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

This video demonstrates recreating the classic Walter/Wendy Carlos synth sounds of A Clockwork Orange, with Propellerhead Reason’s Subtractor software synthesizer.

via seeyouintheeighties:

here is my attempt at remaking the MOOG sound from the clockwork orange film, in reason 3 with a subtractor synth, its basically arco strings through phaser fx unit and a little chorus… comment and let me know if i got it right

This is a jazz reinterpretation of Wendy Carlos’ Tron Scherzo:

• Michael Pinto _ Vibraphone
• Chris Tordini _ Bass
• Garrett Brown _ Drums

(Bach) Switched Off Bach / Invention #4 / SH-1000 vs SH-2000

via btpro:

The Joy of the Preset-Synthesizer. First battle is Roland SH-1000 vs SH-2000!I like Preset-Synthesizer. An engineer made sound with analog technology at the time without the sampling technology.It was often that I heard a sound different from the displayed name in them.

I often thought “Is this the sound of the piano?”.

But I can imagine a desperate face of the engineers who are going to make a genuine sound with an analog circuit.

It is very exciting/humorous for me.

Roland SH-1000 is Japanese first synthesizer and SH-2000 is Preset-synthesizer for organist.I

love them!

Please enjoy!

This video marries the audio from a 1967 Moog 900 Series modular synthesizer demo record, which featured Walter/Wendy Carlos, with video of a Moog modular synthesizer.

via jafafah0ts:

A rare vintage demo record for the Moog 900 series synths, released by Moog when they were in Trumansburg, NY.

Music by Wendy Carlos of Switched On Bach fame, narration by Ed Stokes.

There are apparently two versions of this demo record in existence. This one, presumably the first version, with duplicate content on both sides, and a second with excerpts from Switched on Bach on the reverse,

This is a very nice Switched On (Wendy Carlos style) rendition of Bach’s Bourrée #1 from Orchestral Suite no. 2 on synth.

via syntesen:

For this fast-paced piece from Bach’s second orchestral suite, i chose the Native Instruments Pro53 software synthesizer (emulation of the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5) as the logical continuation from the Moog Modular on the Gavotte (suite #4 in Bm).

Even though the Pro53 only has two oscillators, a single filter, I was able to coax some very nice sounds from it, naturally tuned in Werckmeister III-tuning for maximum authenticity.

The continuo (improvised chordal and ornamental line, typically played with a harpsichord) is one of my finest yet, I believe. And it was fully improvised in one go to guarantee that taste of synthetic authenticity you just don’t find these days

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Bach’s Invention #13 for Recorder and Synthesizer, Switched On by Baroque Now from their first album, The Bach Album.

Sunday Synth Jam: This is a very nicely realized switched on realization, in the style of Wendy Carlos, of J. S. Bach’s Gavotte from Orchestral Suite no. 4 in D.

via syntesen:

Yet another “switched-on bach” project in the style of Wendy Carlos. This time, a wonderful dance from the fourth Orchestral Suite, the Gavotte. In 4/4 time, but with the emphasis on the 3rd beat of the measure, rather than the 1st, the Gavotte was a royal court favourite in the francophile countries of the Baroque period.This piece marks the beginning of my “Soft Synth Odyssey”, realizing different tracks with different software synthesizers. To start out on familiar ground, this track was realized with the Arturia Moog Modular V2 emulation synthesizer, recorded in Ableton Live.I hope you enjoy it.-David

We’ve mentioned previously that Daft Punk was scoring the new Tron movie Tron: Legacy, due out in 2011. Here’s a preview of the look and sound of the film, from Comic-Con 2009.

This is unconfirmed info, but Daft Punk is rumored to have written 24 new songs for the film. The Comic-Con rumormill also has it that Daft Punk will be touring their TRON: LEGACY soundtrack. Director Joseph Kosinski was asked if Daft Punk would tour their soundtrack and he replied that there would “definitely be Daft Punk Tron-themed events on the horizon.”

Anybody ready for this, right now?

via davecobb

At Flynn’s Arcade at the viral event for TRON: LEGACY at Comic-Con 2009, a secret door opened up and led down a hallway to reveal a full-size model of the SPECTACULAR new lightcycle design.

Also notice the music in the background — possibly part of the new Daft Punk score?

Shot and uploaded live during the event using an iPhone 3GS.

And here’s the HD Tron: Legacy preview, too!

Click here to view the embedded video.

