70's/80's series of Roland analog Rhythm Synthesizers. They featured a simple bassound (TB-xxx) or a simple drumkit (TR-xxx), combined it with an even more simple sequenzer, some single outputs and a number of knobs and buttons to mudulize Cutoff and Resonance. All feature true analogue synthesis; the TR-909 added Lo-Fi 6 Bit samples for the cymbal sounds (incl. HiHat). Those small cans from the TB-series can produce one of the most annoying sounds in the world, contemporarily loved by artists like Fatboy Slim or The Crystal Method - it's that screaming, filtered sawtooth that comes from a 303. The TR-808 and -909 made up nearly the whole genres Techno- and House music: Practically all tracks from that direction use the sounds of that kind of gear.
Today those original machines are highly requested and therefore highly overpriced. For less vintage people there are a lot of clones and more modern adaptions of the TB-/TR-concept, e.g. Jomox X-Base09, MAM MB-33, Novation Bass-/Drumstation etc. Even Roland offers two grooveboxes again, the MC-303 and the MC-505, two vintage-looking tin cans with ultra modern circuitry inside. For a lot more less money there is an ingenious software-based solution called "Rebirth" on the market. This wonderful piece of programming simulates a TR-808 and a 909 completely with 80's panel design on every personal computer - Mac and PC. The software is about $ 150,- and so nearly 80% cheaper than _ONE_ of the two simulated original units today!

straight, ancient rhythm, that has been used for ecstatic ritual dances since the Stone Age. The digital human being recognizes this sort of beat as "bum-bum-bum-bum" (like in most techno beats). The typical elements are a straight, heartbeat-alike, 4/4-bar with a bassdrum kick on each click and a Hi-Hat- and/or Snare on each second click. The simplicity of those beats, combined with continious repitition for hours, could really drive one to ecstatic states of consciousness.

Electronic music style, early 80s - today. The name "Ambient" was conceived by the Godfather of etheric music, Brian Eno. His "Ambient"-series from the 80s (setting the standard with the album "Music For Airports") is one of the most descriptive examples for this special, athmospheric style.
Ambient tracks, for the most, commonly lack real beats, though they are commonly rich of rhythm. It's just another focus. The rhythm is commonly transported in a more or less constant flow of athmospheric and effectious sounds throughout epic track times (up to 30 minutes or even more...) - so ambient tracks establish a typical "underwater" feeling. More dynamic, but not less typical protagonists of Ambient are The Orb, The Future Sound Of London and (sometimes) Aphex Twin. If You want to get some literature on this topic, take a look on the book "Ocean Of Sound" by David Toop, Serpent's Tail Publishing. This compendium features the whole history of ambient music, which had its true roots long ago in the 19th century!

Generic term (here in music) for a number of objective, scientific, subjective and psycho-acoustic apparitions around the mystic idea of sound:

Analog Synthesis

Many contemporary electronic music productions make frequent use of so-called analog sounds - not to be mixed up with the analog sound (s. below). This form of synthesis exists since the 60s. The 70s defined the first cult phase for analog synthesizers, which were big as a wardrobe those days. The gear got smaller and cheaper, and synthesizers like e.g. the Minimoog, the Oberheim XA, the Sequential Circuits Prophet and the Roland Jupiter- and Juno-series were on their run to victory in the early 80s. Until Yamaha revealed the digital DX-7 in 1985...

Literally overnight everybody wanted this "cool, realistic" digitally created sounds (-> the DX-7 used the method of Frequency Modulation/FM, known to most people as "Sound Blaster" PC-card standard ;), and analog - at once "cruelsome beeping electronic" - synthies became as cool as Hippies or cord jeans throughout the 80s. But for the 80s-Pop's following Techno movement those standardized digital sounds, like strings, pianos or GM drumsets were unusable, so luckily the 70s cult devices like the Roland 303 or Bob Moog's Minimoog were reanimated. One does not need realistic pianos or State-Of-The-Art string sections for - as the name says - electronic music. One needs straight, simple sounds which need to be able to be forged, modified and controlled easily and effectious. A perfect example for this kind of sounds is the Bass sound of the early 80's Roland TB-303, which was and is frequently used in contemporary Techno-, Trance- and Big-Beat tracks. Apart of most digital sounds (which mostly try more or less successful to simulate real instruments and sounds), analog sounds could seem not real but very "organic" - though they are ablolutely electronic. One could forge those sounds easily by turning some knobs. In some cases this makes the sound more important than the melody. But what makes this technically possible? Are there more advantages or maybe disadvantages vs. digital sounds? How does all this shite work?

The method of analog synthesis (substractive synthesis) is the same since the 60s. A voltage-controlled Oscillator generates a simple raw signal, a Filter filters (!) certain frequencies, and an Amplifier amplifies (!;) the signal. One calls this architecture VCO-VCF-VCA. If the single units are controlled digitally, one speaks of DCO-DCF-DCA, but the method of synthesis remains the same. The unique advantage of this method: One has the possibility to create an infinite number of different sounds and sound characteristics, based on simple modulation of a very small number of basic raw signals. Most analog synthesizers feature numerous knobs, switches, ribbon controllers, mod wheels and/or other means of realtime control to support the user's creativity. Turning a real knob is way cooler and just more real than "simulating" this action via mouse in a PC-audio-program ;)

Contemporary analog synthesizers are small, do often have more than one Oscillator and Filter. Some of them are polyphon, some are monophon. Nearly all devices feature digital control (-> comp. p. above) via MIDI, which makes all realtime parameter changes easily recordable. The newest virtual-analog synthesizers even simulate the analog tone generation process. But it's very difficult to simulate old analog devices, because their characteristic sounds were determined by the used hardware and fabrication tolerances to a great extent. A Minimoog is the best example: No Minimoog sounds exactly like the other; all are "unique". And the Moog Filter sounds like a "Moog Filter" because it uses destinct hardware and cirquitry one would not find in other devices. To simulate all this tiny, but important factors, one uses the new digital synthesis method of Physical Modeling. This enables sound creators to "simulate" theoretically every sound, tone, noise etc... in the universe. But Physical Modeling is just beginning - the analog synthesis proves its worth nearly unchanged since over 30 years.

