| Analog tube synthesizer module |
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Looking back, the late seventies and the eighties of the twentieth century were the culmination time of the analog synthesizers. There was not a single band that made money, which did not have synthesizers in the lineup. The huge modular synths were used shortly, then came all the patchless variants, where all the wiring was predetermined, and then came the digital revolution and the analog synths were not produced anymore. It did not happen overnight, gradually, first by replacing the VCOs with the DCOs, the evolution towards the binary controlled universe progressed, until most of the analog synthesizer producing companies either went out of business or switched to digital. Grunge rock replaced electronica and synthesizers went back into the background, while people used less quantity but more powerhouses featuring either rack modules with a masterkeyboard or simply took their computers on stage. The industry went towards versatility, workstation was the powerword, digitalization ruled. Everything analog went away, multitrack tapes, big recording studios, records, all these were replaced with the digital variants, ProTools, CDs, DVDs. Music production became computerized, synthesizers and outboard gear simulated in computer environments, translated to be plug-ins of ProTools, Cubase, Nuendo, Logic or some other music production
software. But not everybody was happy. The digital sound seemed very clean, clinically clean, almost sterile. People started to try and simulate the analogue sound of the past, tube simulators, tape sound simulators and other gadgets were programmed, in order to provide the warmth of the old analogue recordings, but simulations did not do well. Virtual analog just was not good enough. Suddenly outboard gear needed to be warmed up exceedingly, in order to transfer some of the warmth to the clinically sterile recording. Tubes went into everything. From the tube microphone preamp to the tube compressors, from the tube equalizer to the tube mixing board, wherever you looked, there were tubes, like it was the thirties or forties. Some virtual analog hardware synthesizers managed to provide some warmth of the past, like the Minimoog reincarnation. It was a small company in Lakeport, California, United States, that came up with the ultimate warm synthesizer module, the S-1000 Vacuum Tube Music Synthesizer, the company is named Metasonix. Eric Barbour, the founder of the company, is dead set to bring back the tubes of the past. Working for the Svetlana Electron Devices, a Russian vacuum tube manufacturer, he recognized the need for tube powered gadgets and supplied exactly what the users wanted. Trent Reznor, U2, Billy Gibbons, Richard James, Robert Rich and Nikki Sixx all swear by Metasonix. |
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