The tracks include Walter (Wendy) Carlos’ Dialogues for Piano and Two Loudspeakers (1963):

Liner Notes:

This recording of electronic music presents the works of four authors who come from four different countries with quite varied musical backgrounds. Two of them have considerable knowledge of electronics which stems from a formal engineering training in one case, and from a high degree of practical experience in the other. Diversity of styles is in evidence, as each composer’s style is his own concern. The common experience for these composers has been the use of technical resources at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and the investigation of specialized methods for the evolution and transformation of recorded sound materials, conducted in my course at Columbia and further demonstrated in private sessions by technicians. This work is done in Studio 106, located in McMillin Theatre on the campus of Columbia University in the same room where the older Columbia University Tape Studio was housed. The present studio has been considerably expanded in recent years and has become a part of a complex of three studios and a small laboratory established under a Rockefeller Foundation Grant given to Columbia and Princeton Universities in 1959.

With the notable exception of the very unique possibilities offered by the RCA Sound Synthesizer located in Studio 318, the standard and specialized equipment of the Center is devoted to the production of sound materials by “Classical” methods, common to all electronic music studios. Thus, materials (of either purely electronic or non-electronic origin) recorded on tape, may be subjected to manipulation by tape speed variation, electronic filtering, several types of frequency modulation, artificial reverberation, etc. Tape cutting and splicing by hand still occupies a good deal of time in preparing the sound patterns and arranging them in longer sequences. Techniques are available to create certain types of rhythmic patterns and timbre variations by semi-automatic methods, but the materials thus produced are of limited usefulness. Much time in classroom discussion is devoted to the structural considerations which we believe to be quite challenging and of paramount importance in the electronic music medium, rich as it is in unusual timbres and opportunities for the realization of complex rhythms.

It is hard to imagine that there is much occasion any more for claiming that electronic music is “dehumanized” in its content. Electronic music simply undertakes to express, by different means, human situations, ideas, and emotions.
Vladimir Ussachevsky
Professor of Music
Columbia University

Transgendered Musician Miss Denise Hewitt performs a version of Purcell’s Funeral March of Queen Mary II, by way of Walter/Wendy Carlos’ classic synth soundtrack for A Clockwork Orange.

via MissDeniseHewitt:

Welcome to my Spring 2009 Version of the Theme Music from the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s futuristic film – A Clockwork Orange.

I recorded this version to celebrate my 10th Anniversary On-Line – March 1999 to March 2009 Wow! – Originally my on-line tag line in the olden days of Web1.0 was “Denise in Cyberspace”, but since the birth of YouTube and Web2.0 I’ve updated my channel tag to “Dressed for the Classics” – Enjoy the power, depth & beauty of Henry Purcell’s Eternal Theme played on a 20thC Technics PR903 Digital Piano!

Originally written by Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695) for the Funeral March of Queen Mary II (Died 28th December 1694) – This 17th Century Classic Processional Funeral March was originally scored for 4 trumpets, and then adapted for the Main Opening Title Theme Music of the 1971 film “A Clockwork Orange” which was directed by Stanley Kubrick.

he electronic synthesized soundtrack was orchestrated by Wendy Carlos, together with Rachel Elkind, including adaptations of several other extremely well known classical music compositions including several parts of Beethoven’s Chorale 9th Symphony. The full soundtrack also includes excerpts from the William Tell Overture, the Thieving Magpie, Land of Hope and Glory, and the well-known 1st and 4th Pomp and Circumstance Marches composed by Sir Edward Elgar.

Wendy Carlos has been one of my musical inspirations and role models since my teenage years with her revolutionary & futuristic Moog Synthesizer adaptations that include “Switched-on-Bach” from way back in 1968, and of course the highly creative soundtrack for “A Clockwork Orange”. More info on music genius Wendy Carlos at: http://www.wendycarlos.com/

This very personal interpretation and improvised extension of Henry Purcell’s – “Music for the Funeral March & Procession of Queen Mary” (1694) is performed on a vintage late-1990s Technics PR903 Electronic Keyboard by amateur transgendered musician – Miss Denise Hewitt.

Billboard reports that Daft Punk has been signed to score the soundtrack for Tron 2 (TR2N):

Daft Punk, the French electronica duo known for their robot personas, have been tapped by Walt Disney Pictures to compose the score for “TR2N”, an update of the studio’s 1982 science fiction classic “Tron”, Billboard has confirmed.

The film, currently in production, is tentatively scheduled for a 2011 release.

The “TR2N” score marks Daft Punk’s first foray into the studio since 2005’s “Human After All.”

