For those of you wanting more about this instrument (and please bear in mind that this was state of the art as of 1977) there is tech data at lauriespiegel.net/ls/obsolete_systems/Alles_synth_1977.pdf
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.
Hi Diego. This instrument did not have fixed functions like a sequencer does. It's a computer that is running a program I wrote. Yes, there are some stored patterns, ones you can see me select with the switches in the top right corner, but most of what you hear is the software reprocessing what I play live on the keyboard and building a texture out of it, then playing it back to accompany me. That's why I called this software a "concerto generator". Too complex to explain more right here.
"Good" or "bad" sounds is not something I think about. I just use sounds to make music and often enjoy listening to them. But, since you ask, I do think some sounds are "bad". There are sounds that are physically painful or harmful. There are sounds the military make that may be killing whales and dolphins. If a sound can be "bad" certainly those would be.
When some people start complaining about what kind of notes a musician is playing more than enjoying the music and asking themselves why there are thousands being killed out there with their consent and sponsorship, it's time for the military to push the red button, if there is one (I doubt). 🙂
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.
“If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.” ― John Cage
I first saw this improvisation in the OHM: Early Gurus of Electronic music compilation DVD. That was close to ten years ago. Now as I begin to study and compose with FM synthesis, I've become all the more inspired watching this. I see this piece as the glorious dawn of digital synthesis! It emits so many emotions and states of mind; curiosity, melancholy, confusion, and triumph. I believe it is because of this kaleidoscopic profusion of feeling that we are still in awe of it after all these years.
I recently heard Obsolete Systems and found it fascinating, and this live performance is something else again - marvellous stuff, astonishing technology. I look forward to hearing more Laurie Spiegel.
He descubierto hace muy poco su música, soy fanático de los sintetizadores desde pequeño, ahora con 51 no termino de conocer y aprender: Su música es maravillosa, su album "Unseen Worlds" se ha convertido en mi compañero de viaje día a día y "The Expanding Universe" mi conexión con el Universo: Muchas gracias por su música y por compartir su conocimiento en su canal.
i started programming digital synths using real time control over FM carrier/modular indices in max/msp about two years ago, had no idea that's what you were doing way back then ! so cool laurie thanks for your work, such an inspiring person :)
Excited to find this! Hal Alles is my uncle. I remember seeing the promo materials for the more portable Synergy keyboard. He still has one, and the associated Kaypro.
That is so inspiring to see You work with this synthesizer! There is so much character to be discovered in such a "machine". Thank You for uploading this and giving so much insight in the comments! Must now go make sounds right away...
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.
So great to see this. I wish it would play on both the left and right channel. It seems to only come out of the left channel unfortunately. That aside, I am in awe of the early FM synthesis. I have a great respect and admiration for your work Ms. Spiegel. Thank you for everything!
I had the great pleasure and privilege of house-sitting Laurie's Tribeca loft (below Richard Serra's - I hear he has now taken over the whole building) and looking after her dog, Dopey in the early 1980's. I still keep recordings of my own forays in electronic music on her McLeyvier synth. Those were the days! Cheers, Laurie.
This is an electronic music classic masterpiece.Pure genius. Thank you for sharing this with us Laurie. I sure wish you could go back to that old machine and create more masterpieces like this.
Most of the composers of the electronic revolution, 50's thru 70's, were men, but the greatest of all of them was a woman. Laurie, you not only pushed the vocabulary of the technology forward, but you wrote unspeakably beautiful music that was entirely adapted to its new context, that sounded new and eternal at the same time. AND you made Music Mouse. Thank you x
Disagree. The best women in electronic music, for me, are Delia Derbyshire and Constance Demby. Even so, Delia is like a shadow to David Vorhaus, as Constance Demby is a shadow to Terry Riley. I mean, you always find a male example who is better than his female equivalent.