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Very detailed (German) info about technics, construction and use of analog synthesizers could be found on www.cyborgs.de. The site also features an "Analog Synthesizer Crash Course".

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analog recording / "analog" sound

Is a signal recorded onto a regular macnetic tape like in Cassette- or Video-Recorders, one speaks of analog recording. This method is characterized by its storage of the signal as a continious, linear stream. One could proof the linearity e.g. with a common VCR freeze frame: You'd never get a perfectly clear, sharp and still freeze frame from an analog Video. That's because of the linearity of the signal: There's a continious stream of information on the tape, and not single frames. Analog tapes are relatively insensitive against Overdrive and Clipping. Commonly the signal is only slightly forged by a little analog overdrive. This makes analog overdrive an advantageous simple means of treatening the signal. Try to overdrive the drums channel on Your analog (!) mixing console, You won't beleive Your ears.... (Hey, Chemical!)

This kind of analog overdrive is called (tape-) saturation, and its commonly wanted in analog recording, because it boosts and warmths the lower frequencies of the signal ("punch"). The Sound sounds "analog". Digital systems don't know saturation - are they overdriven, the result would be a cruelsome noise, because a signal out of the maximum dynamic range of the system is simply not realized. But even a digitally recorded and mastered CD could sound analog. For this task a vast number of - commonly expensive - hardware sound processors, "Analogizers", peripheral tube gear and software plugins were created. Heh, the goal of CD and digital recording was to substitute analog devices such as tape recorders and tube gear, wasn't it!?

Stylistic means of (electronic) music and feature of many synthesizers. An Arpeggio is the result of an ordinarily played chord (a number of keys at the same time), broken to its single notes and played one after another in a programmable order by the so-called "Arpeggiator". One could create weird effects and e.g. basslines theat would be very difficult to play or even to think up. With that simple technique even musicaly less experieced or less creative people could produce nice and successful tracks in a short period of time. That might be the cause for the success of Arpeggiators as a feature of nearly every modern synthesizer.

Electronic music style, middle 80s - today. The foundation of Big Beat are variations of more or less well-known Breakbeats, commonly extremely treated with effects like distortion and more punch. Popular additions are commonly an analog bass sound á la 303 for the groove and some (sampled) vocals or shouts. Big Beats are very popular today that even TV uses Big-Beat-like trailers. Anyone who has ever listened to a track by The Chemical Brothers, Fluke, Prodigy or The Crystal Method knows, what Big Beat's about. A closely related style is Leftfield.

• Big Beat Sound Example:
  Primal Scream - Jailbird (Chemical Brothers Mix) RealAudio, 167k

Musical style and musical means since the 70s and stylistic means of contemporary (electronic) musik. Funk legends like e.g. James Brown, Bootsy Collins or the drummer Billy Cobham began to write songs with beats based on drum breaks since the 70s. This approach created fucked up stompin', but terribly groovy beats which were the raw ingredients for Rap- HipHop- and B.Boy-tracks later in the 80s.
Even/just today old standard breaks from tracks like James Brown's "Funky Drummer", Michael Viner's "Apache", or "The 24 Carat Black" by the same-named band, to name but a few, are frequently used for new tracks. Pitched a little faster in Drum & Bass, Big Beat or Jungle, as "back to the roots"-sequel of classic breakdance styles; or a little slower for styles like Trip-Hop - some breaks will live forever...;)

1) City in England; 2) Name for Bristol's special drum & bass style. Basically it's "ordinary" mid-tempo drum & bass with strong jazz influences. Classic jazzy basslines go hand in hand with hobbling breakbeats and any kind of vocals, e.g. ragga-shouts, raps or a female siren. One could define Bristol as a more melodic, jazzy tinge of drum & bass.

see Filter.

To control a synthesizer with a keyboard, You will basically need to tell it three things: That You've pressed a key, which one it was, and how long You've holded it down. Today this is the job of digital MIDI- Interfaces, in earlier times the pure electric CV-Interface did it. Alike VC means "Voltage Control", CV is the abbreviation for "Control Voltage". The so-called "Trigger Impulse" tells the synthesizer that a note is played. The Trigger switches on and instantly off again when a note is played. The amount of CV (alike VC between 0 and 10 Volts) determines the note to be played. The note lenght is determined by the so-called "Gate", which is open as long as the key is pressed. Many ancient analog cult synthesizers from the before-MIDI-era could only be controlled externally through their CV-I/Os. Today, if You own one of those babies, You even can have MIDI - not with a special, high-priced tune-up - a simple MIDI-to-CV-Box (ca. $100) does the same thing.

