BLAST FROM THE PAST: LEXICON VORTEX
Once upon a time, the legendary Lexicon took a chance on a clever cut-price – and thoroughly inspiring – effects processor
Lexicon Vortex
30 years ago, Lexicon was the name in reverb. Their advanced algorithms were the envy of all, and the boxes that produced them were pricey, overdesigned affairs aimed at pro studios. However, by the early 90s they’d begun trundling out a handful of stripped-down, cut-price effects aimed at the burgeoning home and project studio market. Predictably, these cheaper boxes were of the bread and butter variety, offering reverb or familiar pitch- and time-based effects. These products were clearly designed to get the ‘Lexicon sound’ into the hands of bedroom producers who couldn’t afford gear from the big boys. They suffered from less-than-stellar sample rates and a lack of hands-on control, but they were serviceable and successful.
However, in 1993, the company’s budget line took a hard left turn. After the bland (if popular) 1U reverb called Alex, the company unleashed a pair of processors that were unlike anything else they’d produced. One – the JamMan – was a nifty digital looper designed to replace the tapebased sound-on-sound layering loved by purveyors of ambient loop music – think Robert Fripp. Though it wasn’t the first dedicated digital looper, it was the first to reach a mass market. The other product in Lexicon’s new line, however, was something entirely new. Called the Vortex, it was, on its face, a fairly standard pitchand time-based processor capable of generating all manner of tempo-synced delay, chorus, flanging, and phaser effects.
Pretty standard stuff, you might think, and you’d be right. The effects themselves were not terribly remarkable. However, Lexicon’s engineers had embedded into this new machine something that had rarely – maybe never – been seen before: the ability to morph between any two patches over time.
To see why this caused excitement, one must consider that the word ‘morph’ had only recently come into the popular vernacular, thanks to the then-cutting edge computer graphics seen in the recently-released James Cameron film
Terminator2:JudgmentDay, plus the video for Michael Jackson’s BlackOrWhite.
Could such an effect work in the audio realm? Certainly, there were academics working on how to morph digitally resynthesised sounds, but such technology was quite experimental and not inexpensive. Lexicon’s approach was to apply the idea instead to effects algorithms and their associated parameters. Not to be confused with merely crossfading between two sounds, this approach to morphing lets the user gradually shift between two complete, independent presets. This takes place over a user-defined period of time. It’s a strange effect, and one that works best when performed slowly and exposed in a mix. The sounds in between the source preset and the destination are often wholly unpredictable and inspiring.
The Vortex was not a massive success at the time, and didn’t remain in Lexicon’s catalogue for long. It was, natch, only embraced by experimental musicians after it was discontinued. Oddly, there are no direct plugin emulations of the Vortex in the realm of software. We’ll keep hoping, though!