Music is an art, not a competition. There is no such thing as "best". And we each like different music at different times too, just as we each make different kinds of contributions as music evolves. Thanks nonetheless for the high praise of the first of these comments. I reject the assertion that there is a better male composer for every kind of music a women does. It's amazing that anyone would even think that let alone make such a judgemental sweeping generalization in public.
I always find assertions that women are better and more advanced in this or that area (what I relate to a natural feminist reaction of our present liberal society), as we can see in the first of these comments, asserting that the greatest of all electronic composers of 50s to 70s was a woman (you) - which you apparently don't rejected, of course. I understand that it can be his preference. In the same way, I just expressed my preference, and appreciate the freedom you give to us in your channel to express our opinion.
Lucas de Brito who ever said that women are better at it than men? We are mostly just trying to be treated equally and until recently most of us weren't even noticed in this field. But more fundamentally, why do you try keep trying to rank the personal work of unique creative artists above and below? I did push back a bit on that very gratifying glowing praise, when I said that music isn't a competition. It's an activity of individuals and we are all different, and different people like various kinds of music at different times. Why would I need to be seen as better or worse than Delia or Daphne? We are each just being ourselves musically. That being said, lots of people have gotten a lot out of my music and I'm happy about that. It was a tremendous amount of work to get good music out of the bleeding edge of tech that was generally not meant for musical use back when electronic and digital music were first being explored.
Well, Mrs Spiegel, the guy with nick Curious Orange said that a woman is the best at it, and I said that, for me, is a man. In fact I rank works above and below according to my preferences. I agree music is not a competition like soccer or MMA, but I believe there are attributes in art that make a work better or worse than another. Artists like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, that were constantly competing for the best 60s pop album, also believed it. I think a bit of competition is also profitable for art. Sorry for my english, it's not my first idiom.
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!
Is there a current MIDI platform that incorporates the concerto generator processing function. i.e. real-time interactive note/harmonic accompaniment? Man, this video is a revelation. It really peaked my interest in the early digital synthesizers and the work that was created on them.
I’d assume that by now plenty of people are doing it, each in a different one of the infinite number of ways that what one plays could be processed and then played back. I don’t know of one specific example I could link you to. But any programming language provides the potential to.
Laurie Spiegel I figured there must be; although in a way, it's sort of a specialized application. I'll have to do some research. Ms. Spiegel, do you continue to compose and perform? Whenever I see the press photo of you with all the EML equipment, I can't help but wonder if you still have it or use it from time to time?
When they were doing this, they had to start the software from first principles. In more recent years, there platforms like Max and Pure Data that have made this kind of programming far more accessible.
Questi suoni sono veramente ottimi. La sperimentazione degli anni 70. Sicuramente era anche molto piu' difficile usare questi strumenti; oggi basta usare Internet e trovi tutti i manuali di tutti gli strumenti. Negli anni 70 chi comprava i synth , doveva imparare da solo, sperimentare:-))
+Marco Gamberi Not merely to figure them out without a manual. We had to create them, as with this instrument, for which I wrote the computer software I used in this performance.
+Laurie Spiegel scusa ma prima non ti conoscevo. Son andato a vedere la tua autobiografia e ho letto il tuo grande ruolo nel mondo della musica elettronica. Ho letto anche del Music Mouse:-). Quando tu facevi le tue invenzioni con il PC io ero troppo piccolo.:-) sono molto contento di conoscere una persona che ha dato tanto per la musica elettronica. Proprio ieri ho fatto il mio ultimo video fotografico del mio ultimo pezzo musicale: un collage di foto dei primi ricercatori della musica elettronica....lo rifaro' e mettero' anche tu:-) Ciao da Firenze
Si, lavoro incredibile. Io, non uso il Pc ma conosco molti amici che suonano solo con programmi. Oggi , per fare musica, il PC e' molto usato. Spero solo che in futuro il PC non sostituisca completamente il Synth.
