Update via the comments: TONTO's Expanding Head Band
Updates via AH: Malcolm Cecil says:
"TONTO's Expanding Head Band will be performing live at the Big Chill Festival on Saturday, August 5th at 9:30 PM the Sanctuary stage. The festival is a 3 day affair held at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire, about 2 1/2 hrs drive north west of London. The closest big town is Gloucester. They are expecting 33,000 people to show up - 5,000 will spend the whole 3 days camping there. More detailed info on how to get there is on www.eastnorcastle.com and the full festival info is available at: link.
TONTO will not actually be there - way too big and expensive to ship for a one hour performance - I am creating a "Virtual TONTO" and will play live over pre recorded backing tracks with a specially prepared visual show with hundreds of pics of TONTO and Poli Cecil's art pieces.
The TONTO CD with an additional never before released track will be available at the festival. Those who can't attend but want the CD can email me mcecil[]hvc.rr.com"
Malcolm Cecil in regards to this recording:
"It is unauthorized.
I have mixed emotions about it. Its like seeing your mother in law drive over the edge of a cliff :-) in your brand new uninsured Rolls Royce :-( I am gratified that more than 1100 people have downloaded it in 9 months and that half of the people who found it download it. On the other hand I am just about to re-release the CD with an additional never before released track to coincide with TONTO's live performance at the Big Chill in England on August 5th. TONTO will not actually be there - way too big and expensive to ship for a one hour performance - but I am creating a "Virtual TONTO" and will play live over pre recorded backing tracks with a specially prepared visual show with hundreds of pics of TONTO and Poli's (Mrs. Cecil's) art pieces."
Original Post:
"If you are too young to remember those halcyon days, back when all computers were water cooled, and the Future was Now, then you probably do not even know what a multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer is.
TONTO is an acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra": the world's first (and still the largest) multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer, designed and constructed by Malcolm Cecil. As an analog synthesizer, TONTO was capable of creating virtually any sound. Its warm, fat bass sounds were particularly noteworthy and still cannot be recreated by the current breed of MIDI digital synthesizers and samplers. (See more at link)
With Robert Margoleff, Malcolm produced two LPs - "Zero Time" and "It's About Time" - as "TONTO's Expanding Head Band". I think that "Zero Time" is the best. While I have had the vinyl since forever, the CD is out of print.
I was lucky and persistent enough to find a chap with a copy of the remastered compilation CD, "TONTO Rides Again", and he burned me a copy. I took this and ripped it to WAV with Winamp Pro. Then, I converted to FLAC with dBpowerAMP."
Title link takes you there.
isn't this illegal?
ReplyDeleteSupposedly there is a reissue and or 5.1 surround remix of these tracks being prepared. I understand the reason the "Rides Again" CD had it's sales halted was over a legal dispute with the Japanese regional rights holder whom, while not seemingly making any attempt to actually sell or reissue the album, apparently found that imports of this CD were being sold in Japanese shops and filed legal action. After the fact it seems the legal tag line "Not for sale in Japan" was left off the fine print. It's rare but I do recall seeing the occasional reissue album marked "Not for Sale In Japan" or "For Sale In Japan Only".
ReplyDeleteAnyway, there is work being done to get this reissued.
There is said to be a third TONTO album that has yet to find a suitable label.
Also there is Malcolm Cecil's 1981 solo LP "Radiance" which is all played on TONTO but is more in a space music quasi-new age style. There is also a Robert Margouleff album that features very early TONTO and presumably Malcolm Cecil's earliest contributions to the project.
Finally, as documented in the book Analogue Days. TONTO pretty much started with producer/arranger Robert Margouleff buying a damaged IIIC. Malcolm Cecil was an acoustic bassist working as a sound engineer with serious electronics skills. So I guess when you talk about TONTO technically, he's the much bigger contributer (and he eventually bought out Margouleff's interest to own the actual synth). On the creative and arrangement side I guess he would have been the junior partner early on before taking an equal creative share until Margouleff went on to persue other projects circa the very late 70s.
Useful but not very well known facts:
The polyphonic keyboard sends out 10 channels of CV and gate. There is a bus in each cabinet where you can patch into the channels. It was designed to quickly dissassemble and move through standard size doors. While it takes a couple hours it is giggable. Mark Mothersbaugh never owned it though he might have had is sights set on doing so.
I don't think it's the largest analog modular. Maybe as one configured for separate voices of an orchestra or whatever, but there are many larger synths both in size and module complement.
ReplyDeleteVia AH:
ReplyDeleteMalcolm Cecil says:
"It is unauthorized.
I have mixed emotions about it. Its like seeing your mother in law drive over the edge of a cliff :-) in your brand new uninsured Rolls Royce :-( I am gratified that more than 1100 people have downloaded it in 9 months and that half of the people who found it download it. On the other hand I am just about to re-release the CD with an additional never before released track to coincide with TONTO's live performance at the Big Chill in England on August 5th. TONTO will not actually be there - way too big and expensive to ship for a one hour performance - but I am creating a "Virtual TONTO" and will play live over pre recorded backing tracks with a specially prepared visual show with hundreds of pics of TONTO and Poli's (Mrs. Cecil's) art pieces."
Further info from Malcolm Cecil via AH:
ReplyDeleteTONTO's Expanding Head Band will be performing live at the Big Chill
Festival on Saturday, August 5th at 9:30 PM the Sanctuary stage. The
festival is a 3 day affair held at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire,
about 2 1/2 hrs drive north west of London. The closest big town is
Gloucester. They are expecting 33,000 people to show up - 25,000 will
spend the whole 3 days camping there. More detailed info on how to
get there is on www.eastnorcastle.com and the full festival info is
available at www.bigchill.net.
TONTO will not actually be there - way too big and expensive to ship
for a one hour performance - I am creating a "Virtual TONTO" and will
play live over pre recorded backing tracks with a specially prepared
visual show with hundreds of pics of TONTO and Poli Cecil's art pieces.
The TONTO CD with an additional never before released track will be
available at the festival. Those who can't attend but want the CD can
email me mcecil@hvc.rr.com
So he's going to do a TONTO performance without TONTO?
ReplyDeleteTVNTO: The Virtual New Timbral Orchestra (or his powerbook)
what are you doing posting links to illegal downloads, matrix? doesn't that open u up to liability?
ReplyDeleteNope. The post is on the album and link to another site. It's the same as if it were posted on a forum. Matrixsynth is my forum. I post what I see out there. The other site is liable. Now if I copied the file and hosted it on my server or it was me that put that file up, I'd be liable. However, I could get a cease and desist for putting up a link but it seems like it would make more sense to just kill the site I'm linking to, right? This post would then become an interesting note on synth history - that this was up and Malcom Cecil made the comments he made on it. What's interesting is he knows this share is out there, yet he hasn't had it removed. Why?
ReplyDeletesee also www.tontosexpandingheadband.com
ReplyDeleteLooks like that's exactly whats happened. As soon as they found out it was there it seems to have been pulled.
ReplyDelete