my first fore into MIDI sequencing, tuning and mixing. My second fore is here: • Bach, Brandenburg Conc... from The Grotto Electrasynth-O-Magneticpolyphonic Orchestra Playlist: • The Grotto Electrasynt...
I bought the album in 1968 as walter carlos, and I was hooked on classical music. Many years later, I bought the CD as wendy carlos. Both I cherish very much.
My mother’s friend brought over a copy of switched on Bach 1. I proceeded to get my ten year old head blown off by Sinfonia to cantata 29. Pure godhead is achieved and celebrated. It shall be played at my funeral. Over and over. Loudly. Very loudly.
Very excellent. I am a huge fan of Wendy Carlos. She is the only one that has captured the true essence of Bach’s complex mind. This is a wonderful tribute. Great work.
@The Anonymous Sir Backspace Walter Carlos had sex reassignment surgery and then changed his name to Wendy. I appreciate his amazing talent. Listening to his music is a joyful experience! At the same time, it pains me to know he is a tortured soul.
@@lisashelton8728 the fact Wendy led such a successful career on top of pioneering electronic music sort of casts doubts on the notion of it being a mental illness and/or the product of her merely being a 'tortured soul'. I wish the rest of us were half as high-functioning and creative as her.
@@kangaroo7377 A successful career does not guarantee happiness. And true happiness cannot be found living in a false reality. Biological males are not born with female souls, nor are biological females born with male souls.
@@ppjjazz8885 I think not so much! He was a proponent of well-temperament, which is the most direct precursor to the equal-temperament we use today. If at his time it would be feasible to tune to equal-temperament I bet he would adhere to it.... But to tune to equal-temperament at his time he would have to tune by ear to tones that where out of tune in a very precise way, so instead of expecting perfection he tuned his instruments to "well-temperament", which pretty much is as close as you can get to equal-temperament without spending an abnormous amount of time tuning and returning by ear, so the well-temperament he used was a good enough approximation of his ideal scale, which we now consider the norm. I could be wrong though, I didn't study the tuning theory of his time extensively. The little that I did led me to that understanding which I shared....
Guess you have not heard the infinitely superior version by Carlos that this version is supposed to be a tribute to. This version is the antithesis of what Carlos was all about...it is mechanical, without nuance, feeling, and generally without musicality. While I do not wish to belittle efforts in electronic music that fall short of greatness, at the same time I think it appropriate to take note when something so obviously inferior is presented as a tribute to something great.
It's been 5 years since I first heard this and I still come back to this masterpiece once in a while. It's still the best arrangement of this piece on RU-vid.
" oh Wendy" said Walter WC's recordings had a great influence on my musical interests...the shining, a clockwork orange and tron all scored with WC selections.
I have been listening to this version a lot. I have the version by Wendy Carlos and have played that a lot as well (for decades)! Both are amazing interpretations. I love this version because it is a great tempo and the voices are perfect. It is also the best version for a very high quality sound system. I'm afraid that most people will not be able to appreciate the floor rattling bass notes unless thay have very high quality speakers or headphones. If you ever feel the urge to interpret other works in addition to your (also excellent) Brandenburg concerto, you will make a lot of people very happy! Thank you so much for recording these and sharing them with us. You are extremely talented. My hat is off to you!
Very very well done. Synthetic, not sterile. I love the pace, as others note it's right on that edge of almost-too-fast which is exactly what you'd expect from a singing machine!
@wardka i happen to love bach on synth because - when done right - there is a new energy and crispness infused into the music. And, more importantly, i feel like one can hear more of the complex note structures without a degree in music ( since the digital instruments don't "blend" together or get muddied up as real instruments in a chamber orchestra would.)
I love the speed, 1 minute faster than most versions. It sounds rushed, but what an awesome RUSH. I keep replaying it, like the rat that keeps pushing the brain stimulating pleasure button and dies of exhaustion. At the end I hear an unrelated note from a flute or something. It sounds as if you didn't erase the previous recording quite far enough.
Find a copy of the first "Switched On Bach" Album - Walter dressed in period costume on cover. It will be the first cut and it will be the best you will ever hear, I promise. I have the vinyl.
eso fueck of Bach, to play very fast to induce in the audience a sense of overwhelming power and beauty, very germanic , as well as playing without rest bars, all in a throw without stopping even to breathe, Bach was so over human that he could be called the son of God (Wotan in his case) instead of Jesus, he did music for God and of God , divine music where every note is consonat with the other's instruments and each instrument goes its way. Divine musi would be like this, many instruments payng togetehr in armony, as here in our material world it is impossible to achieve but after most training.
My mother’s friend brought over a copy of switched on Bach one. At 10 years old I got my head blown off by Sinfonia to cantata number 29. It will be played at my funeral. Over and over. Loudly.
