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Free Music Notes for Switched-On Boxed SetFree Music Review: Essential for any Bach/Synth/Carlos Fan Hit: 5 StarsA must buy! Not only does this set contain wonderful yet difficult to find material, Carlos has gone to great lenghts to include wonderful supplemental stuff (including a pretend analog synth to play with). The narrated studio outtakes really added a new dimension to these recordings!
Free Music Review: Switched-On Brilliance Hit: 5 StarsFor fans of Wendy Carlos, this compilation of early synthesizer works is a godsend. In these groundbreaking and in some ways still unequaled recordings, Carlos showed the Moog indeed was a musical instrument of great range and nuance. The remastering is impressive when compared to earlier CDs and, of course, LPs. Get one for yourself, another for a friend.
Free Music Review: An amazing experience Hit: 5 StarsIn 1990, back when I was 14, and an extreme electronics enthusiast, I would spend hundreds of hours in my father's shop, tinkering with different ways to create and design electronic musical instruments. I'm dead serious, this is what I did. Anyway, one day my father comes to me with an old, dusty copy of "Switched on Bach." "You might get something out of this," he says, so I dig up our old turntable and hook it up to my bedroom hi-fi system. My first playing of "SOB" will be forever etched in my mind as one of the all-time biggest musical experiences I am to have. This was all the technical, mathematical electronic theory I had cut my teeth on, merged with the most beautiful music ever composed. From that point forward, and onto a scholarship in Electrical Engineering years later, solderless breadboards and easels would seem the same to me. Such was the power of that scratchy old record. So now I'm much older, having just recieved the "Switched on Boxed Set" a few days ago, only having given it a few complete listenings, eager to hear it again, and again, and begin digging back into the music that changed my life almost ten years ago. Let me just say that this is an absolute gift to any Bach enthusiast, giving these absolute standards a new interpretation through the glorious old (well NOW it is) Moog synthesizer. Most friends for whom I played the original "SOB" thought it was a gimmick, or Moog advertisement. Maybe this remastering and repackaging will help give it the credit it deserves, as well as open new doors for 14-year old electronic dorks worldwide. For all those who would pretend to conduct with a live soldering iron, let this collection be a gift to you.
Free Music Review: Walter & Wendy in one beautiful set. Hit: 5 StarsHaec ei propinabo!At long last we can compare the analogs to Carlos modern digital renderings via CD, and the wait is worth it. Also try Heaven & Hell, as well as Switched On 2000, and decide for yourself whether the computer has enabled Carlos to accomplish much. As one who enjoys a Fifth of Beethoven, Spike Jones Classics, and other Demento offerings, this is a must with Florence Foster Jenkins. I also have a LP of Naked Carmen, do You? Part is also on my shelf next to Adams and Santana. De gustibus non disputatis est.
Free Music Review: The Definitive Set Hit: 5 StarsAt long last, Switched-On Bach the way it was meant to be heard. Glorious!!!
First Carlos had to reclaim her masters from Columbia (Switched-On Bach, The Well-Tempered Synthesizer, Switched-On Bach II and Switched-On Brandenburgs).Then she had to digitally clean up and restore the (in some cases) 30-year old tapes. Next she had to design a presentation worthy of these groundbreaking albums. It took a few years and a ton of work, but the result is (dare I say it?) worth the wait.
Carlos is to be commended for undertaking this project. Many artists can't be bothered with work done early in their career, no matter how popular it remains. Carlos herself has moved lightyears beyond these early transcriptions in her recent work (see "Tales of Heaven & Hell" or "Beauty in the Beast" to see how far).
But they were groundbreaking albums, singlehandedly moving Bob Moog's cumbersome contraption into the musical arena, changing the face of popular music. And they still stand up surprisingly well musically, too. Since Columbia (whose commitment to the bottom line prevented it) was unable to do them justice, it fell on Wendy to do the job proper.
And oh, what a job she has done! This is first class all the way, from sonics to graphics to layout and tons of extras! This is a dream package, not an expense spared, well worth the small investment. Own a piece of history!
More Free Music Notes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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