Playing With… TONTO, the World’s Largest Synthesizer | Red Bull Music Academy
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
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Created by Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff in the late 1960s, TONTO was used on recordings for Stevie Wonder and Gil Scott-Heron and in 2013 was acquired by and moved to the National Music Center in Calgary, Alberta where this session was filmed during the RBMA Bass Camp Calgary 2019.
Canadian artists Softcoresoft, Debby Friday and Korea Town Acid try their hands at using The Original New Timbral Orchestra, TONTO, the first and largest multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world...
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#TONTO #WorldsLargestSynthesizer #RedBullMusicAcademy
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Home to Malcolm Cecil’s TONTO and Hugh Le Caine’s Electronic Sackbut, the National Music Centre’s new home, Studio Bell, contains some of the most important instruments in electronic music history...
► daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/09/national-music-centre
I had the opportunity to meet and work with Malcom Cecil in the early 2000’s (can’t remember the exact date) AND to experience TONTO first hand. The man is an amazing guy, and at first I didn’t know that I would be in the presence of a legend. Upon researching him before my band and I arrived at his studio in NY state, I realized how lucky we were to be working with him. He mixed an album for our little known band, on the referral of a mutual friend. He demonstrated TONTO for us, to our awe and wonder. Even playing some Stevie Wonder melodies for us and it took awhile to pick our jaws up off the ground. A truly professional not to mention kind and inspiring musician, Mr. Cecil’s left a lasting impression on us all. I feel lucky to have had a chance to spend time with him those years ago. Thank you Malcom Cecil and thank you for TONTO.
Thats super cool man
I imagine a nightmare with a slight anxiety trying to get the sound to stop but not being able to figure out the combination to get back to silence and going crazy
Thanks, I hate it
Easy - just unplug everything.
or just unplug the output...@@sjh3217
Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott Heron/Brian Jackson, Isley Bros., Billy Preston and many others recorded legendary albums with this synth way before anything polyphonic was available.
Malcolm Cecil deserves credit for the development of some of the synth technology we use today.
Wow didnt know that
MalcomCecil must be turning in his grave, hearing his sacrilege on video... this massacre!!
(bad techno on the tonto! we will have seen everything)...
@@DonErikose hecho el maestro Cecil aprobaría que se de un uso a su Synthetizer y sus bases a sonidos y trabajos relacionados con la música electrónica...lo que no soportaría Cecil es que un grupo de Punk Rockeros Krautrock (como Kraftwerk) tomaran su Synthetizer para su Progressive Rock...eso si sería un verdadero sacrilegio.
@@j.maxell3030 You are so wrong he recorded and produced Devo's 'Freedom of Choice' with Tonto which as an album is very krautrock punk-ish.
@@ralphhathaway-coley5460 De hecho las bases de Cecil estaban más relacionada a líneas clásicas de la Música Electrónica (E. Post Concreta, E. Moog, E. Experimental y E. Soundtrack) la cual aplicaba con sus herramientas tecnológicas (T.O.N.T.0) en muchas de sus producciones dónde el verdadero arte y su capacidad se da en el Electro Funk de primera línea (S. Wonder).
Here's the problem I see, every time people gain access to one of these old modular synthesizers, they seem to be obsessed with creating mindless, atonal bleeps and bloops, and not really interested in creating any actual music with them, it's like "Come on these are musical instruments, they're supposed to be used for making music", originally the synthesizer was invented to give musicians access to new, previously unheard musical sounds, Wendy Carlos proved that you could actually make real music with them when she recorded Switched-On Bach in 1968, now, it seems like electronic music has degenerated into either producing endless mediocre HipHop with cookie-cutter drums and as many swear-words as it is possible to fit into each syllable, or electronic music seems to be all about obsessively re-producing the sound of conventional instruments as accurately as possible, or it's about obsessively re-creating famous synth riffs or sounds, or about mindless atonal bleeps and bloops, no one is making any real music with synthesizers anymore.
You are right. Why not make actual music. “I like that?” Blessedly short.