Maybe THE word of the 90s, but: what the heck does it generally mean? On audio side, the main difference to linear analog recording is the method of "signal storage". Similar to an analog tape, the signal is mainly stored magnetically - harddisks are magnetic storage devices, too - but NOT analog-linear but digital-sequential. The default method to record and playback digital audio data is the so-called PCM (Pulse Code Modulation). What's that again?

First he analog original signal - and every signal is analog that does NOT come from a digital output, e.g. guitars, pianos, drums, noise, the human voice... - is snapped to a grid of time in x-direction and frequency in the y-direction (s. pct.1) by a so called A/D-Codec. The specification "CD-Quality" triggers the signal 44.100 times a second (44.1 kHz sampling rate) with 16 Bits of resolution. All following examples will be made around that standard.

Why 44,1 kHz sampling rate?

According to a mathematical theory one does not need to understand, a digital recording covers only frequencies up to the half of the sampling rate. This is the so-called Nyquest-frequency, which is logically 22,5 kHz at "CD-Quality". All frequencies above will be mirrored down and so will shred the signal. Scientists have found two methods to avoid this:

• Filter the signal: Using the discovery of psychoacoustic science, that a normal human being is only able to hear frequencies up to the max of ca. somthing above 20 kHz. A steep-flanked Filter switches on at 20 kHz, reducing the signal to zero when it reaches the Nyquest-frequency. When there are no frequencies above 22,5 kHz, nothing could disturbingly be mirrored down. Less radical is the method of

• Oversampling: There the signal is recorded with a much higher sampling rate and filtered down digitally to 20 kHz. The high sampling rate boosts the Nyquest-frequency into an absolutely unhearable spectrum and so does not allow any disturbing signals - without a brutally steep Filter.

Why 16 Bits resolution?

16 Bits resolution (bit- or bandwidth) means the highest realizable amount is represented by a binary number of 16 ones (1). That is 65.536 (2¹⁶) in the decimal system, resulting in a resolution of 65.536 "vertical" steps in the picture. This 16 Bits resolution limit and determine the maximum amount of frequencies and the maximum volume/dynamic range of the recording of the signal.

But the detected amount of the signal does not always equal a natural figure between 0 and 65.536. So You'll have to round (quantize) the signal to a generic natural number. The original signal will be slightly forged due to this action. Statistically those quantization errors spread equally in the whole frequency spectrum, adding up to a little white noise. Below 16 Bits of resolution the quantization becomes too coarse, resulting in a higher amount of white noise that could make the signal unusable for HiFi applications - but: even a 6 Bit sample could be (LoFi-) charming....;)

Also, the maximum recordable gain (peak, volume) is limited by the resolution: 1 Bit covers 6 dB of gain, making a theoretical amount of 100 dB at 16 bits resolution. After having substracted the amount of noise (s.a.), we will get around 90 - 96 dB, depending on the sort of gear which is used. PC sound boards generally achieve less performance in most cases. But that's not mainly the fault of the Codecs of the card, but of the many interferences in a PC which are caused by e.g. grafx boards, harddisks, or the power supply.

Anyway, at any time, keep an eye on the optimal gain when You record digitally: If You record too soft (gain too low), You could unintentionally record a noisy, scratchy 8-9 Bits-inferno instead of a 16 Bits recording. If You record too loud, the codec will not be able to digitize the signal - because the IC could not realize signals above its maximum input gain. This would result in a digital clipping - Krak! Krshh! Krrz! Beleive me, that sounds really _BAD_ and makes the signal absolutely unusable. (comp. opp. -> analog clipping/tape saturation)

All this might make clear, that a higher resolution, e.g. 20 or 24 Bits, and a higher sampling rate would digitize the signal more precise. DVDs already established an audio standard that works with a sampling rate of 96 (!) kHz and 24 Bits resolution. If an average thumb human being would be able to differenciate the increased quality could be a subject to argue about. Anyway, I hear a difference between an analog recording and a digital "CD-Quality"-recording!

P.S.: The theoretical way of digitizing material as described above (-> Grid, Quantization) could be transferred to any sort of digitizing. In all cases something analog will be quantized to a grid, or, better: will be changed to an x/y table of unequivocal numbers... Remember it!

Musical style of the middle 70s - the early 80s, partly until today, constructed of 60's Soul and the early 70's Funk. The most common basis of a proper Disco track is a straight 4-to-the-floor rhythm with handclaps on each 2nd and 4th note and a simple, ostinating (repeating) bassline. Combined with funky Wha-Wha guitars, sticky Fender Rhodes E-Pianos and soft, melodic string sets the standard is fulfilled. !st class examples of this style are e.g. "Car Wash" by Rose Royce, the 70s publications of Kool & The Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire and Michael Jackson/The Jackson Five, to name just a few. Disco was influencial for the further development process of modern dance music. At the end of the 70s, when synthesizers and drum computers slowly became affordable, British artists transformed Disco to Acid. At the same time artists from Chicago created the original Chicago House style. Both styles created the all-new House styles, which fastly swapped around the world as Disco did it 10 years ago. House's relationship to disco is obviously shown in the bunch of 70s-remixes presently on the market. The backing concept is as simple as this: That what was a 70s hit will be one (with a modernized beat) again in the 90s - guaranteed (s. Rose Royce!!!)! One calls this sort of tracks "hitprove".

