Flashback To A Sound Approach

Unrelated Notes

Having recently purchased a copy of Spectrasonics Omnisphere, and continuing to be amazed and thrilled at the sound and power of this virtual synthesizer created and developed by Eric Persing, it reminded me of an old CD that I have in my collection titled “Roland: A Sound Approach”. The casual observer will ask, “So what’s the connection between the two?”. Well, I’ll tell you. This CD was released in 1988 by Roland, manufacturer of some of the best hardware synths in the world. The man behind most of the songs on this CD is none other than Eric Persing who was a consultant and sound designer for Roland.

I remember listening to this CD over and over and over. The interesting thing about it, aside from the music, is that the liner notes have detailed descriptions and flow charts showing exactly how the songs were played and recorded. As a young teenager with a gear lust that hasn’t subsided much over the years, this only served to whet my fantasies of possessing racks upon racks of gear.

It’s enjoyable and gratifying to reflect on how far musical instrument technology has come in 20+ years. Below, you can click on pictures of some of the liner notes from the Roland CD to see how many individual pieces of hardware it took and how complicated it was to route all of it to produce a decent song back in 1988. Nowadays, pretty much all of what you see charted out resides in a computer and is much easier on the wallet (thankfully!).