I think it’s because that sort of synthesizer is so common now so it’s not interesting to just patch up a traditional instrument sound. And with the way modular works with control voltages and logic, it really lends itself to that style of sound output. Call it noise or music or whatever you want.
'......... no one is making any real music with synthesizers anymore.' is just not true, there are thousands of people and groups making original music with synths, the whole ambient space music genre for one, and the old originals are still going strong T.dream, etc. Now you cannot in all seriousness dismiss them as now just recreating famous synth sounds or riffs, as you cite Wendy Carlos and switched on Bach as an example of how they should be used, which is all reproducing someones riffs, Bach's to be precise. 😉
Hearing Wendy in the late 60s early 70s got me into synths in the first place, aided and abetted by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop of course.
Though I agree the obsession with creating mindless, atonal bleeps and bloops is fecking annoying!
@@ralphhathaway-coley5460 La persona del comentario principal parece que desconoce sobre la historia, evolución y desarrollo de la Música Electrónica y las mas de 3 olas de productores y desarrolladores pilares y pioneros de este arte músical.
Carlos no era relevante dentro de la segunda ola de padres y pioneros de la Música Electrónica Clásica (E Post Concreta, E. Moog, E. Experimental y E. Soundtrack)...ahí tenemos a Scott, Dissevelt, Bebé & Louis, Kingsley, Derbyshire, Garson...entre muchos más.
Por cierto en los 70's (tercera ola de productores y desarrolladores) los mas relevantes son Jean M. Jarre y Giorgio Moroder que prácticamente inician la nueva fase de la Electrónica Moderna en concreto con Giorgio Moroder y el inicio del EDM 70's (Concreto) y los 5 géneros electronicos matrices y primarios que nacieron y se forjaron en esta escena electronica: el HI-NRG, Synthpop, Electro, Italo y Electro Funk que son los pilares del House, Techno y Trance (los géneros más representativos del EDM 80's).
This is exactly my feeling. I love synthesisers because of the way Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis and many of the New Wave electronic groups of the 1980s used synths to create beautiful sounds and music that touched the soul or create artistic soundscapes.
I'm fed up with seeing you tube videos from geeky people who are more interested in the hardware than music. These videos generally consist of endless droning on about oscillators, how "phat" the instrument is and a discography of when and where it was used and by whom. This boring lecture will then be followed by about a minute of farting noises.
It’s funny that there are people all over the world with significantly more complex modular systems than the TONTO but this is a historic piece of equipment.
Also you can make most of the sounds in this video with a very small eurorack system, things have come a long way in the past several decades.
WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT ROBERT MARGOULEFF???!!
Cool, it's great that people are getting a chance to play with this interesting, powerful and historic system.! 👍
Regarding the "World’s Largest Synthesizer" line . . . haha, it may have been the world's largest at one point in history but these days it is easily dwarfed by many systems. ;-)
name one.
@@frantzbarosy8722 Possibly take a look at the systems owned by Hans Zimmer, Tom Holkenborg, and Martin Gore? I'm just assuming without doing actual comparison research but I'm estimating that those three setups are at least physically larger and especially more functionally dense? Tonto is awesome and quite large even by today's standards but a lot of its size seems to be taken up with the cool iconic cabinetry? I have the utmost respect for Malcolm Cecil and those involved, I just disagree with the title of this video. ;-)
@@JohnLRice Ok, maybe Martin Gore's but that's a Eurorack which could go on for ever. That deserves an asterisk.
This was the only ad I've ever clicked on to watch...ever
Same
As accomplished as these artists are, it will take years of "baby steps" to achieve the control that Malcolm Cecil had achieved.
I do hope that, even though this assembly of electronic components is "old"and "outdated", there will continue to be musicians who will be enthusiastic about creating more musical art with
The Original New Timbral Orchestra!
I, for one, am anxiously awaiting the new composers willing to create with this machine!
Another analog synth composer is Wendy Carlos.
Just image, if you will, just how many hours were spent "patching" and turning the oscillator knobs, simply to get the "right" sound, with the right sound qualities in order to make music sound "proper".
