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The KlangCollage is about putting together synthesized sound, combining various sources to a whole new thing.

The KlangCollage utilizes any kind of technology, musical style or method of composing, such as intuitive live play (especialy by using controllers to expressively modify the sound according to the musical situation), Musique Concréte (using sampled noises or speech as an instrument), electronic sequences (playing a programmed sequence of notes in an endless loop, while slowly changing aspects of the sound), using many different kinds of tone generation systems such as subtractive, additive, FM, sampling or physical modelling in any combination.

The KlangCollage is my personal long-term project. For me the big WOW! came, when I learned what you can do with synthesizers: you can adjust the sound according to your own whishes. Basically you can invent new instruments! Immediately I jumped on the issue and learned, how things work and what a variety of systems is available - although some of them more in theory than in real life at that time.

My first electronic instrument was a Yamaha PF80 stage piano. This was closest to my acoustic piano and had those great DX7 e-piano sounds, that were used in nearly every ballad of that time. What fascinated me most was how expressively the instrument resonded to the player.

Then I got my first real synthesizer - well, not only a synthesizer, but a so-called workstation, which included a drum computer, a 8-track sequencer and some basic effects, which allowed me to compose and record my own complete pieces. This was the Roland D-20, an offspring of the famous D-50. With this machine I made my first experience in producing music, from dark or heavy electronica to excursions into 12-tone music.

During the years I sold gear to buy new one, got hold of some really quirky things (such as the additive synth Kawai K5) and explored nearly every available system of tone generation, just to find out what you can do with it and what not. And I found that exploring technology, searching for unheard sounds is one thing. However creating something that can be played sounding "alive" is another. As my original instrument was the piano, I always tended to actually "play" sounds, using the keyboard, controllers and pedals. Therefore I wanted my instruments to respond in a satisfying way. But also programming work itself I found more or less intuitive on different systems.

When I started to play synthesizers it was already the digital age. Which was great, as completely new systems had entered the market, such as FM synthesis (Yamaha DX series), phase distortion (the Casio CZ/VZ family), combinations of subtractive synthesis and very basic sample playback (Roland D-50 etc), multi sampling workstations (Korg M1) and many more marketing terms - not all of them really presenting something new ;) However I would say that programming a FM voice on a Yamaha TG77 is far less intuitive than turning the knobs on my Korg MS-20. So while some systems offer a lot of versatility in terms of sound and playability, they sometimes are hard to understand and to master. And when the sheer amount of parameters exceeds a certain level (such as in the Kawai K5), you find yourself doubting that this is worth any result.

Nowadays things became more quiet thanks to working life and family life, both of which I really enjoy. On the other hand during the past years not so many really new things have been brought to the market, so although technology greatly improved, my feeling is that the invention rate dropped dramatically after the times of digitalization in the 1980s, when many new things became possible.

Of course there are some nice improvements especially in software, such as the Virsyn Cube2, an additive synth that finally makes possible, what I had expected from the K5: just input a sample of whatever as a starting point and then treat it in ways that are impossible with any other technology.

Despite the great things software brought to us in an affordable way, to me the biggest drawback is the limited lifetime: after a while you will find that your computer does not meet the requirements any more, so you get a new one, or you simply install a new operating system or you even just update your system - and you will most likely find parts or in worst case all of your software won´t work any more. On the other hand I am using hardware that is more than 15 years old and still works fine. And also a well layed-out user interface on a hardware synth can be far superior to a fancy software window controlled with a mouse.

IMHO the latest great invention in hardware synths is the Roland V-Synth, which is not only the first affordable device to playback sampled sounds without the usual limitations, but also a pleasure to use, with it´s combination of nearly endless functions with a touch screen and some rotary knobs.

Apart from that I feel there are many excellent tools on the market, but all of them offer something, that had been there already a long time ago, just in a more modern and convenient packaging.

Ok, when I think of my D-20 and then look at the Yamaha Motif ES8 sitting by my side, I clearly see the giant leap technology took. Sound quality and variety, realtime access, versatility, operability - everything seems to be lightyears away from working on tiny LCD displays, recording realtime only or stepping through loads of menu pages only to adjust the LFO speed.

And then: just recently I brought my old acoustic piano (yes, this big and heavy wooden thing with hammers and strings inside) to my home and from time to time I play a bit on that - just for the good ol´ times.

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