MUSICAL innovations
"the devil's in the details"
Embrace the Past
Browsing the World Wide Web one never fails to discover some circuit made famous by a legendary musician and resurrected from anecdotes and memories (some more dubious than US policy) and lovingly re-designed as a little effects box redolent of the original icon. Circuits like the FuzzFace come to mind. Today many of the parts that compose these circuits are obsolete. Should one be lucky enough to find working examples of such components (such as germanium transistors and paper capacitors,) one must expect to pay the price.
One sad thing that digital technology has brought, is a belief system that seems to be woven into the ease and power with which these methods of creating sound are credited. A belief that anything can be created digitally; that measurements are the only musical truth; that functionality trumps quality; that analogue is some old dusty concept lingering only in the minds of the nostalgic. Fortunately the world of musicians seems to be the domain least stricken by this unfortunate untruth and even the hi-fi community has realised that some things analogue equipment are capable of can never be fully emulated by digital means.
This is not a plea for substituting the advances made possible by the digital revolution with a return to the use of analogue equipment. It is, however, an invitation to a re-discovery of the vitality innate in analogue sound production. A call to difference - to the unique - in stead of a thoughtless dependence on the reliable and repeatable.
We invite you to share in this experience.
Jacques van Zyl
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