+Marco Gamberi In general musical instruments do not replace each other but continue to co-exist. We still have the harpsichord despite having the piano and electronic keyboards. But because electronic parts become scarce they often can't be repaired. So only the future will reveal which instruments survive and which don't. A lot of older electronic instruments are being emulated with newer technologies.
This is so hugely inspiring to me. I've become fascinated by 60s/70s Bell creative output, which started with seeing a Ken Knowlton video and now I've found you! Wow.
@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 "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.
Totally amazing Laurie! It's odd to me how inspiring it is to see another female musician make something so out there and be such a musical role model. I guess it's extra special when it's a female, particularly as the field is so male dominated. I'm babbling, what I'm saying is, I admire your work greatly, somehow I feel like I should feel awkward for that, funny isn't it? Thank you! I hope I find more magic like this in my travels.
@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
This is a first for me. Usually, notable musician's pages are auto-generated. I like the tone of the more active/shifting compositions. I'm focusing in on that approach to sound composition, but now heading more into thematics; specifically building up a small side menu family-tree of sounds like using popular rock as the main branches and following that logic, then using that as the pallette to choose for such and such focus in a series to compose a few in the frame of a few theme albums.
I really like that sound that comes in around 30 seconds, a low frequency sound with a lot of noise. Those are the sorts of sounds like on synths, because while I presume there are some mechnical ways to get similar sounds, they are not traditional sounds or analog synthy sounds. It's why I like modern synths like the Waldorf Blofeld.
@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.
No, but I keep seeing people saying that. It has 256 digital gizmos that can act as filters, which when set to oscillate can be used as sine wave generators, and those can be connected however you wanted programm it. In this video I used some of them as filters but to generate the sounds I paired them as modulator-carrier pairs to do (pre-Yamaha) FM synthesis. I did additive synthesis within this program but only indirectly, not for the signals you hear. I used the slider panel Interactively in real time to control the number of harmonics in the carrier and modulator of each FM pair.
Laurie Spiegel Thank you for explaining that, Laurie! It definitely sounded like FM to my ears, but I didn't know that it was possible, so I assumed it was some sort of additive thing. That's fascinating! Is this machine still intact somewhere?
The instrument was moved to the computer music lab at Oberlin College not long after this video was made. They were never able to get it up and running again that I know of, and eventually it was gutted, the physical interface (keyb, sliders etc.) connected to parameters on some modern synth, and its powerful internal synthesis engine is probably a goner.
@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 !
That's a good theory about music. After sought, tasted and loved all the music types & genres i finished on this conclusion : All the music types are good, you just have to find how to appreciate them there's just a state of mind that got the musician when he makes his music and if you want to appreciate it, you have to understand it. I'm fan of old synth and old rhythm-box that got their propper sound, and i don't pretend that i fully understand your music, but it sounds pretty good ! Respect
Most of the electronica pioneers of the fifties to the seventies were men. While what they have contributed was nothing short of incredible, women like you and Suzanne Ciani are just as incredible, but perhaps too obscure. I look up to musicians and technicians like you. Beautiful. I would buy any of your albums in a heartbeat.
This music is pure love. Abstract love. No emotional exaggerated performances and cheesy vibratos... pure digital love. Can't wait to have Laurie's reissued CD!
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.
Wonderful. I felt like I was geographically and culturally isolated in my youth and had difficulty finding information about people I considered pioneers in electronic music. What little I did discover from people like Laurie Spiegel inspired me a great deal. It's a real joy to live in a time when I can explore so much more. Thank you very much for sharing this. I wonder if my copy of music mouse will load if I stick the floppy in the old Mac Plus I have sitting on the shelf. The bigger question is would I be able to find a midi interface these days! : )
@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.
the right hand channel is silent. i just unplugged my computer from my amp and speakers and find the same through it's speakers. is there meant to be a right hand channel, am i hearing only half of this performance? No one else i the comments seems to have noticed....
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.
@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.
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
@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.
