[LAU] What was the audio generator used by Hawkwind?

Damon Chaplin damon at karuna.eclipse.co.uk
Wed Apr 4 07:12:36 EDT 2007


On Wed, 2007-04-04 at 09:34 +0200, Sebastian Gutsfeld wrote:
> Hi Damon,
> 
> Damon Chaplin <damon at karuna.eclipse.co.uk> writes:
> 
> > Does anyone know what the "audio generator" was that Hawkwind used to
> > use on albums like Space Ritual (one of the best albums ever!).
> >
> > It produced sweeping, oscillating tones. I'd be interested to know
> > exactly what it was generating.
> 
> I don't know Space Ritual, but "sweeping, oscillating tones" were often
> synthesized with EMS VCS3s (http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/vcs3.shtml).
> Brian Eno and Pink Floyd used those.

Yes, I think that's probably the one. They are listed as users of it:
  http://www.ems-synthi.demon.co.uk/emsstory.html#users



> > Is there anything like it on Linux?
> 
> You could try Steven Cook's VCS3 emulation for Csound:
> http://www.csounds.com/cook/

It doesn't look much fun trying to write .sco files for it though. If I
ever figure out how to write a MIDI-based synth on Linux I might have a
go at it. (I'm glad I bought a MIDI keyboard with lots of knobs and
faders on now!)


Thanks very much,

Damon





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