(Electronic) musical style, early 90s - today. The origin of Drum & Bass is London's Rage Club. In the early 90s DJs Grooverider and Fabio there played a mixture of Detroit Techno, House and Breakbeats. This style was first named Hardcore; at the time the style changed to Drum & Bass, Hardcore-like tracks were then called Jungle. Got it?
Drum & Bass is commonly produced with Steinberg's Cubase or emagic's Logic Audio and the newest tone generators and signal processors. All kinds of Samples are the raw material, which is commonly forged to the extreme (Overdrive, Pitch Shift etc.). Speeded Breakbeats and drum loops around 150 - 180 bpm from classic Funk- and Jazz tracks build the rhythm; dub-deep basslines require a mighty sound system. Contemporary Drum & Bass is more relaxed than the old Hardcore tunez and is more and more merging with Dub at present. A nice example of this open-minded approach is the Asian Dub Foundation, that perfectly combines Dub and Drum & Bass..

1) Track without vocals 2) Musical style from the late 60s - today with ancient roots. Dub is a "modern" version of ancient African dances and rhythms, which came to the new world in the dark time of slavery. But where's the road to Dub?

In 1968, the Jamaican DJ Osborne Ruddock aka King Tubby had a very simple, but ingenious idea: He just turned down the left channel of a aong of the Techniques on 2-track tape (once upon a time, when people recorded in mono...) - and so the vocals. The rest was stripped with some echo effects and the vocalist U-Roy added his rhythmic talking - the first Rap in history. With this simply constructed track, Ruddock made two essential Pop music inventions at once: The Dub and the Remix! And Dub remains stylistically stable since that day in 1968: A good Dub just needs a deep bass, a little amount of drums and many spaced-out effects.

The golden years of Jamaican Dub had been the 70s; since the 80s Dub is practically dead in the Jamaican dancehalls. People there nowadays prefer hard Ragga stuff and Jungle. But the rest of the world suffers from some serious kind of Dub fever since years. Many parts of the world developed their very own style and culture of Dub, Dub has become main influence or part of nearly all newer musical styles and pieces. Read below a short overview of the main regional streams of Dub:

• London's Mods and Skins were dancing to Ska in the 60s, the Punks in the 70s did not only love the Sex Pistols, but Roots Reaggae, too. Then a certain, 18-year old Adrian Sherwood entered the scene and founded the label On-U-Sound, where young British Punks met with old Jamaican Dub Rastafaris. His bands and projects like Dub Syndicate, African Headcharge, Strange Parcels or Tackhead made London the world capital of Dub. Bands like Zion Train, Asian Dub Foundation and Rockers HiFi are modern and stylistically diverse protagonists of British Dub.
  
  
• In Brooklyn, New York, a man named Bill Laswell created a special, ambient-like Dub style. Labels like Subharmonic and WordSound show the bandwidth of Crooklyn. Nice examples for the more slow Crooklyn sound are "Unitone HiFi" from the equally known band and "Certified Dope Vol.1" from the sound kitchen of the projects Crooklyn Dub Consortium.
  
  
• Even the German-speaking countries have built a respectable Dub Massive, especially my hometown Hamburg with bands like Movin' Souls or Jammin' Unit. Dedicated labels for German Dub are e.g. Incoming!, Pharma or Downbeat.
  Austria's capital Vienna bred Acts like Tosca, The Sofa Surfers and the - by now world famous - Kruder & Dorfmeister for the right Melange. Dub from Audtria features high musical and creative quality.
  
  
• Japan is currently building a bigger Dub Massive. Japanese Dub protagonists are without doubt Audio Active, whose records are published by London's On-U-Sound label. AA prefere a harder approach to Dub; from time to time they love to play with distorted guitars...

Further, many styles like Drum & Bass, Jungle and Trip Hop are mainly or partly influenced by Dub.

Electronic musical style, early 80s - today. As synthesizers became "affordable" ($ 5000 and up...) for the masses in the late 70s, some German bands like CAN, Neu!, Tangerine Dream and - guess who - Kraftwerk began to discover new worlds of sound. Instead of posing around with some long-haired lead singer those pioneers started to create music in a more or less pure electronic way.

Kraftwerk built the most part of their equipment on their own; they even created a full-contact, body-sized drum machine. Tangerine Dream discovered the meditative force of electronically layered sounds, which may have influenced Brian Eno, who created the common term Ambient then. CAN's experiments contained cutting apart innocent compact-cassette tapes for the sake of "looping" short parts of it. Afterwards these innocent loops were sent through a row of cheap effect machines...

England witnessed its peak of Electronic in the middle 80s with bands like Depeche Mode and producers like the ex-Sex-Pistol Malcolm Mc Laren, and then turned instantly to the successively following musical styles Techno, Trance and Jungle.

In combination with an LFO the most important feature of a synthesizer to automate periodical changes in the sound (modulations). The envelope (=volume envelope) is part of the amplification circuitry and is therefore located AFTER (analog) oscillator circuitry and filters. It's thought to control the volume values of a sound - that means, how it attacks, develops, and finally fades out. One differenciates between so-called simple ADSR- and more tricky Time-/Level-envelopes. ADSR is an abbreviation for "Attack", "Decay", "Sustain" and "Release". In simple words: Attack determines the attack of the sound right in the moment of its start, Decay and Sustain control the sound as long as You press the key, and Release is working AFTER You release the key (simple, eh!?).