Bring it on!!!😁👍
this is a massacre ! a sacrilege, on this instrument once played by stevie wonder ... and now.. bad and noisy newbie techno ? who are harmony ? Malcom Cecil must be turning in his grave....
@@DonErikos Yeah, they sure didn't do much with all of this capability, even purely in terms of sound design, let alone music.
It's too bad this video might mislead people about such synthesizers. It can do a lot more than you hear, but it would take a lot of time to get used to what it can do.
Indeed. Getting such a synth to do more than “random bleepy bloop” requires a lot of experience. For some genres it is actually desirable to get this kind of output, including the randomness, but to have a sound in mind and recreate that with an analog synth is no beginner’s task.
this is a massacre ! a sacrilege, on this instrument once played by stevie wonder ... and now.. bad and noisy newbie techno by this 3 nameless... Poor Tonto !
@@magicmulder To imitate an existing sound or a sound imagined in one's head, yes, but to make far more interesting sounds than this, no, it does not take much experience, just basic knowledge of subtractive analog synthesis. The size of the synth has nothing to do with it, either, as you can start by patching any oscillator to any filter, and play with the waveforms, cutoff frequency, and resonance. That's beginner-level stuff, yet they would have looked like they knew what they were doing if they had done this, and clearly they were cluelessly twiddling random knobs that probably weren't even involved with the signal path that someone else had set up ahead of time.
The latter is apparently based on patching a noise generator to a sample & hold module, and then modulating oscillators and other things with the signal from that. If the guests were knowledgeable, then I figure they would have been permitted to make their own patches. And if they were knowledgeable about synthesis but completely inexperienced with modular synths, then a basic signal path would have been set up for them to start with. Given what had been set up, I suspect that these guests were known to be lacking in knowledge, so random bleeps and bloops would help serve as filler and a distraction. Sometimes those who make videos want to present something as an arcane relic from the past, and you wouldn't do that by bringing in experts, especially since all of this is current knowledge, not an archeological mystery. You bring in "name" artists (are these?) who are clueless about this thing and look just as clueless as they are, but will hopefully provide decent sound bites. That gives the desired overall impression to others who are clueless and can relate, which is most people. The thing here is, though, that this is pretty extreme. How can musicians who use synthesizers be so clueless about them?
I live here in calgary and had the chance to be in the room those three artists where in. Such a pleasure, and an amazing machince.
I know I probably sound like a huge music snob, but I am 19 years old and I have had a lot of experience with modular synths and it really does disappoint me to see three people that are in school for this making a bunch of racket on a piece of equipment that legitimately was used to create some of the greatest music of all time.
Narrow it cross over n stretch oh my I'm jealous
Lmao at the people unimpressed by this, you do know it's a system that's 50 years old right? Synths have come a long way since then but it's still really cool to see it in action
Synths have become boring you mean??? Especially “synths” like Fantoms, etc.
Spazzoid Studio You can build the same analog instrument in a much smaller size. And have patches.
It would take months to get used to something like Tonto. They were quite young, they may have never worked with a modular synth, and certainly not one like Tonto. It can certainly do more interesting sounds like random beeps.
on the other hand the music seems to have evolved in the other direction when I hear the massacre on this instrument so fabulous played at one time by stevie wonder.... this is a sacrilege...
The age of the machine has nothing to do with it, and we didn't really see (hear) what it can do. Even much smaller, simpler synths from 50 years ago, such as the Minimoog or ARP Odyssey, are perfectly capable of making far more interesting sounds than this. And you can do even more with older modular and semi-modular synths such as the Moog System 55, ARP 2600, or Roland System 700. Now imagine what a person who actually knows what they're doing can do with a monster system like the TONTO--so many different modules to modulate with others. The possibilities are virtually endless.
So what was done with it here was decidedly unimpressive, not the TONTO itself. You're misplacing the blame. Admittedly, with modern synths these "artists" do have better sounds than what they can create themselves available immediately out of the box as presets. But selecting a preset doesn't really count as sound design, does it? That's what a synth is really about: creating your own sounds. Otherwise, you could just buy a sample library of sounds created by people who know what they're doing.
