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Re: [microsound]


At the WDR studios, when Eimert, Stockhausen, and other technicians were
involved in electronic synthesis as a form distinct from musique concrete,
one of the methods used to generate complex timbres was to record short
segments of sine waves at pitches corresponding to the overtone series,
assemble these segments into a tape loop, feed the tape loop at high speed
into a reverb chamber, and record the output of the reverb chamber onto
another tape. This of course blended all of the sine waves into a single
fused timbre....Ah, the days before the RCA Mark II.

If anyone is interested, I'm pretty sure that this is how the timbres for
Stockhausen's 'Studie II' were done. I personally have always loved the way that piece
sounds.
I believe that this technique was developed because at the time filters were not precise
enough to give a desired noise band (when filtering a noise source) ie. a precise enough
pass-band.

However, I know that Stockhausen used bandpass filters on a pulse generator for 'Kontakte,'
so I'm not certain how long they had this probelm or if, in fact, filter precision was the definate reason for the above technique.

for Ian:

In all seriousness, I'd like to know who some of those technicians were at
the WDR studios....

you might look into the work of Robert Beyer who was also a composer at WDR during
this time, as was Karel Goeyvaerts.
not that they were technical assistants (they were both composers) but their work might
reveal more of what you are interested in knowing about the technical aspects.

-bobby.


_one thought : many forms_

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