So to continue the sleeve notes for Colour Buffer and the questions raised during its making lets look at the title track that exclusively used PHILTHY by Phuteretone a Reaktor software emulation of the VCS3.
The EMS VCS3 is an analogue synthesizer produced in England from 1969 to the present day. In research terms we can view it as a paradigm in which the specifics of the layout and of some of its components encourages a different mode of composition from both more conventional keyboard synthesizers, and modular synths.
Objectively there are no good or bad synthesizers, each will facilitate a certain type of sound making, sometimes just one element such as a filter may be what is characteristic about a piece of equipment. The most striking aspect of the VCS3 (and the suitcase version the Synthi) is the patch matrix. No modules are hard wired together, and to hear a sound a connection must be first made between a sound source and an output. This is done not by using a cable as is the case on a traditional modular synthesizer but by using pins on a 16 x 16 matrix panel.
Ergonomically a matrix is much neater, each pin replaces a cable and two jack sockets and even a relatively simple patch on a VCS3 would if translated to a modular synth become a tangle of cables. Neatness aside what the matrix does is encourage one to think in a different way. On the Synthi and on all software versions of the synth the matrix rather than the control knobs is at the visual centre of the synth. This not only serves as remainder of the signal pathways – something that is all too easy to forget amidst a jumble of cables, but also encourages one to think of patches as lateral rather than linear, connecting one output (be it signal or control voltage) to several destinations at once.
In the above picture (taken from the PHILTHY) if one looks down the matrix on the left hand side to the osc 3 triangle and then across in the pink highlighted row one can see it is doing several things at the same time. As a sound source it is being fed into the ring modulator, as a control voltage it affecting the frequency of oscillator 2, the wave shape of oscillator 1 & 2, the filter frequency, the envelope release time and the reverb mix. So several aspects of the sound are being impacted simultaneously. Oscillator 3 is itself being controlled by the x/y joystick, which is patched so that as you move the stick certain values increase whilst others decrease. Thus with just the action of the triangle wave and a few movements of the joystick a number of parameters are changed. It is this potential for simultaneous transformation of multiple parameters that is at the heart of what makes a VCS3 different.
These transformations may progress smoothly or may be clustered around rapid and sudden changes in the sound. A useful analogy can be drawn with the three dimensional models found in Catastrophe Theory (see above diagram) in which periods of smooth transition lead to dynamic state changes at cusp or nodal points are encountered and the movement of direction shifts to another plane. Think of the process of bending a piece of thin metal. One can twist it back and forth in a regular and repeated motion several times until at a certain point the metal snaps. Catastrophe Theory can be usefully applied to map everything from physical processes to social situations.
Together with the joystick the one module of the VCS3 that is unusual is the envelope/trapezoid generator. Unlike the more common ADSR used to shape sounds in 99% of synthesizers the EMS envelope can be set to self-trigger or loop. Sounds can be fed into the envelope and shaped by it, and the trapezoid output used to voltage control say the pitch of an oscillator or the filter frequency. With the envelope release itself being voltage controlled one can set up control loops in which the speed of the self-triggering is dynamically changed by say a triangle wave from one of the oscillators.
What is being described is in effect a system that incorporates elements of self- determination. Referring back to the blog post on the tape delay system and the Riley notion of it as “Phantom Band” the VCS3 similarly can be configured to not so much play itself as be a springboard against which one bounces. The user is directing the flow of events as they are being generated by the synth, working with and against the flow.
This was precisely the process used in the title track Colour Buffer. The patch uses the self-triggering of the envelope to shape a pulsing snare like sound and tone. An external sequencer interacts with and imposes its own notational pattern on to this train of pulses, and these are further modified in real time by hand using the joystick and the individual on screen knobs to create a series of crescendo moments or events. The track was recorded in one 30 minute take before being edited down to the seven minute version heard here.
Notes:
The VCS3 was the first synthesizer I used after moving to London in 1978. The electronic music studio at Goldsmiths college was at that time equipped with 2 VCS3s and a Synthi. Prior to this I had used rewired (or circuit bent) radios and cassette players as sound sources. The VCS3 seemed a natural progression from that approach. It was the VCS3 that enabled the recording of much of the Storm Bugs and solo output from 1978-82. I last used an actual VCS3 in around 1991 when working on the Shadowman soundtrack at Morley college. I was looking for a touch of reverb and ring modulation to add to a sound and dragged one of the VCS3s out of the cupboard where it was sitting unused and unloved. Ron Briefel the then technician at Morley wasn’t sure if it would work but sure enough it fired up nicely.
VCS3s are nominally still in production by EMS – there is however a waiting list of many years for one of the synths made in very limited numbers down in Cornwall. On the second hand market original VCS3s are around £12,000. A number of cloning projects exist using replica circuit boards to the original, these can be bought for around £5,000. The once affordable synth is now a collector’s item. It may seem counter intuitive for this most analogue of synths to be rendered in software, but many aspects of the VCS3 paradigm can not only be easily emulated they to an extent work better as matrix patches can be stored and sounds recreated in a way which was not possible on the original. Over a 10-year period I worked on and off on my own software version built in Max/MSP. This gradually gained a number of enhancements culminating in a version in which the pins are replaced by small dials allowing one to very precisely control parameters. This Synthi P as I dubbed it was used on numerous solo, Ice Yacht and Storm Bugs tracks. Last year however I came across another emulation built in Reaktor which though having less functionality sounded in some way ‘better’. I was initially a little nonplussed what exactly was it making the difference? A side-by-side comparison of the sounds didn’t reveal too much, but the Reaktor synth was somehow easier on the ear and to use the cliche 'warmer' especially when used over an extended period. After much digging around on forums I found a post from an old Max/MSP hand which conceded that it was acknowledged (at least by high end users) that though Max offers greater flexibility when it comes to sound design its oscillators and sound engine are simply not as good (at reproducing the sound of analogue circuits) as those of Reaktor.
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