Please note: lots of bass in here that will sound better on headphones or a decent monitoring system.
I learned most of what I know about synthesis through my relationship with the Clavia Nord Modular line of synthesizers. Some of my greatest "a-ha!" moments came while experimenting with the original Nord Modular. I had a significant amount of time to devote to learning and using it while living in Yu Chih (Fish Pond) Taiwan near Sun Moon Lake in the rural/agrarian middle highlands of the country. When I moved there in 1998, I knew it would be a temporary situation, but I was keen to keep creating music while there. I brought my Nord Modular, Roland TR-909, and an MPC 2000 with me. When I landed I discovered the flight case which I'd had custom made to hold this selection of gear was covered in a layer of frost from being in a non-pressurized space at altitude for nearly 30 hours. It soon melted away in the heat of Taiwan.
This assignment to memorialize a fallen piece of software touches a very sensitive spot in me as Clavia abandoned their platform for modular synthesis and moved into a more lucrative market segment devoted to keyboards in the most traditional piano/organ sense. I still think that they make great products and I so wish that they'd jump back into the modular synthesis game again. They were so far ahead of their time, and their two modular synth releases are STILL the best way to create affordable modular polyphony that I know of. I can still run their G2 software on my current macs. But the editor for the first hardware model(incorrectly referred to by many as the "G1") takes a lot more effort and hand-holding to get up and running these days. Virtualization and Windows XP are required, as is a MIDI to USB adapter. Not impossible, but I really have to be in the mood to jump through all the hoops. I wanted to dig in and create something entirely new, but time would not allow. So instead I present this vintage recording from 1998 (wow, nearly 20 years ago...) where all sounds are from either the 909, or the Nord Modular. It was recorded to a MiniDisc recorder which I purchased that year at a night market in Taichung. I was not particularly experienced or gifted at mixing to its strengths and in fact I had no mixer properly gain levels. Also, the MD format had a weird compression built in, so the levels are even odder than usual for me here. I've tried to even it out a bit using some modern tools in my arsenal ... I'm not certain I was that effective.
More on this 239th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Compose a short composition in memoriam for a piece of recently deceased software” — at:
http://disquiet.com/0239/
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