For those of you wanting more about this instrument (and please bear in mind that this was state of the art as of 1977) there is tech data at lauriespiegel.net/ls/obsolete_systems/Alles_synth_1977.pdf
Thank you for the Tech Data link. And thank you for pioneering so many contributions to Electronic Music. Very appreciated. :)
I think its fab
It still sounds amazing. There's nothing quite like that sound.
i always had a major crush on u laurie!!! i too am a synthesist andi love your music!!!! u are a major inspiration in my life...ty vm
Laurie, where are you? we are waiting for you. We need you more than ever
This deserves a lot more recognition.
Sure. She is a legend though. Not in the main-stream maybe but still.
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.
Hi Diego. This instrument did not have fixed functions like a sequencer does. It's a computer that is running a program I wrote. Yes, there are some stored patterns, ones you can see me select with the switches in the top right corner, but most of what you hear is the software reprocessing what I play live on the keyboard and building a texture out of it, then playing it back to accompany me. That's why I called this software a "concerto generator". Too complex to explain more right here.
"Good" or "bad" sounds is not something I think about. I just use sounds to make music and often enjoy listening to them. But, since you ask, I do think some sounds are "bad". There are sounds that are physically painful or harmful. There are sounds the military make that may be killing whales and dolphins. If a sound can be "bad" certainly those would be.
When some people start complaining about what kind of notes a musician is playing more than enjoying the music and asking themselves why there are thousands being killed out there with their consent and sponsorship, it's time for the military to push the red button, if there is one (I doubt). 🙂
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.
“If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.”
― John Cage
Hmm interesting
It's actually the opposite for me. I rejected the mainstream stuff and got deep into this area.
Absolutely brilliant! These tones are heavenly and otherworldly to me. Thank you.
I first saw this improvisation in the OHM: Early Gurus of Electronic music compilation DVD. That was close to ten years ago. Now as I begin to study and compose with FM synthesis, I've become all the more inspired watching this. I see this piece as the glorious dawn of digital synthesis! It emits so many emotions and states of mind; curiosity, melancholy, confusion, and triumph. I believe it is because of this kaleidoscopic profusion of feeling that we are still in awe of it after all these years.
Way ahead of it's time
I recently heard Obsolete Systems and found it fascinating, and this live performance is something else again - marvellous stuff, astonishing technology. I look forward to hearing more Laurie Spiegel.
I keep coming back to this a lot, shame it only lasts 3 mins.
Impressive performance. Thank you for your beautiful art.
He descubierto hace muy poco su música, soy fanático de los sintetizadores desde pequeño, ahora con 51 no termino de conocer y aprender: Su música es maravillosa, su album "Unseen Worlds" se ha convertido en mi compañero de viaje día a día y "The Expanding Universe" mi conexión con el Universo: Muchas gracias por su música y por compartir su conocimiento en su canal.
This video of Laurie Spiegel is the perfect thing to show your friend who only listens to guitar music. This is the Jimi Hendrix solo of synthesis.
Baba M1
i started programming digital synths using real time control over FM carrier/modular indices in max/msp about two years ago, had no idea that's what you were doing way back then ! so cool laurie thanks for your work, such an inspiring person :)
This video always thrills me. A wonderful performance Laurie
Excited to find this! Hal Alles is my uncle. I remember seeing the promo materials for the more portable Synergy keyboard. He still has one, and the associated Kaypro.
Fantastic. It's like a new ways of sounds, never heard this kind of sound process. Marvelous. Thank you Laurie, I will explore it.
Laurie Spiegel, an inspiration.
thank you.
Mesmerizing 🍄
That is so inspiring to see You work with this synthesizer! There is so much character to be discovered in such a "machine". Thank You for uploading this and giving so much insight in the comments! Must now go make sounds right away...
Watched "Sisters with Transistors" the other night. It's very cool to find some longer pieces of the music highlighted in that film on youtube.
Hearing Laurie Spiegel's music around 1980 was one of my first encounters with computer music - it changed my life.
