Switched On Bach

It’s the birthday of Wendy Carlos, who’s 70 today.

It’s hard to imagine how different the world of electronic music would be without Wendy Carlos, who switched on the world with her Switched On Bach, scored Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, created the sound of the digital world Tron and explored alternate tunings in several influential albums.

Before Brian Eno brought ambient music to a mass audience in the mid to late 70s, Carlos released 1972’s Sonic Seasonings, which combined ambient environmental sounds with synthesized ones.

Carlos has created some of the most influential electronic works of the last 40 years.

If you haven’t heard much of the work of Wendy Carlos, some good places to start are her Switched-On Brandenburgs, Switched On Bach 2000 and her soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange.

via Sabine

Synthesis has changed a lot since the days of Switched On Bach – and it’s getting to the point that recordings of virtual instruments, and even virtual orchestras, are nearly indistinguishable from the “real” thing.

Of course, this begs the question – what is the real thing?

How close are virtual orchestras coming to traditional orchestras?

You be the judge.

I’ve embedded an example below that contains short sections from three symphonies, by Beethoven & Schumann. See if you can identify the one that is virtual – and if you can articulate why you think it sounds “virtual”.

Image: jordanfischer

RCP Tones has introduced Switched-On Ringtones, a ringtone collection inspired by the classic switched-on sounds of early popular synthesis:

“Switch-On” your mobile phone with electronic tones designed on vintage analog synthesizers. We’ve tweaked blips, sequences, and effects from classic Moog, ARP, Roland, and Korg synthesizers and fine-tuned them to sound pristinely cool on the iPhone, Palm, BB, and more

This collection is inspired by the “Switched-On” records of the late 1960s, particularly Wendy Carlos’ “Switched-On Bach” and the countless “Moog” records that followed. “Switched-On Ringtones” brings unmistakable vintage electronic sound to your modern smartphone.

A portion of each sale of Switched-On Ringtones goes to The Bob Moog Foundation.

If Switched-On sounds are before your time, check out RCP’s blog post on switched on history.

See RCP’s site for purchasing details and previews. Read more…

A bit of the History Of Electronic Music: This video is based on The Sounds of E.M.L. Synthesizers, an audio demo flexi-disc from the 70s.

If you’ve got any information on this disk , or who was behind it, leave a comment! Read more…

They don’t make music videos like this anymore – if they ever did.

This video pairs Les Baxter’s version of Bach’s Prelude # 1 in C, from the Album Moog Rock, with a clip from the German TV show PARIS AKTUELL from 1967.

Anybody else think it’s time for these styles to come back?