This familiar masterpiece's arrangement is comfortable and soothing to the ears and the mind Want of Bach , want of human's glory , pleasure and satisfaction
After all these years I still think this is the way of the future. I grow weary of all the people who think synths are cheesy or in poor taste. They are more expressive now than ever and certainly not as grating as a dirty clicky-clangy harpsichord or screechy violin.
bravoooooooooooooooooo bro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!you are really smart and talented toooooo!!!!!!!!!!!1may god keep your way in life only in light and good wise lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1bravooooo for this wonderful comment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!listen more often switched on bach and bodylove of klaus schultze!!! and you shall discover truth that you never dreamed of!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!bravoooo bro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!keep on baroqueing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1go baroque and your life shall be a strong,senzitive and happy one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this music is atrue gift from god for this humble and beautyful planet of ours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!life shall win in the end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1and shall win forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1bravooooo bro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!bravooo master bach!!!!!!!!!!!glory to god forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!bravoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Plenty of kudos already, so a little well-meant criticism: sounds somewhat robotic. Part of what made Wendy's version so good (even today) is that it was all played by hand - no MIDI, no sequencer. (I believe Carlos did have one of the latter in her Moog modular but I don't think she used it much judging by her own comments on her website.)
yes - ! or we can call it passion. shows that person behind the keyboard FEELS the Music. IMHO & belief.( call me mystic, if you want - I know it s unprovable. or maybe not ).
MAGNIFICA Y MUY ORIGINAL VERSION !!! A mí se me hace cuento que Bach murió! Lo juzgo tan eterno como el agua y el aire (parafraseando a J.L.Borges).... Gracias por subirlo a la red
@tenkon1 thanks! the tonality was accomplished by combining several MIDI instruments into a single mix for each instrument (for example, combining an "organ" with a square wave and a "steel guitar" and switching off the bias depending on pitch). The extended bass was accomplished in the mixdown by augmenting and doubling the sub-bass frequencies.
@Puhzz thanks so much for the enlightened feedback... once again, it just shows how unbelievable mind-blowingly ahead of her time Ms. Carlos was in both technique, transcription and aural prowess.
In his era, Bach was funded by religious foundations to produce astonishing music that would astound and mesmerise. He was a master, a "god" to most of us who do not need to invent "God." Wendy Carlos is a goddess.... an astonishing talent. However you get to appreciate the glorious creations of Bach, it doesn't matter.
More than a year ago I digitized the whole CBS quadraphonic LP of "Switched-On Bach" and uploaded it To RU-vid. For my big surprise I received a note from RU-vid, a couple of hour later, telling me that I infringed the copyright laws, so they deleted the whole LP and told me that next time, my account would be deleted. What a pity... the sound was great.
thank you. this particular video was a screen cap using the long-gone (but sorely missed) G-Force Visualizer. I think Apple bought it years ago, and now uses a subset of it as the default iTunes visualizer.
Proprement fabuleux! Au delà de la composition qui, ce jeux de lumen évoque la cervelle de Bach pour émettre cette musique aboutie au delà de l'imaginable, ces "jobastres" qui arrivent à ce rendu avec deux cacahuètes de bazar. Celà procède de génies.... bienfaisants.
I like the clarity of Bach on synths. This work has an incredible sense of majesty that's lost due to the rather fast tempo this is played at. Shame cos I love the sound.
Yes very nice. It's perfect, I'd actually like it a little less perfect but it hits the spot. I love the Switched on Bach album, had a vinyl years ago. I need to get myself a copy.
I, too, am a fan of Wendy Carlos (and Bach, of course!), and I add to Larry's comment. Excellent stuff, thank you. May we know a little more about your set-up, please?
this one used basic QuickTime (!) MIDI instruments. The trick was re-recording each instrument played live through a bi-amplified vintage KEF UniQ 1.0 monitor in a different environment (like recorded under a wool blanket for duller sound quality and in a tiled bathroom for brighter sound quality). Then, all re-mixed in Audition. It was a fun way to see if I could take the edge off the sometimes tiring nature of synthetic sounds without the masterful performance and technical skills of Ms. Carlos. You can hear more recent takes on this within my channel using GarageBand... but I must say this first recording still holds up!
@@wndr "holds up" ;) It is amazing. Perhaps something about your analog multitracking technique (which is what Carlos was doing back then) adds a certain something to this.
Great work. I too combine several "instruments" to achieve the voices I want. I too prefer to achieve new sounds without relying on too much on any single quality (i.e. a "clingy clangy harpsichord" for example). Doubling voice parts for spacial placement, and Wendy's own "hocketing" techniche are also tools I employ for additional clarity. I feel a good energy, pace and crispness to this rendition. Thank you for uploading... and let me say too, how much I love the visual accompanyment!
Very nice. Thanks for uploading. Also, one thing that I think Bach really needs is a very strict and consistent tempo (except perhaps at the end, where a bit of a rall. is good). Almost all of the Bach I hear on RU-vid is NOT played in this consistent way, and I'm frustrated by it, and thinking "Did they slow down because it's a hard bit, or because they're deliberately playing that bit rubato?" There are exceptions of course, but this is crisp and accurate - nice.
Does anyone realize that when Wendy Carlos made her recordings, it was all done on ana!og machines! Each and every sound had to be made, adjusted and patched with literally hundreds of hours of work.
i hope they do. the fact her performance is still light-years beyond anything i could possibly do (or quite frankly, anyone else who has tried) speaks volumes to both her technical and artistic genius.
Yip, got his 1st CD album then her 2nd CD which had me stumped for a short time , beat that you budding composers. Sits next to my CD of Beethoven's 10th Symphony aka Beethovens 10%. OK so whats next?
One of my favorites of Bach. I prefer it on solo pipe organ but this is really awesome. Not too fast so you can appreciate all of the crossing arpeggios and tones. I love that dissonant chord at 1:08