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.
Every time i look at this it's always an emotion, thanks Laurie Spiegel !
So great to see this. I wish it would play on both the left and right channel. It seems to only come out of the left channel unfortunately. That aside, I am in awe of the early FM synthesis. I have a great respect and admiration for your work Ms. Spiegel. Thank you for everything!
This is additive.
wow very fine piece of true electronic music so rare
these days.What a blessing.Thank you.
Organic, alive, FM, goosebumps...
I had the great pleasure and privilege of house-sitting Laurie's Tribeca loft (below Richard Serra's - I hear he has now taken over the whole building) and looking after her dog, Dopey in the early 1980's. I still keep recordings of my own forays in electronic music on her McLeyvier synth. Those were the days! Cheers, Laurie.
Hi Tom! :-)
I mainly know about that synth because of Strange Brew. Who owns it now if it still exists?
Everytime someone reposts this to a synth page, I rewatch it. I enjoy the timbral flexibility of digital synths.
This is an electronic music classic masterpiece.Pure genius.
Thank you for sharing this with us Laurie.
I sure wish you could go back to that old machine and create more masterpieces like this.
Most of the composers of the electronic revolution, 50's thru 70's, were men, but the greatest of all of them was a woman. Laurie, you not only pushed the vocabulary of the technology forward, but you wrote unspeakably beautiful music that was entirely adapted to its new context, that sounded new and eternal at the same time. AND you made Music Mouse. Thank you x
Disagree. The best women in electronic music, for me, are Delia Derbyshire and Constance Demby. Even so, Delia is like a shadow to David Vorhaus, as Constance Demby is a shadow to Terry Riley. I mean, you always find a male example who is better than his female equivalent.
Music is an art, not a competition. There is no such thing as "best". And we each like different music at different times too, just as we each make different kinds of contributions as music evolves.
Thanks nonetheless for the high praise of the first of these comments. I reject the assertion that there is a better male composer for every kind of music a women does. It's amazing that anyone would even think that let alone make such a judgemental sweeping generalization in public.
I always find assertions that women are better and more advanced in this or that area (what I relate to a natural feminist reaction of our present liberal society), as we can see in the first of these comments, asserting that the greatest of all electronic composers of 50s to 70s was a woman (you) - which you apparently don't rejected, of course. I understand that it can be his preference. In the same way, I just expressed my preference, and appreciate the freedom you give to us in your channel to express our opinion.
Lucas de Brito who ever said that women are better at it than men? We are mostly just trying to be treated equally and until recently most of us weren't even noticed in this field.
But more fundamentally, why do you try keep trying to rank the personal work of unique creative artists above and below? I did push back a bit on that very gratifying glowing praise, when I said that music isn't a competition. It's an activity of individuals and we are all different, and different people like various kinds of music at different times. Why would I need to be seen as better or worse than Delia or Daphne? We are each just being ourselves musically.
That being said, lots of people have gotten a lot out of my music and I'm happy about that. It was a tremendous amount of work to get good music out of the bleeding edge of tech that was generally not meant for musical use back when electronic and digital music were first being explored.
Well, Mrs Spiegel, the guy with nick Curious Orange said that a woman is the best at it, and I said that, for me, is a man. In fact I rank works above and below according to my preferences. I agree music is not a competition like soccer or MMA, but I believe there are attributes in art that make a work better or worse than another. Artists like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, that were constantly competing for the best 60s pop album, also believed it. I think a bit of competition is also profitable for art. Sorry for my english, it's not my first idiom.
you are such an inspiration Laurie, my hero :)
Your work is amazing ! You're a great artist.
Matthieu from France.
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!
Is there a current MIDI platform that incorporates the concerto generator processing function. i.e. real-time interactive note/harmonic accompaniment? Man, this video is a revelation. It really peaked my interest in the early digital synthesizers and the work that was created on them.
