Allen Strange's Electronic Music Reprint Seeks Funding on Kickstarter

via Kickstarter

"Hello fans of Allen Strange and electronic music:

In June 2018, I was looking to buy a copy of Allen Strange's Electronic Music: System, Techniques and Controls, at a time when I was getting back into electronics and electronic music after an almost 30-year hiatus. I had vague recollections of a copy in the Electronic Music Studio at York University, where I made my first explorations into sound synthesis. The spine was gone and it was mostly a pile of papers stuffed into a folder. Finding that the only copies available were either poorly scanned PDFs, and used copies for sale online for hundreds of dollars, I was disheartened, to say the least. But I had a thought: what about finding the copyright holder and getting permission to reprint a few copies? It couldn't be that hard, right? I work at a university with lots of resources, so I should be able to figure out how to do it. AND, that way I'd be able to contribute something to the electronic music communities that I'd started to join, such as modwiggler.com, modulargrid.net, and other online forums, and who had been so welcoming, sharing all their collective knowledge and wisdom. These were places where I had heard about Allen Strange's Electronic Music: System, Techniques and Controls, in the first place.

I started a thread on Modwiggler to gauge interest. The interest was overwhelming, and motivating. After tracking down the original publisher, it took time to find out who currently owns the copyright. With the endless help and advice of librarians Ann Ludbrook and Sally Wilson at my school who specialize in e-publishing and copyright, we got to work. One of them tracked down Allen's partner Pat and helped ensure that the family once again held title to the work, and Pat agreed to let us give this whole Kickstarter a shot, and sent us her copy of Electronic Music: System, Techniques and Controls to disassemble and scan. Working with library staff and my research assistant Heidi Chan, we worked to get the book digitized, and ready for reproduction. One of the biggest challenges was to replace all the images of modules. That work fell to Heidi, who scoured the internet for people who still owned the original modules and synths used in the book, getting them to take new photographs for us to use. In some cases, the original designers of some of the modules no longer had them, but they helped us track down modules and acquire new images. With Pat's help, we have added a new introduction by Stephen C. Ruppenthal, as well as a few pages of testimonials from people who learned from and were inspired by Electronic Music: System, Techniques and Controls, from Suzanne Ciani and Todd Barton, to Dave Smith, Dave Rossum, Serge Tcherepnin, Dieter Doepfer and Tony Rolando. The book has a new cover, compliments of Allen and Pat's daughter Erin Strange, who did a wonderful job of creating a new design that carries the spirit of the original 1972 cover into this new edition. The text of book is faithful to the second edition of Allen Strange's Electronic Music: System, Techniques and Controls, published in 1983 by Wm. C. Brown Company.

Republishing Allen Strange's Electronic Music: System, Techniques and Controls, has been a four-year project since its inception. The goal, from the beginning, has been to bring this important work back into the hands of fans of the original, students and teachers of the history of electronic music, musicians and electronic music practitioners, and designers of electronic music systems. We have permission to make Allen's work available in print and electronic form from Pat Strange who holds the copyright, and Pat has been actively guiding our efforts through much of the project. At present, Allen Strange's Electronic Music: System, Techniques and Controls, will only be available through this Kickstarter.

In Pat's own words (from the preface): "Since it's first edition in 1972, Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques and Controls has been acknowledged as the definitive text on modular synthesis. In today’s musical community analogue techniques have made a resurgence among many musicians and composers. The idea of a republication has been in the works for many years and the timing of doing it now just made sense. I am very grateful to Jason Nolan, Ann Ludbrook and the team at Toronto Metropolitan University who saw the importance of this endeavor as well as taking on the task of bring this book back to life. I am so appreciative of their attention to preserving the quality of the book and respecting its content. I know that this project would have meant a lot to Allen, specifically in knowing that his techniques and teachings are continuing to influence the future of electronic music."

This is a non-profit project. Costs involved are royalties, production, logistics and shipping costs. Any residual funds will be donated to community music initiatives focusing on electronic music and electronic music learning. At present two organizations have agreed to receive funds, but we will identify more (in Europe next) depending on the amount of residual funds. These organizations are the Canadian Accessible Musical Instrument Network (http://camin.network) and the Willie Mae Rock Camp (https://www.williemaerockcamp.org).

Finally, I would like to thank Walker Farrell for the wonderful Kickstarter video.

Thank you to all supporters for being part of this project.

Jason Nolan"

Allen Strange RIP

Sad news in via vgermuse:

"I just received an email letting me know that Allen Strange passed away yesterday in Seattle. What a deep loss on so many fronts."