The musicians, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter split their time between Paris and Los Angeles, where they have have assembled a new recording studio for the TR2N project.

“We’re always trying to do something that hasn’t been done, or ultimately, that we aren’t doing ourselves yet,” notes Banglater.

The original Tron featured an original electronic score by synth pioneer Wendy Carlos.

What do you think about Daft Punk doing the score for Tron 2? Do you think that they are up to the task? Should they have gone back to Wendy Carlos to score the sequel?

via syntesen:

After having realized other Bach pieces on very diverse gear, I decided to try and do a full scale electronic realization of a movement of a Brandenburg concerto on the Dave Smith Instruments MoPho analog synthesizer, in the style of Wendy Carlos.

This is the result – the third movement of the fourth concerto.

The MoPho was controlled by a Novation ReMOTE 61SL, and everything was recorded straight into Ableton Live 7 as audio (24-bit, 48 KHz) – no MIDI sequencing. Effects (mild phasing on some sounds, reverb and delay), equalization and mastering was also applied in Live.

All the patches were programmed by me, and there is a lot more timbral variation to the individual instrument voices than in my earlier realizations.

Some pretty impressive switched on work!

I love this great vintage Moog video – Micky Dolenz, by far the cutest of the Monkees, sings Daily Nightly. This is thought to be the first time a Moog was used on a pop record.

Not sure who’s playing the drums and the bass – but Dolenz plays the third Moog modular off the assembly line. Dolenz was in line right behind Walter (Wendy) Carlos and Buck Owens.

We all know what Carlos did with the Moog – but what about Buck Owens?

via idolator

Note th

Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing vs Title Music from A Clockwork Orange by Wendy Carlos…as imagined by Phil RetroSpector.

Almost works for me – but it’d be better without the Marvin Gaye!

Three Bach chorales, arranged for electronic synthesizer in the “switched-on” style.

via syntesen:

3 Bach chorales, realized with the $299 XioSynth synthesizer in the style of Wendy Carlos!

None of these chorales are included on any J.S. Bach synthesizer album, so they are “all new”.

These tapes include seminal works in synthesis from the mid-60s to the late 70s, such as works from Herb Deutsch, Wendy Carlos, Larry Fast, Isao Tomita, Keith Emerson, Roger Powell, Chris Swansen, John Weiss, David Borden, Joel Chadabe, John Eaton and many, many more.

The $8,000.00 grant provides for the assessment of the tape’s condition by a team of experts including an archivist, a preservationist (responsible for digital transfer), a historian and a copyright expert. The assessment team includes archivist Steve Weiss, Sound and Image Librarian for UNC-CH, preservationist Seva David Ball, recording engineer/mastering engineer, Soundcurrent Mastering, historian Douglas Babb, Curator for the Bob Moog Foundation, and intellectual property attorney Steven Schnedler. Michelle Moog-Koussa will be coordinating the project.

Once the assessment is completed, the foundation will have the opportunity to apply for a $20,000-$40,000 preservation grant to set about preserving the tapes in a digital format, so that they can be shared through the Foundation website, traveling exhibits and eventual Bob Moog Museum.

Image: Bob Moog’s analog tape machine

Ghostly Swim, a free 19-song collection, explores the Avant-Pop style that the Ann Arbor/New York City label has been been championing for the past 9 years. Ghostly Swim features artists like Matthew Dear, Dabrye, Tycho and Aeroc and features new signings like UK cult band The Chap and NYC producer Michna.

The free collection also includes friends of the label like School Of Seven Bells, and Detroit’s Deastro, Milosh (Plug Research), FLYamSAM (Warp’s Flying Lotus and SAMIYAM), and Dark Party (Mush).

Read more to preview the tracks:

Note the quirky tune Carlos Walter Wendy Stanley.

Download page

This is off topic a bit, but you gotta love this remake of the classic Lightcycle scene from Tron. The original may have had a great soundtrack by Wendy Carlos, but this one has a low-budget cool of its own.

via Kotaku

Edhardt is back with an impressive Wendy Carlos-style take on Bach:

“Here are some experiments I did in trying to mimic the style of Walter/Wendy Carlos’ synthesizer technique and style of timbres. Carlos was using a 1960’s era patchable modular Moog synthesizer with a different architecture than that of the Alesis Andromeda synthesizer. Each one has some advantages and disadvantages over the other but both use analog circuitry.

This video includes excerpts from 3 different Bach pieces. All are played by hand on a velocity sensitive keyboard, most of it one monophonic passage at a time, and overdubbed onto multi-track.”