I’d assume that by now plenty of people are doing it, each in a different one of the infinite number of ways that what one plays could be processed and then played back. I don’t know of one specific example I could link you to. But any programming language provides the potential to.
Laurie Spiegel I figured there must be; although in a way, it's sort of a specialized application. I'll have to do some research.
Ms. Spiegel, do you continue to compose and perform? Whenever I see the press photo of you with all the EML equipment, I can't help but wonder if you still have it or use it from time to time?
When they were doing this, they had to start the software from first principles. In more recent years, there platforms like Max and Pure Data that have made this kind of programming far more accessible.
Zenitud complète avec elle 🌹👌🔊🔊🔊 Laurie petit bout de femme créatrice de génie 💕🔊🔊🔊🔊
J'adore !
😚Michel !
Questi suoni sono veramente ottimi. La sperimentazione degli anni 70. Sicuramente era anche molto piu' difficile usare questi strumenti; oggi basta usare Internet e trovi tutti i manuali di tutti gli strumenti. Negli anni 70 chi comprava i synth , doveva imparare da solo, sperimentare:-))
+Marco Gamberi Not merely to figure them out without a manual. We had to create them, as with this instrument, for which I wrote the computer software I used in this performance.
+Laurie Spiegel scusa ma prima non ti conoscevo. Son andato a vedere la tua autobiografia e ho letto il tuo grande ruolo nel mondo della musica elettronica. Ho letto anche del Music Mouse:-). Quando tu facevi le tue invenzioni con il PC io ero troppo piccolo.:-) sono molto contento di conoscere una persona che ha dato tanto per la musica elettronica. Proprio ieri ho fatto il mio ultimo video fotografico del mio ultimo pezzo musicale: un collage di foto dei primi ricercatori della musica elettronica....lo rifaro' e mettero' anche tu:-) Ciao da Firenze
+Laurie Spiegel Amazing work!
Si, lavoro incredibile. Io, non uso il Pc ma conosco molti amici che suonano solo con programmi. Oggi , per fare musica, il PC e' molto usato. Spero solo che in futuro il PC non sostituisca completamente il Synth.
+Marco Gamberi In general musical instruments do not replace each other but continue to co-exist. We still have the harpsichord despite having the piano and electronic keyboards. But because electronic parts become scarce they often can't be repaired. So only the future will reveal which instruments survive and which don't. A lot of older electronic instruments are being emulated with newer technologies.
Thank you so much for the music! Amazing!
Lieben herzlichen Dank!
Sensacional.Profundo
Excellent !
VERY VERY GOOD THANK YOU👽
wow, how are you not more known? spectacular wizardry level stuff!
Beautiful sounds!
This is so hugely inspiring to me. I've become fascinated by 60s/70s Bell creative output, which started with seeing a Ken Knowlton video and now I've found you! Wow.
Loved it. It moved me...
Beautiful performance. The tones and textures are sublime. Thank you.
We wish you'd record again! Peace.
refreshing. really love it.
I love her very cool studio desk setup. ; - )
just my cup of tea, this! 🤩
Fantastic!
vraiment incroyable et magnifique
merci
You are a legend!
@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 "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.
Totally amazing Laurie! It's odd to me how inspiring it is to see another female musician make something so out there and be such a musical role model. I guess it's extra special when it's a female, particularly as the field is so male dominated. I'm babbling, what I'm saying is, I admire your work greatly, somehow I feel like I should feel awkward for that, funny isn't it? Thank you! I hope I find more magic like this in my travels.
@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
Every time I watch this, it never fails to stun.
This is a first for me. Usually, notable musician's pages are auto-generated. I like the tone of the more active/shifting compositions. I'm focusing in on that approach to sound composition, but now heading more into thematics; specifically building up a small side menu family-tree of sounds like using popular rock as the main branches and following that logic, then using that as the pallette to choose for such and such focus in a series to compose a few in the frame of a few theme albums.