You might remember that Allen Strange recently had to cancel a performance in the Seattle area due to illness. If you do not know who Allen Strange is and his impact to the world of synthesizers, read this short bio (source of image and excerpt below) and then take a look at these previous posts; be sure to check out all the links to more info. He was a pioneer of electronic music and wrote a number of books on the subject. This is a sad day.

The following is a brief excerpt of his accomplishments:
"He received two grants from the San Jose State University Foundation (1969 and 1974) for research into electronic music and in 1970 became professor of music and director of the electronic music studios at the university. In 1973 he attended Chowning's music seminar at Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Center. Strange is one of the leading authorities on analogue electronic music; his Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls (1972) is now a classic text. He also wrote Programming and Meta-Programming the Electro-Organism (1974), the operations manual for the Buchla Music Easel and has documented the 200 Series synthesizers made by Buchla. He co-founded two performance groups, Biome (1967--72), in order to make use of the EMS Synthi, and, with Buchla in 1974, the Electronic Weasel Ensemble. He was president of the International Computer Music Association (1993--8) and has appeared as a guest artist-lecturer throughout the world. With his wife, Patricia, they have recently published The Contemporary Violin: Extended Performance Techniques."

Update via Robin in the comments:
"From the Family of Allen Strange.

Just wanted to thank you all for your kind words. Allen will always be remembered as a loving father, husband and musician. There will be a memorial reception at the Bainbridge Island Music Guild on March 1st at 4 pm. Directions and information can be found at http://www.islandmusic.org/. We are also planning a life celebration for Allen in the Bay Area of California in the next few months, I will be sure to post that info when it gets planned."

Update via the comments:
"The Family of Allen Strange is having a memorial celebration in San Jose on September 13. For more information please see: http://www.allenstrange.com/ and if you plan on attending please RSVP at http://allenstrange.blogspot.com/

-Robin Strange"

Marc Barreca + Allen Strange Live

Update: "DUE TO ILLNESS, ALLEN STRANGE WILL NOT BE PERFORMING)" click the link below for more info.

Via CHAPEL PERFORMANCE SPACE
Saturday February 2
"8:00 PM; $5 - $15 sliding scale donation at the door; presented by The Island Music Guild.

Marc Barreca, a Seattle pioneer of electronic music will be making a rare appearance with new works for electronic accordian, computer and interactive video. The evening will be shared with colleague Allen Strange, active in electronic music performance since the early 1970s.
Both Barreca and Strange will be releasing new CDs of recent works later this year. They will be joined by guest artists Pat Strange, violin, and William Trimble, saxophone. Both composers are current residents of Bainbridge Island and this is their first Seattle performance in many years."

The performance will be at the Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N, 4th Floor, Seattle, WA; in Wallingford, 1/2 block south of 50th St., 1 block east of Meridian; 206-789-1939
See these prior posts for some synth books by Allen Strange.

Strange Spectral Sweeps

Published on May 16, 2018 MAKEN0ISE

"Allen Strange wrote the book on modular synthesizers in the 1970s. Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls. Unfortunately since the expanded 1982 edition, it has never been reprinted, and in today’s landscape where more people have access to modular synths than ever before, very few have access to the knowledge contained within. This video series will explore patches both basic and advanced from Strange’s text. Even the simplest patches here yield kernels of knowledge that can be expanded upon in infinite ways. I have been heavily influenced by Strange since long before I became a modular synth educator. Please share this knowledge far and wide.

This patch is an interesting audio processing procedure from Allen Strange, utilizing two low pass filters. The result is a subtle increase in the intensity of the original sound.

The sounds in this video are from Kimathi Moore's Morphagene Reels, available for free at https://freesound.org/people/makenois..."

MAKEN0ISE Allen Strange

Strange Patching: Phasing Simulation with QPAS

Published on Apr 17, 2019 MAKEN0ISE

MAKEN0ISE Strange Patching

"In the section of his book that covers Phasing, Allen Strange uses a series of band pass filters to illustrate the concept. As he writes,

“A spectrally rich signal is taken, in parallel, to three or more band pass filters. The filter outputs, the three pass bands, are mixed at unity gain with the original unprocessed spectrum. Each filter must be offset to a different center frequency.. the filter should not be allowed to go into oscillation.

“A slow repetitive control voltage such as a sinewave from an LFO will then cause each filter to sweep through the applied signal, selectively passing different portions of the spectrum…. By mixing the pass-bands with the original spectrum, there will then be varying degrees of phase-cancellation in the signal, producing continually varying multiple notch cancellations or nulls. The effect will be more pronounced if the control voltage for each filter is attenuated a bit differently so that the nulls are not exactly in parallel.”

