I've been trying to pin down a good definition of West Coast vs. East
Coast philosophies. As near as I can figure it the East Coast
philosophy of synthesis is to treat the Synthesizer as an instrument
capable of creating passable imitations of other instruments or to
think of the modular as a kind of electronic pipe organ, capable of
making loud powerful sounds but ultimately based on the standard
chromatic scale and attached to a piano keyboard. Hence almost all the
early Moog recordings are things like Carlos' "Switched on" series of
albums.
The West Coast philosophy seems to be the school of thought that the synthesizer is an instrument of the future, something that wasn't ultimately intended to do impressions of other instruments but to generate sounds that had never been heard before and never occur in nature, As a result the control of the instrument became centred around sequencers and touchplate keyboards that don't fix the sound around a predetermined scale but allow the musician to determine the sound on his or her own terms.
The thing that's got me baffled though is why is it that instruments with mult strips are considered part of the East Coast camp while those with Banana plugs are West Coast? Is there more to it than the fact that Buchla and Moog found different solutions to the problem of signal distribution or do they represent different ways of thinking and working with the instrument that's somehow quantifiable? Personally I can't tell you how many times I've wished my present rig was all banana plugs, it would make life a lot easier if I didn't have to go to a mult. I wonder why Moog, Doepfer, etc, stuck with standard instrument cables when the other option looks to me to make better sense.
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"War will end when people refuse to fight"
--Anonymous
The West Coast philosophy seems to be the school of thought that the synthesizer is an instrument of the future, something that wasn't ultimately intended to do impressions of other instruments but to generate sounds that had never been heard before and never occur in nature, As a result the control of the instrument became centred around sequencers and touchplate keyboards that don't fix the sound around a predetermined scale but allow the musician to determine the sound on his or her own terms.
The thing that's got me baffled though is why is it that instruments with mult strips are considered part of the East Coast camp while those with Banana plugs are West Coast? Is there more to it than the fact that Buchla and Moog found different solutions to the problem of signal distribution or do they represent different ways of thinking and working with the instrument that's somehow quantifiable? Personally I can't tell you how many times I've wished my present rig was all banana plugs, it would make life a lot easier if I didn't have to go to a mult. I wonder why Moog, Doepfer, etc, stuck with standard instrument cables when the other option looks to me to make better sense.
--
"War will end when people refuse to fight"
--Anonymous