I really like that sound that comes in around 30 seconds, a low frequency sound with a lot of noise. Those are the sorts of sounds like on synths, because while I presume there are some mechnical ways to get similar sounds, they are not traditional sounds or analog synthy sounds. It's why I like modern synths like the Waldorf Blofeld.
@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.
I'm amazed and happy this footage exists - that was so far ahead of its time it's funny!
This is fantastic!! Thank you Laurie! Is this machine all additive synthesis?
No, but I keep seeing people saying that. It has 256 digital gizmos that can act as filters, which when set to oscillate can be used as sine wave generators, and those can be connected however you wanted programm it. In this video I used some of them as filters but to generate the sounds I paired them as modulator-carrier pairs to do (pre-Yamaha) FM synthesis. I did additive synthesis within this program but only indirectly, not for the signals you hear. I used the slider panel Interactively in real time to control the number of harmonics in the carrier and modulator of each FM pair.
Laurie Spiegel Thank you for explaining that, Laurie! It definitely sounded like FM to my ears, but I didn't know that it was possible, so I assumed it was some sort of additive thing. That's fascinating! Is this machine still intact somewhere?
The instrument was moved to the computer music lab at Oberlin College not long after this video was made. They were never able to get it up and running again that I know of, and eventually it was gutted, the physical interface (keyb, sliders etc.) connected to parameters on some modern synth, and its powerful internal synthesis engine is probably a goner.
its so nice to walk thru your sound and music garden(-s) !
@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 !
Gut gemacht, Danke ...
Thank you.!
lovely and amazing.
where can i get that glorious machine.
That's a good theory about music. After sought, tasted and loved all the music types & genres i finished on this conclusion : All the music types are good, you just have to find how to appreciate them there's just a state of mind that got the musician when he makes his music and if you want to appreciate it, you have to understand it.
I'm fan of old synth and old rhythm-box that got their propper sound, and i don't pretend that i fully understand your music, but it sounds pretty good !
Respect
Most of the electronica pioneers of the fifties to the seventies were men. While what they have contributed was nothing short of incredible, women like you and Suzanne Ciani are just as incredible, but perhaps too obscure. I look up to musicians and technicians like you. Beautiful.
I would buy any of your albums in a heartbeat.
Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire and Elizabeth Parker all worked at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and were certanly great poineers of electronic music.
man this is probably the best video on the whole internet! what a synthy babe
amazing
Beautiful and unique - must track down a full quality recording. Thank you. Ben and Ayako from London.
This music is pure love. Abstract love. No emotional exaggerated performances and cheesy vibratos... pure digital love. Can't wait to have Laurie's reissued CD!
Beautiful sounds, thanks for the post!
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.
love it
Wonderful. I felt like I was geographically and culturally isolated in my youth and had difficulty finding information about people I considered pioneers in electronic music. What little I did discover from people like Laurie Spiegel inspired me a great deal. It's a real joy to live in a time when I can explore so much more. Thank you very much for sharing this. I wonder if my copy of music mouse will load if I stick the floppy in the old Mac Plus I have sitting on the shelf. The bigger question is would I be able to find a midi interface these days! : )
Excellent...!! what synth do you use now... digital... hibrid or analog.... fm... additive... or wavetable...?
Really nice highly recommended
@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.
Brilliant, AND beautiful. Thank you Laurie.
Love this video - there only seems to be audio in the left channel though, if you could fix that it would be fantastic!
Beautiful ~ thank you Laurie!
Te amo
the right hand channel is silent. i just unplugged my computer from my amp and speakers and find the same through it's speakers. is there meant to be a right hand channel, am i hearing only half of this performance? No one else i the comments seems to have noticed....
What effects are being used?
she killing it!!! 100% love it
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.
Ought to give Morton Subotsky's electronic music box a listen.
@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.
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
Thanks for posting! Fantastic!
@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.
wow wow wow. i would just love to have play on that, just amazing !