Allen Strange wrote the book on modular synthesizers in the 1970s. Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls. Unfortunately since the expanded 1982 edition, it has never been reprinted, and in today’s landscape where more people have access to modular synths than ever before, very few have access to the knowledge contained within. This video series will explore patches both basic and advanced from Strange’s text. Even the simplest patches here yield kernels of knowledge that can be expanded upon in infinite ways. I have been heavily influenced by Strange since long before I became a modular synth educator. Please share this knowledge far and wide."

Strange Patching: Parallel Envelopes

Published on Jun 6, 2018 MAKEN0ISE

"Allen Strange wrote the book on modular synthesizers in the 1970s. Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls. Unfortunately since the expanded 1982 edition, it has never been reprinted, and in today’s landscape where more people have access to modular synths than ever before, very few have access to the knowledge contained within. This video series will explore patches both basic and advanced from Strange’s text. Even the simplest patches here yield kernels of knowledge that can be expanded upon in infinite ways. I have been heavily influenced by Strange since long before I became a modular synth educator. Please share this knowledge far and wide.

This video shows parallel envelope patching to create two simultaneous note events with different shapes and durations."

MAKEN0ISE Allen Strange

Strange Acoustics: Ring Modulation of Acoustic Sound

Published on Jun 20, 2018 MAKEN0ISE

"Allen Strange had a number of ideas for using ring modulators to affect sounds of acoustic origin. Here are just a couple of them."

MAKEN0ISE Allen Strange

Allen Strange Memorial Service

via the comments of this post:

"The Family of Allen Strange is having a memorial celebration in San Jose on September 13. For more information please see: http://www.allenstrange.com/ and if you plan on attending please RSVP at http://allenstrange.blogspot.com/

-Robin Strange"

Electronic Music by Allen Strange

video upload by Cinematic Laboratory

"What you don't know does not exist. Without the efforts of MakeNoise and Jason Nolan most of us would not be aware of Allan's book and I would not be able to hold it in my hands and film it. I had no idea Allen Strange used to work and perform with Don Buchla in the Electronic Weasel Ensemble, where Pat Strange played the violin. Instead of alien sounds, they made 'eastcoast' music. We may need stop thinking in synthesis coasts. The book is a bit academic by nature, simply because the modular could only be found at the manufacturers, the university and a privileged group of musicians. So it's a bit like going back to college, and it may not be an easy book for people like me - who never went to college in the first place. This book is a bit out of my league, but I'll definitely revisit it for a few episodes, maybe learn a few new things and share it. It's a goldmine of electronic music knowledge, but it's only valuable if it can be applied. The book makes frequent mentions of classic Buchla 200 series modules. Thanks to TipTop and Buchla, we can enjoy them as if they were made yesterday.

Animations by Kaiber.ai"

MAKEN0ISE Strange Phasing

video upload by MAKEN0ISE

"Phase shifting takes many forms, from visual illusions to audio effects and compositional tricks.

Let's pull a patch from our old friend Allen Strange!

http://www.makenoisemusic.com"

MAKEN0ISE Allen Strange

Allen Strange Memorial

via Robin in the comments of this post.

"From the Family of Allen Strange.

Just wanted to thank you all for your kind words. Allen will always be remembered as a loving father, husband and musician. There will be a memorial reception at the Bainbridge Island Music Guild on March 1st at 4 pm. Directions and information can be found at http://www.islandmusic.org/. We are also planning a life celebration for Allen in the Bay Area of California in the next few months, I will be sure to post that info when it gets planned."

Strange Multiplication: Sequence Contraction and Sequence Sequencing

Published on Mar 28, 2018 MAKEN0ISE

"Allen Strange wrote the book on modular synthesizers in the 1970s. Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls. Unfortunately since the expanded 1982 edition, it has never been reprinted, and in today’s landscape where more people have access to modular synths than ever before, very few have access to the knowledge contained within. This video series will explore patches both basic and advanced from Strange’s text. Even the simplest patches here yield kernels of knowledge that can be expanded upon in infinite ways. I have been heavily influenced by Strange since long before I became a modular synth educator. Please share this knowledge far and wide.

This video shows the use of a VCA for things other than audio amplitude: automating the amplitude of a sequence ("sequence sequencing", and also automating the amplitude and frequency of a simultaneous pulse stream."

MAKEN0ISE Strange videos.

