The doors of perception
Art is, as they say, subjective. Our reaction to art is based on our own experiences and ideas, and each of us perceives the same work of art in our own way. As it turns out, this subjectivity can also apply to our perception of the tools used to make art. Nowhere is this clearer than in how each of us reacts to certain musical instruments and studio equipment. For some producers and engineers, only the cleanest, most transparent gear will do. For those few, the desire is to create or capture the sound with as little interference or colouration as possible. In fact, for many years, this was the stated goal of those that designed studio equipment, including electronic musical instruments – the term ‘straight wire with gain’ was bandied about as the ideal preamp, for example, and the word ‘digital’ emblazoned across a synth’s front panel was meant to imply superior sound.
Yet perhaps something was lost in the rush to achieve better, higher fidelity. As things turned out, the better the fidelity, the colder and more clinical things sounded. Sure, some of the blame could be put on the harsh sound of early digital recordings – records that could fatigue the ear – but the analogue revival that has sprung up in the intervening decades has shown no signs of abating. It’s obvious that there is something to our love for all things analogue.
Why is that? Could it be nostalgia? As artists, we thrive on making records that sound as good to our ears as our favourites – many of which were tracked decades ago using analogue instruments, consoles and effects. Those recordings represent what we hope to achieve, and thereby our ideal sound. If we grew up hearing the records of Gary Numan and Ultravox on the radio, we might be biased toward the sound of the Minimoog or ARP Odyssey, as they featured so predominately on those artists’ works. Likewise, a youthful diet of Phuture and The Chemical Brothers might place the sound of Roland’s TB-303 on the throne.
Still, this doesn’t explain why someone with virgin ears might be drawn to analogue synths, yet this is often the case. Perhaps the allure lies in the imperfections inherent to those old machines. Many musicians only turn to analogue – and vintage instruments in particular – once they’ve grown weary of sample-based ROMplers and digital emulations. Perhaps the intrinsically static nature of a sampled or mathematically generated waveform produces something akin to ear fatigue – we can dress them up all we want and modulate the hell out of them, but the raw waveform underneath will always be exactly the same. This simply isn’t true of an analogue synthesiser, and this might explain why analogue aficionados are content with a smattering of basic waves.
Analogue instruments are all about the electrons. They shuttle actual voltages to and fro. Electricity is hard to tame, and the components inside an analogue instrument or effect are also imprecise – especially those that have been sitting around for a couple of decades – heck, those electronics were a bit of a blunt weapon when they were new!
Could it be that our ears (and our brains) are picking up on these tiny inconsistencies? Almost certainly… but whether or not those inconsistencies have some inherent appeal to us – well, that’s a bit harder to quantify.
Still, the fact that so many of us are drawn to vintage sounds is reason enough to explore what it takes to recreate those sounds. Softsynth developers have invested countless hours researching the subject, and the results are plain to hear in the best of them. The rest can, with some effort, be simulated, as we’ll see.
“Could it be that our ears are picking up on these tiny inconsistencies?”