The vintage Aries Modular Synthesizer

kkissinger · Last edited by kkissinger on Tue Sep 29, 2009 11:21 am; edited 1 time in total

Hi!

After the EM2007 festival, I spent the next few weeks at home doing all the stuff that I had put off doing so that I could prepare for the festival. Lately, I have been heads-down to create more live-looping works and look forward to completing new works in the next few months.

Has been a while since I've posted a track here on electro-music. Many folks here enjoyed hearing my Aries synth version of the Bach Concerto in d-minor (3rd movement) and I'd like to share the 1st movement with you.

The track below is a remix from the 4-channel master tape (originally recorded in 1977). The performance of the solo part is recent -- I used the Aries synthesizer and used a touch-sensitive keyboard (I didn't have such a keyboard in 1977). Originally I used a foot pedal to control the volume of the solo.

Hope you enjoy all these vintage synth sounds, painstakingly recorded one line at a time on analog tape (ah, the memories!).

Many thanks to you, the electro-music.community, for your support and encouragement.

BachDminorM01hi.mp3

Description:

I. Allegro from Concerto in d-minor by Johann Sebastian Bach

Performed by Kevin Kissinger on the Aries 300-series modular synthesizer

Download (listen)

Filename:

BachDminorM01hi.mp3

Filesize:

9.07 MB

Downloaded:

3283 Time(s)

Johan Zwart

seraph · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 3:21 pm Post subject:

very "Switched On Bach" Exclamation

very well crafted tracks. a bit more adventurous, soundwise, than SOB. Great job Exclamation

Scott Stites · Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:13 pm Post subject:

Dang - I always say I don't get out of the instruments forums enough, adn this is a perfect example of why I need to (I ran across this on MatrixSynth).

This is amazing, Kevin - absolutely splendid. And surely one helluva lot of hard work!

Cheers,
Scott

kkissinger · Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:12 am Post subject:

Thank you very much!

Back in the stone age (that is, in the late 70s) I used to perform this stuff live -- that is, I played the lead live along with the pre-recorded tape elements.

Not sure when my next music post will be however it will be something new Smile

mosc · Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 12:20 pm Post subject:

This is one of my favorite pieces of music, and you did a stupendous job. I can only imagine being able to play that well.

I love the playfulness of this. I've heard this music at least 1000 times and your orchestration brings out lines I hadn't noticed before. Your performance makes the music new again.

mosc · Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 11:06 am Post subject:

Kevin, I notice that the mp3 file is missing. Probably it went with several other attachments in a previous crash. Would you please re-upload it?

kkissinger · Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 11:22 am Post subject: Done!

SARKO · Joined: Sep 30, 2009 Posts: 3 Location: EGYPT

AAAAAAAAAH! NICE:)

kkissinger · Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 8:27 am Post subject: Thank you

Glad you enjoyed this track.

Turns out the Aries synth was a real "hit" at the Regional electro-music festival so I'm going to bring it with me to Bloomingdale. I am going to present a seminar with it to cover some modular synth basics (I'm going to bring my 'scope so we can look at the waveforms and observe the effects of sync and processing.

Look forward to seeing everyone in a few weeks.

kkissinger · Last edited by kkissinger on Sat Dec 04, 2021 6:45 pm; edited 4 times in total

Quite a few years ago, I posted an MP3 (above) of my realization of Bach's Concerto in d-minor.

Long story short ... I decided to create modern, high-quality MP3's for all three movements.

These were recorded back in the 1970s on my Aries Synthesizer which, at the time had only 11 modules and a keyboard. I recorded the tracks on a Teac 3340s (four-channel) recorder.

The recorded tracks included all except the "lead" voice which I played live with the tape tracks (mostly at various Art Shows that happened quite a bit in the Kansas City area back then).

For these mixes, I carefully copied the analog tape tracks to digital and was able to clean up some of the undesirable noise and apply automated mixing, etc to get a better mixdown than I could with my original (primitive) mixer.

When I decided to re-learn and play the lead track, I used a touch-sensitive keyboard (something I did not have in the 1970s).

I also chose, for the lead voice on the 2nd movement, a "tuned air" kind of sound. I found it difficult to make the sound work because, while it sounded ok in the higher register, it lost clarity on the low notes. I added a sine wave tuned to a perfect 12th (the 3rd harmonic) above the unison. This worked for the low register but was too shrill for the upper register. The solution was to adjust the patch so that the sine wave faded out as the pitch ascends.

I hope you enjoy these tracks!

-- Kevin

BachDminor2ndMovement.mp3

Description:

Bach d-minor concerto m2

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Filename:

BachDminor2ndMovement.mp3

Filesize:

13.67 MB

Downloaded:

510 Time(s)

BachDminor3rdMovement.mp3

Description:

Bach d-minor concerto m3

Download (listen)

Filename:

BachDminor3rdMovement.mp3

Filesize:

17.59 MB

Downloaded:

496 Time(s)

BachDminor1stMovement.mp3

Description:

Bach d-minor concerto m1

Download (listen)

Filename:

BachDminor1stMovement.mp3

Filesize:

18.01 MB

Downloaded:

452 Time(s)

blue hell · Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2021 3:49 pm Post subject:

Very nice Kevin :)

kkissinger · Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2021 8:41 pm Post subject:

mosc · Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 9:57 am Post subject:

Kevin, I love this, it's one of my favorite Bach pieces. I love the choice of sounds, and the dynamic variations which most conventional orchestral performances don't dare to try. I especially like the last movement which at one point was a lol for me. Smile

For those not familiar with this type of classical music realization from the early days of electronic synthesis, Kevin played each part himself on a monophonic keyboard. There were no midi files in those days; no polyphony either. Brilliant.

Kevin, one thing, there is a dropout in the first movement at approximately 39 seconds. Must have happened on the upload.

Bravo!

kkissinger · Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2021 7:00 pm Post subject: