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Retro sound

Mar 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By Gary Eskow

Are you willing to spend more than $100,000 on a digital audio workstation? In the mid-1980s, if you wanted to cut sound effects for major film releases you had to consider taking a second mortgage on your house, because the New England Digital Synclavier was the tool of choice, and that's what this DAW cost.

You did get a lot of power for your investment. For one thing, the unit sampled at rates as high as 100MHz. Even by today's standards, that's capturing a lot of upper frequency material. True, the Synclavier topped out at 16bits (and still does), but that was the “CD standard” of the day.

What really distinguished the Synclavier, however, was its interface, which consisted of a piano-style keyboard and several rows of sparkling red buttons. The buttons gave the user access to all of the system's power in a quick, seamless fashion. Creating tracks was unnecessary; the system created tracks whenever the record mode was entered. Storing and retrieving sounds was also quick and easy.

But the onslaught of low-cost hardware samplers — and eventually software samplers running on off-the-shelf computers — dealt crippling blows to NED, and long-term prospects for the Synclavier dimmed.

Surprise! The Synclavier is back.

Although the Synclavier has always used a Macintosh computer, in the early days it only functioned as a terminal interface, says Brian George, president of Demas Inc. and Synclavier Digital Corp., the companies that now own the rights to the Synclavier. George draws a distinction between the Synclavier and other workstations.

“The Synclavier Audio System is an instrument, not just a DAW,” George says. “The computer audio industry has done a remarkable marketing job in selling the idea that all you really need is a fast computer and one program or another to be really successful. While this may be true to some extent, it certainly leaves a lot to be desired. Mainly, it completely negates the thought that the people running these systems may, in fact, have some talent of their own. Furthermore, perhaps their talent, when properly interfaced to the computer audio system, may provide a much more creative combination.”

The primary interface to the Synclavier is the keyboard/button panel with the computer screens as aid and file management tools. The operator does not have to stop and create tracks or allocate space in a maze of pulldown menus to begin working. Nor does the user have to troubleshoot a host of MIDI interfaces and sound modules before each session. With the Synclavier, most of this is done automatically by the system. An operator can call up a patch list or create a sound file, punch the record button, and go to work without ever touching a mouse. This basic ergonomic difference allows the operator to use motor skills in tandem with computer power.

The original Synclavier was comprised of poly sampling, voice playback, and FM synthesis hardware. The hardware was driven by a proprietary Synclavier ABLE computer. The Mac was used as a dumb terminal — it emulated a DEC or VT-100 monitor, but didn't do any processing or sequencing.

With the current, more powerful generation of Mac G4 computers, all that has changed. “We have replaced the Synclavier computer completely with the Mac,” George explains. “All of the sequencing and audio number crunching is done in the Mac. The audio playback hardware, the heart of the Synclavier sound, still comes from the original NED hardware. Going inside the Mac has advantages of speed and power. It allows us to take full advantage of the Mac's file management and remote access features.”

Peter Fish is a longtime Synclavier user who recently purchased five new systems. Fish, a composer and owner of Tonic, a Manhattan audio post facility, recently merged his operation with that of WNET Channel 13. John McGowen, director of audio engineering at WNET, says that even though other workstations (including Pro Tools) are used throughout the multiple-studio setup, the attractions of the Synclavier make it difficult to give up.

“The keyboard layout itself is something that's never gone away,” Fish says. “There's an ease-of-use factor that composers, especially those working under deadlines, find attractive. You can really crank stuff out quickly. There are no mouse clicks and no page changes required. Everything's in front of you, on the keyboard itself.

“Sonically, people still rave about the D to A converters. They're very warm-sounding, and they blow away anything found on a cheap sampler. There was obviously a lot of care taken when these converters were designed.”

Paul Soucek is a supervising sound editor and sound designer whose credits include design on The Sixth Sense. He is also an original partner at Planet 10 Post, a New York post facility owned by the editorial division of Sound One.

“I've stayed with the Synclavier for a number of reasons. You find a tool you like and stay with it, for one thing, and I still haven't found anything else that offers the same degree of storage flexibility, file management, and sound design capability in a way that's as fast and intuitive,” Soucek says.

Soucek adds that the advantages of coupling the Synclavier engine with the G4 are significant. “They put the entire tower on one card that you can pop into a Mac, which speeds things up and makes the interface much slicker. … The most important thing, though, is the fact that the new Synclavier is much faster than the old one. The way they've miniaturized things and put everything on a card is mind boggling.”

Planet 10 owns Pro Tools as well, and Soucek says he finds the two systems complementary. “Let's say I go out and record a bunch of gunshots, which I want to store as samples. I'll bring them back here and load them into Pro Tools in order to execute a raw clean up. Being a RAM-based system, the Synclavier wouldn't be efficient for this task. Once I've trimmed all of the samples, I'll load them into the Synclavier, create a multi-key layout, and save them as a Synclavier set of sounds.”

Jon Johnson was cutting sound on a major Hollywood film when we spoke. The Los Angeles-based sound designer has owned a Synclavier for more than 12 years. These days he splits his work between his upgraded Synclavier and his Pro Tools rack “depending on the project,” he says. “It's always a question of what's the fastest way to get a job done. If I'm creating new sounds from scratch, I usually go with the Synclavier. It's easier to create new sounds against picture than with Pro Tools. But Pro Tools has a big advantage in that you can get into half frame areas much easier than you can with the Synclavier. The fact that digital picture is an option that comes with Pro Tools is a big plus. We run an Aurora Fuse card in Mac over a PCI bus, and import picture as QuickTime movies.

“I create sounds in the Synclavier, though, because of the speed at which it accesses sounds, and its ability to manipulate, layer, and modify sounds,” he adds.

Priced around $20,000 and up, not including G4, the Synclavier still represents a sizable investment. Nonetheless, audio post facilities that need a great-sounding, easy-to-use system should consider the Synclavier.

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Gary Eskow is a New Jersey-based composer and journalist. “Dream Girl,” a track he wrote and co-produced with Baron Raymonde, a horn player with Rod Stewart's band, is being played each night before the rock legend takes the stage. He writes frequently on audio-related subjects and can be reached at scribeny@aol.com or through his website at www.garyeskow.com.

For More Information

Demas
Enfield, N.H.
603-632-4159
www.synclavier.com

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