The advanced Time-/Level-Hüllkurven are not limited to those "indizes" like ADSR - they are freely adjustable in time and volume levels. This approach enables one to create modulations, that would have not been possible with a simple ADSR-envelope. But: A Time-/Level-circuitry is more expensive and not easy to handle - that may be the cause why the most synths today still come with the ADSR. But You don't need to cry, if Your synth just featured the ADSR-thing - just play around with it and You'll discover many, many possibilities, even with only four parameters to adjust.

THE sound-forging device of each better synthesizer. Typically located after the oscillator circuitry. A filter is able to damp or even remove frequencies out of the signal - similar to a jazz trumpet wit a damper bowl: The damper modulates the sound frequencies. That's exactly what a filter does.

One differenciates between some filter types, which are clearly named after the frequencies they work on: A lowpass-filter lets only pass frequencies below its cutoff frequency (explained later). Higher frequencies are filtered out. The opposite of the low pass is the high pass filter. A band pass filter lets only pass those frequencies in the a definable region (band) and cuts off frequencies belov AND over the selected band. Finally, the notch filter is the exact opposite of the band pass filter and lets pass everything over and below the selected frequencie band.

Alike the oscillator, a filter could just be adjusted in two single parameters - the so-called cutoff-frequency and a thing called resonance. The cutoff-frequency simply determines that frequency, on which the filter starts to work (s. above). Resonance (some say just "Q"), returns the output signal of the filter back to its input. Resonance puts an accent to those frequencies near the cutoff frequency and is a common means of advanced sound forgers. On extreme settings (full resonance) the filter might produce a feedback up to the state of self-oscillation. The filter will then create an audible sine wave, which is the typical, phat "smacking" or "mocking" in well-known electronic sounds.

It looks so simple - and it is simple. But just those two simple parameters cutoff and Q will enable You to literally create an infinite number of sounds. The typical sound of a techno bassline is mainly created with simple filter sweeps (turning the cutoff- and resonance-knobs ;-).

Musical style of the early 60s - today. Funk has a very interesting history rich of traditions. One needs to know that in the 50s no really substantial selection of commercially successful musical styles existed. Most people in America listened to "white" swinging Big-Band-Jazz á la Franky Boy Sinatra, Afro-American people adored "their" music: Blues, R'n'B and Motown. Rock And Roll was just born. In the early 50s (!), two gentlemen named James Brown and Bobby Byrd founded the R'n'B combo James Brown And The Famous Flames, that played mainly soft music. In 1954 James Brown "founded" with his new band The J.B.'s and their song "I'm Black And I'm Proud" the Funk. His buddy Bobby Byrd converted to this new style soon and created an all-time Funk standard with "I Know You Got Soul". This song is covered regularly each decade... (70s: The Jacksons; 80s: Eric B. & Rakim; 90s: ?).

James Brown and Bobby Byrd are protagonists of a pumping, deeply black style of Funk with its roots in Soul and R'n'B. Some years later, orchestral jazzers like Charles Kynard and Herbie Hancock discovered the sweet taste of Funk. As their background lay more in the field of strictly Jazz, they flavored the original Funk with their experimental-jazzy spice. Herbie Hancock wcould be seen as a prototype of that kind of development: Coming from Cool Jazz, he first made the beats of his songs funky. Later on he founded tha band Headhunters and became gompletely funky. During the 70s, H.H. did NOT - like many others (e.g. Kool & The Gang) - jump onto the just starting Disco train, but he defined a new, more "electric" tinge of Funk (which later was named Fusion) with tracks like Chamaeleon.

The most important protagonists of Funk beneath James Brown und Bobby Byrd are

• George Benson, a former Jazz guitarist for soft orchestral big bands
• Stevie Wonder, whose really funky time took place from the late 60s to the late 70s
• Sly Stone, whose band Sly & The Family Stone brought the Funk to Woodstock in 1969 and later to the radio stations for a big audience
• George Clinton, whose bands Funkadelic and Parliament (with Bootsy Collins, 70s) played the so-called P-Funk (P for Psychedelic?)
• Curtis Mayfield, whose fluffy background with The Impressions disappeared, so he was able to create Superfly, a furious soundtrack for the equally named blaxploitation gangster movie
• Kool & The Gang - James Brown once said about them, they would be the second-best Funksters on the planet - guess, who'd be the best... But in the 80s they produced only garbage - if You want to hear them _REALLY_ funky, get the album "Kool & The Gang" from 1970
• And last, but not least Earth, Wind & Fire, whose speciality was to present the Funk so furious like KISS did it equivalently in their Rock & Roll shows

Smooth Funk Sound Example: The 24-Carat Black - 24-Carat Black RealAudio, 167k
JB Funk Sound Example: James Brown - Funky Drummer RealAudio, 154k
Disco Funk Sound Example: Dennis Coffey - Scorpio RealAudio, 170k

This list may not be complete, but might give You a short overview of the genre.

Today many musical styles claim to be funky, but the pure Funk became rare (see Rare Groove in Your favorite record store); its golden time passed from the 60s to the late 70s. Today some of the old styles come back again: Funky Jazz, funky R'n'B, Jazzrock, Fusion and funky Motown, all combined under the modern term "Dancefloor Jazz". Nowadays essential publications with a wide variety of styles and many of the named ckassics are the MOJO Dancefloor Jazz Sampler from Hamburg's MOJO-Club (Vols. 1-7, published by Motor Music).

With friendly input and support of Mr. Funky Aram.

