Plus an exercise in creative limitations…
Back in the 90’s when I was working as a product specialist for Roland, when I got a new piece of gear to demonstrate, my approach was to write new music for it which I would then play live in clinics and workshops. The specific challenge was to, in a very limited period of time, write enough music using only the one piece of gear as a sound source, to carry a 90-minute in-store clinic. Of course, by doing so I would learn the new piece of kit inside and out in order that I could both sell and support it.
In today’s world of high-powered music production synths like the Roland FANTOM-EX, this task would be relatively straightforward. But 30 years ago, it was common to have 28-64 voices of polyphony at most, very limited DSP effects, and a hardware MIDI Sequencer with a tiny LCD screen for composing and production. But it’s all we knew, and honestly, it was the most musically productive era of my life (so far).
One special musical challenge I was given was to write an album’s worth of music in Roland’s GS Format (a special arrangement of tones and other parameters to support playback across many devices) on a new sound module called the SC-88Pro SoundCanvas. This was a fantastic test to create with considerable constraints (I now strongly believe in the power of creative limitations).
I needed to write and produce 8 original tracks for this new sound module, and was actually doing just fine until I got to the last piece. I had been touring and playing so much for Roland that I got a terrible case of carpal tunnel in both wrists, which eventually made it all but impossible to play or type. Knowing the 8-track minimum was a non-negotiable, I came up with the idea of doing a MIDI Remix of the first song I had written called “Holiday on Io”, and so using only my left least-damaged hand to play the few new parts needed and operate the MC-500mkII sequencer, I was able to cobble together the 8th track which I appropriately titled “Remix on IO”.
A few years ago I uploaded the album with the proceeds going to charity- recorded by connecting the stereo outputs of an SC-88Pro directly to a DAT machine and pressing play- no additional processing- just exactly what you would have heard had you played back the songs as sequences through the sound module (okay, prior to uploading I did gain-normalize everything, but that’s it!).
This past week I happened to reconnect with the engineer who led the SC-88Pro project for Roland, and this got me thinking again about this album full of too-many orchestra hits, but an interesting time capsule for a golden age in music tech nonetheless. Feel free to give it a listen, and let me know if it brings back any memories (or gives you some new ideas!).
Thank you! It was interesting for me, too, after a week of “designing the future” in Japan!
Indeed, Roland Cloud is a fantastic way to reconnect with these sounds in virtual form.
Thank you, Roger- I remember those times with such fondness- we went all over Ontario in those days! Truly a golden era- everything was new to everyone!
Thanks for the comments, Stanley, and much respect to you. Yes, the Capital Tone scheme was clever and actually worked very well in practice- had forgetten about that! I have a vague memory of the shifted Middle C, but you’ve now given me something to dig into! I will reply here if I remember or otherwise discover the associated lore.