Strange Envelopes: Basic Enveloping and Pseudo Echo

Published on Mar 21, 2018 MAKEN0ISE

"Allen Strange wrote the book on modular synthesizers in the 1970s. Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls. Unfortunately since the expanded 1982 edition, it has never been reprinted, and in today’s landscape where more people have access to modular synths than ever before, very few have access to the knowledge contained within. This video series will explore patches both basic and advanced from Strange’s text. Even the simplest patches here yield kernels of knowledge that can be expanded upon in infinite ways. I have been heavily influenced by Strange since long before I became a modular synth educator. Please share this knowledge far and wide.

The first video in the series covers one basic and one slightly less basic patch using envelopes."

Allen Strange Firgure 21 for Easel

Published on May 11, 2020 Todd Barton

"An impulse broadcast today at 5pm PDT 8pm EDT on my Instagram @synthtodd I'll be exploring the legendary Figure 21 patch by Allen Strange found in his 1974 manual for the Buchla Music Easel. Join me!
https://www.instagram.com/synthtodd/
Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/synthtodd"

AS-866 Synth Jam Based on the Allen Strange's Electronic Music Book

Published on Jan 22, 2015 ikjoyce

"A full on live jam from the AS-866 patch

The original patch was my attempt at figure 8.66 in the Allen Strange book. I added an extra figure that takes the output of one of the oscillators, mixes it with a third oscillator playing a different sequence, and then ring-modulates against itself. Adds a bit more interest, especially when playing with the filter cutoff. I also added a Dark Time 15-note sequence with pitch modulation from one of the sequences driving the main patch, switched in and out with a 4 way switch - this is playing the Dark Energy."

Electronic Music: Systems, techniques, and controls Paperback – 1972

Image via Amazon

Strange Patching: FM Trills

Published on Nov 28, 2018 MAKEN0ISE

"As Allen Strange put it, one way to describe sub-audio FM is as pitch ornamentation. A series of trills can be produced with a sub-audio square wave controlling the exponential FM of an oscillator.

In this video, Strange's patch is explained and created using MATHS, modDemix, and Pressure Points. Then we explore an alternate "digital" version of the patch using TEMPI and René."

MAKEN0ISE Strange Patching:

Allen Strange's Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls

via this auction

"Allen Strange's Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls IS the bible of modular synthesis. This is the full , vastly expaned, SECOND Edition with 274 pages. Uses Buchla, Moog E-mu and other modulars as examples that can be applied most synthesis applications. This is the one essential book on modular synths."

Sold For: $182.50

CLICK FOR MORE »

Strange Envelopes: Pitch Envelopes for Slurs and Glissandi

Published on Apr 4, 2018 MAKEN0ISE

"Allen Strange wrote the book on modular synthesizers in the 1970s. Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls. Unfortunately since the expanded 1982 edition, it has never been reprinted, and in today’s landscape where more people have access to modular synths than ever before, very few have access to the knowledge contained within. This video series will explore patches both basic and advanced from Strange’s text. Even the simplest patches here yield kernels of knowledge that can be expanded upon in infinite ways. I have been heavily influenced by Strange since long before I became a modular synth educator. Please share this knowledge far and wide.

This video shows using envelopes for pitch rather than amplitude, using the "keyboard" of Pressure Points for amplitude instead: a reversal of the most typical patch. The result is variable-volume slurs, which can be changed to glissandi by patching a sample and hold in series."

All parts here.

Strange Patching: QPAS Gong

Published on Feb 13, 2019 MAKEN0ISE

"This patch uses two low pass filters in parallel to simulate a long ringing bell or gong sound.

Two VCOs are tuned to a perfect fourth apart, and then ring modded together. The result of this is patched one filter, while the unaltered output of one of the VCOs is patched to the other. They are then mixed together and gated using a percussive envelope with a long tail.

Allen Strange wrote the book on modular synthesizers in the 1970s. Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls. Unfortunately since the expanded 1982 edition, it has never been reprinted, and in today’s landscape where more people have access to modular synths than ever before, very few have access to the knowledge contained within. This video series will explore patches both basic and advanced from Strange’s text. Even the simplest patches here yield kernels of knowledge that can be expanded upon in infinite ways. I have been heavily influenced by Strange since long before I became a modular synth educator. Please share this knowledge far and wide."

Allen Strange Buchla Dream Machine

Published on Jan 11, 2016 Todd Barton

"This is an attempt at Allen Strange's figure 6.72: Dream Machine patch from his book
Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques & Controls. You can find the patch diagram with my Buchla module notations here:
https://www.hightail.com/download/ZWJ...
and a better audio of this here:
http://soundcloud.com/user7621213/all..."