1) State of India, which is a worldwide centrum for hippies, outsiders and spiritual chokers.
2) Electronic musical style, late 80s - today. Goa is electronic world music. Main ingredient is Trance in all facettes, influenced by Indish and Oriental tonality and melody; conquered by strong, floating synthesizer lines. Goa is excellent for exstatic dancers, opposite to Techno Goa inherits a really spiritual and meditative aura. That might be a clue, why Techno-freaks prefer to use any kind of doping like amphetamine, whilst Goa-freaks prefer to use drugs for a higher state of consciousness (mushrooms, LSD, etc.). This statement is not thought to enforce the abuse of drugs of any kind - drug abuse among techno dancers is a hard fact.

Even today mainly Goa trance is played in Goa; but also in Germany some Goa parties are celebrated. The most time, those peaceful parties take place under spacy blacklight decoration. THE (German) Web-Link for Goa and Trance is the Mushroom Magazine. Here You could find everything about Goa, parties, records, and even drugs. The biggest events will be announced there first.

Electronic musical style, early 80s - today. House evolved in London and Chicago at the same time from Disco and the early Electronic. The preferred style in London contained ill electro sounds was therefore named Acid. In Chicago some DJs discovered drum computers and turntables as serious musical instruments. They began to play around with old disco records. They speeded them up and combined the result with new beats from the drum machine. That process could be entitled as the final birth of Chicago House, which, some years later, strongly influenced German pioneers in their development of Techno.

Also, a vast globalisation trend started in the 70s among the music industry (German producer Frank Farian got several No.-1-hits in the USA (!) in the 70s!). So Acid was soon well-known in America and Chicago-House was well-known in European clubs. The two styles began to merge and formed a basic form of House, which then developed into several, partly very special substyles.
Progressive House sounds very electronic and is the nearest relative to Acid; Deep House adds a good portion of Soul and beautiful vocals of professional singers; Commercial House is settled near Deep House, but "optimized" for the charts. Further there are many, many niche forms of house with a smaller audience, like very calm Ambient House; and a growing number of diffuse regional styles (e.g. Italo House).

House is mainly represented through 12'' Vinyl, some artists change their name several times a month and publish only single tracks. The most part of good House music is exlusively played in small clubs; artists, who sell 5000 records do have a "super hit" in the hood. Many major labels nowadays try to take part of House out of commercial interests, but that's music for the radio or MTV. Only a small number of "pure" House labels made it to mentionable size (e.g. Strictly Rhythm, Ladomat). Whilst House is not easy to describe, You better listen:

• Underground House Sound Example:
  Victor Imbres feat. Dihann Moore - Fire RealAudio, 170k


• Disco House Sound Example:
  Re-Vib-Al - The Feeling RealAudio, 167k


• Vocal House Sound Example:
  Romanthony presents Nyree - Good Tymz RealAudio, 170k


• Progressive House Sound Example:
  JX - Close To Your Heart RealAudio, 181k


• Deep House Sound Example:
  Azymuth - Jazz Carnival Pt. 1 RealAudio, 181k

Electronic musical style, early 90s - today. Jungle was created in Nottinghill, a London suburb which is mainly inhabitated by migrants from the West Indies. Jungle uses parts of Reaggae, Dub and Techno, combines them with deep down subsonic basslines, fast, syncopated drum Loops from pitched and forged raw material, Breakbeats, a lot of dark sounds and the endless shouts of a Ragga MC. Sometimes Jungle was mixed up with Drum & Bass, to which it's similar. Both styles evolved at the same time and were thought up by the same kind of people, but Jungle is way faster, it's the dancehall party sound. One could dance after Jungle and think after Drum & Bass.

Genuine Jungle artists are MCs like Shy FX, UK Apachi, General Levy and Rebel MC; the nu school are people like Goldie and his Metalheadz crew. Genuine Jungle could be found on labels like e.g. Suburban Base, Reinforced, Moving Shadow, or Goldie's Metalheadz. German Jungle labels are e.g. Ruff Cutz, Smokin' Drum, or Downbeat. Artists like The Prodigy play a breakbeat-based mixture of Jungle with a strong influence of Punk.

Electronic musical style, middle 98s - today. Leftfield is similar to Big Beat and was conceived from the Trip-Hop tree in the London Underground in the middle 90s. In addition to the "trippy" ingredients, Leftfield is characterized by straight, hard dance beats (Big Beat commonly uses forged Breakbeatst) and its stylistically more experimental approach. The main protagonists of this kind of style are Leftfield, to a certain extent Underworld and nowadays ("Surrender") the Chemical Brothers, too.

• Leftfield Sound Example:
  Leftfield - Black Flute RealAudio, 113k
• Leftfield Sound Example:
  Leftfield - Open Up RealAudio, 185k

Low Frequency Oscillator; special form of an Oscillator, correctly named Modulation Generator. An LFO works exactly like a normal Oscillator and could be controlled exactly the same way. The only, but important difference: The LFO itself could not be heard because it's too low, its effect on the original sound could be! Just like the correct description Modulation Generator reveals, the LFO is exclusively used for modulation purposes. What the LFO modulizes and in which way could be determined in an indefinite range by the user. One could trigger the Filter with a simple sawtooth wave from the LFO, for example, getting an interesting, automated modulation. Gated Arpeggios or squirky resonance experiments are able, too. The control over such automated processes requires learning by doing and at least a little theoretical background (what modulizes what?). But after You worked a short time with LFOs, You will be able to create sounds You've never even thought of before.

