The Alchemists of Sound (Part 5)

[ELGORITHM]

Thank you mister Moog

[MarcoMin16]

people get exited by panpipes...



[jamesbannon001]

LOL at the description of the Moog sound: like a cat chewing a bee.

[JohnnyTheWolfLupino]

What a great clip, Peter Howell using the Vocoder and a quck glimpse of the mighty CS80.

[HolyKatana]

8:17 Whoah, I think this may very well be where Boards of Canada got the melody for "Music is Math." Sounds about right, just needs a little processing and then run it through a broken reel-to-reel and you're done.

[phlizmo]

Walter comes across as a young Billy Corgan in this.

[Seej1982]

@phlizmo with sideburns. lol!

[CashForGash]

3.38 - So, MJ started off white, then went black, and then went back to being white?....

[cottageorgan]

That's Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 @ 5:40. or Peter Kember to his mum.

[golafs]

nice documentary!

one question: before they got the moog and other synths what kind of equipment were they using for electronic synthetic sounds? some bbc made oscillators etc. or what?

[erdavis7]

I think they used the test-tone oscillators for some of it. They also processed found sounds on magnetic tape. Earlier in the documentary it says that they made some of their own equipment. I know for sure that later they used an EMS VCS3 synthesizer.

[alexeykh]

@golafs See "What the Future Sounded Like" for some insight on that (obviously not all of it but I forget what part it is that they touch on that theme).

[blackwingsofsodom]

"Walter (soon to be Wendy) Carlos."

fucking gold.

[steviebboy69]

@blackwingsofsodom i thought that was pretty funny too.



[hexachordal]

@blackwingsofsodom Yes :D This documentary's full of fucking insane little touches that make it utterly delightful.

[Jahmz87]

It totally blows me of the planet

[RakelJonsdottir]

I love White Noise, wish I could read more about them, Delias work there

[CashForGash]

@RakelJonsdottir

Ah, An Electric Storm is in my top ten list :D, possibly #3, OK Computer is probably my #2.

[w7nter]

Moog sounds like 'a cat chewing a bee'?

[Laura041974]

Funny how they can afford huge salaries for bosses and stars but there wasn't enough money to keep the Workshop.

[numpty1972]

The BBC has never really appreciated true talent. Just look at all the archive footage junked over the years!

[Laura041974]

Good job they kept all the workshop music but why is it so hard to buy, apart from Dr Who? I like Rodger Limb, Delia Derbyshire and Elisabeth Parker. "Ghost on the water" (Limb) is good. I don't think synth music is worse than the old way, just different. I think it would be hard to get the equipment to do what Delia did. Now people like the old analog synth sound and Moog are making new ones!

[wado1942]

@Laura041974

It's just like how NASA is always under scrutiny for cuts when it's only 0.6% of the government's budget. Yet the military & corporate welfare are the driving force behind increasing national debt.

[RadiumAudioLtd]

@Laura041974 agreed

[RezStudio]

The crime of the century that we lost this resource and career track for experimental musicians.

[AnthonyUK]

When synthesisers came in and the existing techniques were junked that's when the standard of the music of the radiophonic workshop started to fall-as a result all the people used to the old techniques left. A lot of the new equipment sounded very processed and artificial and nothing at all like the workshop's previous works.

[MincentValloy]

he is tyler durden

[fizmo909]

who's the drunk guy at 5:35

[losciloop]

Pete Kember aka Sonic Boom, of Spaceman 3 fame

[Elhardt]

Walter Carlos at 3:20