Pew pew
hahha funny that in spanish tonto means dumb
In Scotland it means go crazy
some make a kick!
Great synthesizer but the name in spanish means stupid
Way to go ladies, that sounds like complete shit
this is a massacre by 3 beginers ! a sacrilège ! ...
Poor Tonto, and poor Malcom Cecil must be turning in his grave....
doing something slightly musical is difficult?
Hmm, such a huge system just to produce another of the already existing thousands of modular fart videos?
But.......!
it is above all a sacrilege, a massacre, this fabulous instrument used in the past by Stevie Wonder and other great ... and now by 3 nameless , beginners and under-gifted ! a shame!
Its a.bunch of noise that annoyed me in 60 seconds
you should rather listen to what Stevie Wonder was doing in his time, rather than being noisy, this massacre by 3 nameless beginners...
"bro presets are dumb"
Synth stratosferico,ma queste 3 girano manopole a caso creando suoni abbastanza banali,avrebbero potuto cogliere l'occasione di farlo suonare a qualcuno più capace...
è proprio un massacro vuoi dire! questo favoloso strumento una volta toccato dalle mani di stevie wonder, e usato lì per la techno bassa e rumorosa di queste 3 ! un sacrilegio sì ! lo puoi dire!
Malcolm Cecil , genio concettore del "Tonto ", deve rivoltarsi nella tomba !!!
:)
God?
Do you know tonto means dumb in spanish do you?
Who cares???
play with me next ( cheah )
Tonto means DIZZY IN PORTUGUESE
Fitting!
and it means dumb in spanish
Tonto means idiot in spanish
Tonto means "Dumb" guys... :)
Never heard of moog keith emerson was playing stuff like this with his giant moog back in the 70s and a lot better nothing new here try something original
Use punctuation.
Who has never heard of Moog? :) And I doubt they were given a lot of time to learn the system. Modular synths are a lot more work than, for example, my Prophet 12.
yes, this is a very massacre by 3 beginners nameless ! This Tonto , very exceptional machine once played by Stevie wonders, and Macom Cecil (his conceptor) on Tonto's expanding band : "Zero Time" album
US : If I would have known that one day we would make bad and beginner techno on this fabulous instrument that was used by Stevie Wonder! SACRILEGE ! Malcom Cecil must be turning in his grave....
FR : Si j'avais su qu'un jour on ferait de la techno bas de gamme sur ce fabuleux instrument qui a servi à Stevie Wonder! SACRILEGE! Malcom Cecil (concepteur du Tonto) doit se retourner dans sa tombe....
synths should be used! ❤️
Fire.
Legendary synth, but who the hell are these people??
3 Perfect nameless (and who should remain so) massacring this fabulous instrument, once touched by other hands (Stevie Wonder) much more cappable!!! Poor Tonto, Poor malcom Cecil ... a Sacrilege!
I think they broke it
Winslow Leach won’t be losing any sleep with this performance.
Here before The Weeknd's use of Tonto Pronto on his last album! xo
Are you guys doing any events or talks in Calgary as well?
Sre you fucking kidding me.
why do I feel like this was all set up to go before these chicks showed up. they don't know anything about systems like that, so obvious. But TONTO IS EPIC.
Or synths in general. I agree that they clearly looked like they had no clue, and it has nothing to do with this being a modular synth or so large. I've never worked with a synth this large, myself, but I would do what anyone who has some kind of clue would have done, which is patch a basic signal path and hear what the oscillators and filters (this one probably has many--pick one of each to start with) sound like. Then I'd turn up the resonance and see if I can get the filter to self-oscillate, and then I might put an envelope on the filter and another on the VCA.
Obviously, this just scratches the surface with the bare rudiments, but anyone who has any clue would likely start with these steps before doing other modulations, and should look like they know what they're doing. It shouldn't be that hard for established synth musicians, that is, unless their knowledge of synthesis and sound design consists entirely of selecting presets.
Are da knobs cold ? 💗
ㅔ
I used to enjoy the cartoons called "Tonto and the Lone Ranger".
every note has detune dayum