Loop: short sample, cut to fit a loop when played constantly. Means to create new beats from old ones and even to construct whole songs. Some modern Samplers and software programs like Acid do have an "Autoloop-Function", which automatically creates a new, right-in-time loop from the raw material. Some artists work also around the copyright in that way - parts shorter than three seconds are not copyrighted in any way at any time.

Musical Instrument Data Interface, standardized interface for MIDI-controlled tone generators. One could define MIDI as Plug-And-Play of electronic musical instruments.

Nowadays all synthesizers and soundcards do have a MIDI interface, and only this enables You to do all the neat things You ever wanted to: plug synth in, record, edit, save and playback music; to control 15 synths over one keyboard, record and edit modulations or program changes, copy and edit sounds from Your synth to Your computer - and the other way round, etc., etc., etc... You will nearly have infinite abilities. And the best of it: Because MIDI is an established standard, every common computer OS could handle it. To start You'd only need a simple sound card, an input device (standard sized keyboard recommended), MIDI cables, and, depending on the sound card, an external tone generator. Most of the time, MIDI works perfect and everywhere and one does not need to think about it...

MPEG is the abbreviation for Motion Pictures Experts Group, a bunch of hyperpros that was founded to create industry standards for audio-/video-compression. MPEG-3 (or MPEG, Layer 3) is the recently most preferred standard; it features maximum compression with the best "recognized" audio quality (-> see Psychoacoustic science). Files in the format MPEG-3 could be identified by their suffix *.MP3.

But what is it good for - especially what's about data reduction, which is entitled to be very lossy? Let's take a look at a common WAV-file: The well-known CD-quality (16bit Stereo, 44.100 Hz) takes nearly 10 MB of space for one minute of audio material, that makes 74/80 mins. of audio on a CD with 650/700 MB capacity. If one uses a PC wit a big HD to administrate one's WAVs, this hunger for disk space should not be a problem nowadays. But if one wants to record one's music on something like MiniDisc, or if one even wants to offer one's music over the internert, an efficient compression would be essential.

That's the field of MPEG-3: It's able to compress audio data with a ratio between 10:1 and 12:1. That would mean: A WAV-file from 12 MB of size could shrink to 1 MB in MP3 format. A common longplay CD so could fit into 60 MB! Two facts about audio quality: An MP3-file may sound very well, near the original in CD quality. So 90% less disk space do NOT mean 90% less audio quality! Nowadays some CD burner programs are even able to convert MP3s directly to WAVs of CD quality to burn them directly as audio CD.

If You are interested in some of the tricks behind MPEG (and similar codecs), see Psychoacoustic science for more information about perceptual audio encoding. MPEG-Players and Decoders are available at e.g. here, here or here. Because MP3 files could not be copyrighted in any way, an increasing number of following formats is currently under construction.

A simple, oscillating electronic device which produces waves, the raw base for each analog synthesizer. Only tune and shape of the wave can be edited. Synthesizers mostly feature two potis with cool names like "OSC Shape" and "OSC Tune" for thet purpose.

What happens, when You tune the oscillator should be clear - but what's the shape? It's as simple as that: The shape of the wave determines, how it sounds. There are typically three basic waveforms: Sawtooth, Pulse Wave (Rectangle/Square) and Sine Wave (neutral beep). With tricks like modulation or adding random signals (noise) more types of waves are possible to create. One Oscillator is though

• 1) only able to output ONE signal at a time and that
• 2) the number of basic waves is not really astonishing.

Just because of that, most analog synthesizers feature two or more oscillators p. voice, ant that could make the whole thing far more interesting:

One could e.g. assign easch oscillator a different wave shape and distort the tunings against each other; one could also modulate the signal of the one oscillator through the signal of another; or one could perform such mean things like oscillator syncronisation or ring modulation... And: One does not essentially need to know everything of the functions; the raw sound is just made wider/phatter, more interesting or organical. Further, evil sound forging is possible with the serially following Filter. Continue with Filter...

This topic is not really about commercial and supermarket-muzak, it's also a highly scientific field of work we get to hear every day! Nice examples are e.g. (psycho-)surround-sound with only two loudspeakers or things like Audio Encoders like ATRAC (MiniDisc) o MPEG, which are able to reduce the volume of audio data by 90%. The inevitable invention of the audio compressor (which makes everything louder WITHOUT making everything louder) is another child of psychoacoustic science.

But: How, the heck, does it work? You will have to difference first between audio one could really hear, and audio one beleives to hear. That, what one beleives to hear (that, what remains in the brains ;) is called "subjective aural impression". Two man on this planet do also never hear the same, even if You play the same song for them - everyone "hears" different.

• Many people who live in a loud environment (cities, airports, highways, etc.), suffer from a weak hearing capability, especially in frequencies around 14 kHz and up. By the way, musicians suffer this handicap less often.
• All human beings are in the best case able to differenciate 24 steps between two half tones.
• Most people are not able to hear two indepentent instruments in a mixdown - especially, when those instruments share one frequency spectrum and one loudness, for example a Techno-Track with Kickdrum and Bass on the same step. A unified volume gain makes audio even "seem" louder.

Those three facts above are entitled the basic needs of psychacoustic science. They play an essential role in making a decision how one could optimise an audio signal for the listener or which parts of the signal could be cut out to save memory. There are lots of examples: A compressor just amplifies silent parts of the signal and compresses the louder ones. This procedure results in the illusion, that EVERYTHING would be louder. Though this is not the pure reality, a compressor is an adequate means to get some sort of "Huh, that's shakin'!"-effect on the listener.

