicMouse]

@lordoid Ah! I just found your message. You already checked it out at Oberlin. (Good work!) I heard a rumor it was dropped on the stairs while being moved and was never the same again, but that was only a rumor. It was extremely far from an easy instrument to program, that in itself could have been why it never sang again.

[WavyGravyTrain1]

How much does that unit weigh?

[MusicMouse]

@WavyGravyTrain1 About 300 pounds.

[paulj0557]

Not only is it bitchin' sounding, it also looks cool as hell and if I was going to make synth it would look just like this.

[rockingharderthanyou]

Thank you.!

[rukano]

this is totally great... I could listen to it for days! it has something different and more attracting the most of the moder "i-can-do-everything" synths... thanks for this!

[MusicMouse]

Yes it was FM synthesis - several years before the Yamaha DX-7 came out and with additional variables, such as putting the number of harmonics in the modulator and carrier on real-time faders, which was probably unique to the software played in this video.

[KiopGenJin]

@MusicMouse You mean hardware right? Software synths didn't exist back in 1977. By the way it's ADDITIVE synthesis not FM synthesis. Huge difference.

[MusicMouse]

Hi KipGenJin. I definitely meant FM, but you are right that there were additive processes going on as well. The FM modulator and carrier signals were created by additive synthesis, with the number of harmonics in each controlled in real time by sliders. The digitally-generated sine waves that were added to form the carrier and modulator signal waveforms were made by hardware that was being prototyped in the lab and tested by musical use in this instrument. I hope that answers your questions ok.

[MusicMouse]

Also although realtime "software synths" were not feasible at that point except the generation very simple signals (e.g. squarewaves by bit-toggling or noise generators by scanning CORE memory content to a DAC), non-realtime (non-interactive) software synthesis had been going on since the late 1950s.

[ajantred]

Its like a big DX7 :D

[threeby8887]

Wow this is good.

[studiodreadful]

Gut gemacht, Danke ...

[upongod]

huh is she trying to speack with alien ? on a giant nintendo ?

[iamnaughty123]

response to harmono,,,,,,,,,I love the spacey music, or Earth Music. The Satellite music services have this stuff and it's so relaxing, not to hear a beat or heavy bass beats and drums and foul language

[ozzieforbes]

Laurie what do you think about Delia? Did you ever have communication with her?

[lostinthetimes]

Wow. Who wants to buy any vital organs? Kidney anyone?

I'm saving up for one of these!

Amazing post.

[TRaddcliff]

can she play the same thing twice?

its really nice though.

check out Oskar Sala

[harmono]

Although I'm not much into playing music, or collecting CD's, I still see a need for ambient music to play while I'm at work, sonic landscapes that are not too distracting, but keep me from being bored. Maybe some day I will find a way to generate non-stop music, maybe an Android app. The MIDI Mouse was created with Visual Basic 6.

[harmono]

I used to download and try all kinds of generative music software, and interfaces, but I could not try Music Mouse, because I didn't have a Mac. I could only imagine what it sounded like. So I invented my own interface, called it MIDI Mouse. It was a grid that worked like a harmonica. The right click was a draw, and the left click was a blow on a harmonica, but there were several rows, and I added a bass line. 

[suburbanbatherson]

Wow, that is the best thing I have heard for ages - what a magical performance!

[Zentrpoint]

the music would have been so much better when she was a man! 

[muthalovah]

@Zentrpoint You're thinking of the wrong pioneer of electronic music here. +10 prejudice points to you though.

[Zentrpoint]

@muthalovah thanks for the points :)

[stomachlining]

love it



[markhh99]

lovely and amazing.

where can i get that glorious machine.

[sakaelporro]

nice laptop

[kitsune090]

I'd prefer to listen to the silence.

[mindpiss]

Wow!

Very nice!

[meagain2222]

wow very fine piece of true electronic music so rare

these days.What a blessing.Thank you.

[eggbertsmith]

Some foods give me diarrhea. I hate when that happens. I am also prone to gas and bloating. Potatoes are the worst. Ice cream is bad too. Once, my aunt told me she had a case of the "vicious winds", I like that term. And speaking of things I like, I like yams...but the airflow they cause is so severe that I only consume them when unwanted guests arrive. They seldom stay long. Flatulence is a funny sounding word. So is discombobulated. This month, Burger King has a sale on double cheeseburgers.

[thePOLYGIRL]

its so nice to walk thru your sound and music garden(-s) !

[mothman2]

I keep coming back to this a lot, shame it only lasts 3 mins.

[shittyshit69]

she's so baked

you probably think think this song is about you

i love it, i wanna live in it, i wanna be it

[InsertName125]

@shittyshit69 What makes you think she's "baked"?

[HEXWHY]

Amazing piece

[HEXWHY]

The instrument of course is only a medium. The person connecting with it has to be in tune with the layers of texture and dimension of pitch and dissonance. Infinite aparitions possible.

[HEXWHY]

The esoteric and unique complexity of that kind of instrument is intriguing. Priceless.

[hiperateo]

amazing

[gmrblgargl]

Sounds like Michael Stearns "Planetary Unfolding"

[lucullusxerxes]

ha!

[rivotrich7]

Beautiful sounds!

[wurlybird9]

machines can amplify human energies. broadcast and replicate though the cold vast space. capturing the interaction. a strange love and discipline. deep and magical. transcendent but never extending beyond the most extreme limits. one is longing for travels but the journey must remain safe. all is understood, energies shall align and illuminate the way. you close your eyes, become one with sound. your light rides the wave and thus an infinite closed loop of satisfaction

[0e0]

this is serious.

[stephenteller]

What effects are being used?

[muthalovah]

Love this video - there only seems to be audio in the left channel though, if you could fix that it would be fantastic!

[pidipid]

epic

[MuzikJunkyAES]

We wish you'd record again! Peace.