A lot of people hate it - it divides people.”

So we put it first, and it was really non-musical, super aggro, really noisy. That may have been one of the inspirations for the minimal direction for the whole album. “We hadn’t really heard anything like that in hip hop before. Producer of Yeesus, Rick Rubin recently commented on saying: Certainly modular synthesizers help provide that ability to express creativity. Kanye West, describing his artistic expression says, “this is what frustration sounds like”. We should mention, by “beat”, Zane is referring to the usage of an arpeggio pattern that modular synths are so famous for – there are no actual drums or even drum samples. In a 2013 interview with BBC, Zane Lowe describes it as “one of the best beats on the record for me”. Rolling Stone describing this song said, “the sonic palette is as typically rich as ever”. Kanye West’s album “Yeezus” took the hip-hop world by storm when it was released in 2013. Much of this reception had to do with the solitary, somewhat shrilling modular synth we hear in the albums first seconds – created by Daft Punk, co-producers of the track. You can see a bit of RJD2 talking about his love for Modular Synths in this feature on Engadget In an interview with he describes as the “funnest processing / sound generating tool” because it is all of the elements of a synth “broken down into functions”. Modular synths open the doors to infinite combinations of sound.Ĭomposer of the “Mad Men” theme song, RJD2 has been building his own modular synthesizer for over two years now. Hard wired synths limit the sonic possibilities, because you can only “layer” the pieces of sound in the same order, every time. This would certainly hinder the possibilities. In a bit of a stretch for a comparison – it could loosly be similar to a painter only being able to layer colors in the same order every time. The problem with hardwired synths, though, is the order of these connections is well, hardwired. Each piece connects together, passing sound from one piece to the next – like a highway of sound. High pass filters, low pass filters affect the coloring of that tone. Envelope filters affect the timing and dynamics of the tone. Sonic FlexibilityĪt their essence, analog synthesizers are made up of pieces.

As a manufacturer of high end custom faceplates for some of today’s most popular modular synthesizers, we wanted to explore why these big boxes of knobs and wires are so popular. But musicians today are loving the modular synth. And they have been around for 50 years now. Their album “Random Access Memories” (with the hit single “Get Lucky”) makes extensive use of the modular synthesizer.

The modular synth you are hearing in the opening track “On Sight” is actually work of another band that made headlines in 2013: Daft Punk. Do you know what album from 2013 opens with the unmistakable sound of a modular synth? No, it wasn’t the work of some obscure electronic musician. It was the Billboard’s #2 Critics’ Pick Album of The Year: Yeesus, By Kanye West.

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