The first two of the facts mentioned above are also essential for Audio encoding like MPEG: Just like our brains, that analyses any audio signal and cuts off any irrelevant information, MPEG Audio tries to perform our brain's effort during recording. Just the deletion of all frequencies between 14-22 kHz - You know, that airport-thing - saves 30% memory space. Further, simultaneous sounding parts of the signal are combined into wider frequency bands. The dominating signal is then cropped on its "outskirts" and other, less dominant parts of the signal are cut off or maybe deleted. All those tricks might save something around 90% of memory space, at more than acceptable quality. Many fine details will be deleted, but the most dominant signals for a human audio experience will remain. You might see that psychoacoustic science is a wide field with lots of possibilities.

see Filter.

Device for sequential recording of information, here rhythmic and/or musical information. One coarsely differenciates between a Hardware- and a Software-Sequenzer. There are some more, special forms like Step- and Pattern-Sequenzers, but this would go too far in this FAQ. So here the basics only:

A Hardware-Sequenzer is a programmable box with knobs and switches that tells a synthesizer via MIDI (new) or CV (old) what to play. Those devices were essential in the before-MIDI-era. Today they are not wide spread. But they are predestined for some special missions, like live performances (simple, long-life circuitry, portability, etc.). Software-Sequenzer basically work the same way, but they always need a computer to work. The most used programs here are Cubase from Steinberg, Logic from emagic (both common in Europe), and Cakewalk from Twelve Tone Systems (common in the US). They all feature a lot of useful and outstanding features besides pure sequencing, that Hardware-Sequencers could not offer. So one could easily record, edit, save, and reproduce the whole setup with all program changes, modulations, or tempo changes. Those features enable the producer to create complete professional tracks and arrangements in a short period of time. The disadvantage: You'll always need a computer to make a Software-Sequenzer work - ask Your computer what it'd think of a live performance, or maybe a world tour... To make it short: Computers definitely don't belong on stages. ;)

Very low frquency bass sounds. In a lot of variations often used in contemporary music like Jungle, Drum & Bass, Dub, Big- and Twisted Beats, for example.

Electronic musical style, middle 80s - today, which evolved directly from elements of 70s Disco and the 80's classic EM (Kraftwerk, CAN, NEU!). Characteristic stylistic means are straight Loops of simple 4-to-the-floor rhythms, combined with short vocal samples and gated synthesizer chords. The tempo of the numerous genuine Techno styles reaches from >125bpm until >200 bpm! Pure Techno has become rare today and has moved to the underground again. The style evolved, split to other styles and again merged with them and more classical styles like House and Funk. Hip today in Germany is some sort of - how I'd call it - "Lobotomy-Techno", a brainchild of the - for little German girls and adult German Mallorca tourists - famous "Kindergarten-Techno": Creatively absolutely dead, $-eyed producers take - everyone - the same beat, some stupid Itchy-Bitchy-Spider melodies, combine them with illsonic chords, and publish one painfully similar track after another - with only marginal changes in arrangement, sound, melody and beat. That's not Techno no more! But the Kids seem to like it. Anyway, it develops fastly in that direction - with no end at sight...

Electronic musical style, early 90s - today, often called a "soft version of Techno". Both styles arrived at the same time. And yes, often Trance uses similar, but commonly slower beats; the real secret is the complexity of the arrangements and melodies. In addition to elements of classical Electronic this style uses elements and attitude of 70s Psychedelic Rock (Led Zeppelin etc.). This special approach and the usage of uncommon sounds commonly makes Trance tracks way more sperical and relaxing than Techno tracks. Theoretically, one could even dance to Trance ( :) ); but it's more used to calm down the masses after some fast tracks, or for chillout in the morning. Pure trance is rare today, the nearest relatives of this style are the rare-too Ambient and Goa and the more modern, Dub- and TripHop-influenced Leftfield.

(Electronic) musical style of the middle 90s - today. A style with many names. The most common description is "Trip-Hop". Fed up with a proportional increasing amount of hard dance music trascks, artists like DJ Shadow, Massive Attack, Tricky, DJ Krush or Kruder & Dorfmeister created this calm, relaxing style from large amounts of Dub, slowed down Hip-Hop beats, raps, vocals and elementes of Soul, Jazz, and even Rock. Trip-Hop is a very open minded style, which could be seen - eh, heard - in the following genres Big Beat and Leftfield.

simple linear electric method to control parameters of electric devices. The most simple example might be a toy train: If You're turning the speed controller up, the train will go faster. Voltage Control of analog synthesizers works exactly the same way; I want to make this clear with the default example of a Filter control:

The typical range of a VC is from 0 to 10 Volts. If one changes the Filter's Cutoff ratio by turning the appropriate knob, one changes the amount of control voltage, which finally opens/closes the Filter. The linearity of this method is its biggest advantage: It could create absolutely soft modulations without steps - like digital controls do due to digital Quantization. The biggest disadvantages of VC are its inaccuracy, its lack of precision and performance, its sensitivity to interferences, and the bad reproducability of the settings. This makes digital, MIDI-controlled devices the means of choice: Their parameter changes could easily be recorded and saved, e.g. in a Sequenzer - but snapped to a grid without linearity.