I’ve been experimenting with creating versions of J.S.Bach’s masterpiece, The Art of Fugue. Since I lack advanced keyboard skills, I download MIDI files and edit them if necessary before playing them through a sound-producing device.
For those who don’t know about MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), it’s a way of passing information between devices. No sound as such is transmitted, just commands like “Play the note middle C as if the keyboard had been pressed this hard. Now release it.” A common clock signal keeps everything in time, but keeping in tune is up to the instrument.
I have a weakness for analog synthesisers – these are temperamental collections of electronics which produce sound. With a little care and attention, they can even produce music.
So, here is the Contrapunctus 5 from Die Kunst der Fuge, a counterfugue, in which the theme is plain, inverted, diminished and augmented.
There are four voices and each one is played by a different set of electronics, each of which is capable of playing only one note at a time. Because three out of the four units do not possess a store and recall system for the settings that control the sounds, this will never be repeated exactly – there are little changes that can make an enormous difference to the sound (tuning is also a continuing issue as the electronics warm up and stabilise).
Om the plus side, this means that a new recording of this, now that timings and note length etc. have been adjusted, may quite possibly be better next time tound.
All these synths are made by Behringer, who have developed the art of making very adequate copies of classic electronics at a decent affordable price. The voices on this are:
- 2600 (the big blue one)
- PRO-800 (the bottom black one)
- KOBOL expander (the top black one)
- CRAVE (the orange one)
Since some of these have slightly less than perfect MIDI implementations, I use a little box to convert MIDI sent over a USB cable into analogue voltages which are fed into the synths’ electronics to control the sounds.