Customer Reviews

Switched-On Boxed Set

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Wow. Switched-On Bach still has the magic, after all these years.

I doubt you could find any compilation anywhere that would even come close to the value that this set presents. Newly remastered versions of all four of Carlos's incredible baroque Moog transcriptions, all of the original liner notes, reproductions of the original covers, extra audio tracks with outtakes from the original albums, and a gargantuan booklet of new notes--plus nearly 35 MEGABYTES of material accessible from a CD-ROM drive. Carlos includes a snapshot of her entire website, pictures of her studio, even the MIDI source for the entire SOB 2000 album (which updated the original SOB selections). All this for less than sixty bucks!

Value isn't the only point in this set's favor. This is THE seminal work of electronic music, the recording that launched the entire genre into the public eye. Carlos's orchestration makes classical music fun to listen to again--even if you've heard Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, and Monteverdi hundreds of times, you've never heard them like this. Creative use of stereo and careful attention to synthesizer programming ensure that every part of every piece is distinct and special. You literally cannot do these things with a traditional orchestra. This isn't a replacement for acoustic performances of the classics, but it is an indispensable companion to them.

Fans of pure electronic music shouldn't be disappointed, either. These discs are the origin of "phat." Whether you like New Age or Hip-Hop, the sounds and textures in this set should really move you. Carlos worked more than a decade before the TB-303 and the TR-808, but you'll recognize a lot of the sounds in these albums anyway--because they were so good that they became widely imitated instant classics.

I wish I could come up with a list of negatives for this set, but I honestly can't. It's true that I like some tracks more than others, but I can't in truth say that any of them are bad. This set is a must buy.

Wendy Carlos didn't have to do this, you know. Fer pity's sake, the oldest of these recordings is now well past legal drinking age! And, heck, on the average stereo system found in Joe Sixpack's living room (where a vinyl copy of the original "Switched-On Bach" is lost between an LP of "The Byrd's: Greatest Hits" and the soundtrack album to "The Sting"), the original Columbia Masterworks CD of "Switched-On Bach" sounded just fine. Besides, the analog synthesizer has long since taken its place next to the valveless Baroque trumpet and the rare violino piccolo as a "period instrument". "Puh-leez, Wendy!" some might shriek. "Give it a rest!"

But, no. Wendy Carlos knows that her musical medium of choice is rarely heard in live performances. It's largely confined to film scores and recordings. Synthesizer ensemble concerts came and went so fast, who noticed? And, yes, we all ran out and bought "Switched-On Bach 2000" on the Telarc label, eagerly plopped it into our CD players and, quite frankly, wondered where all the fun went. Wendy's experiments with "tuning on the fly" went right over most of our heads. In the ensuing 25 years since the original, Wendy's skill as a musician had grown. Her mastery of digital technology had certainly kept pace with each development, but somewhere along the way, the passion, the verve, the very lfe of the music just wasn't there.

"Switched-On Bach" was a unique recording. It could no more be recreated nor improved upon than could an ensemble of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and a couple session musicians be dubbed The Beatles for the New Millennium. Even if Wendy dusted off and plugged in every module and submodule of the Moog synthesizer on which it was created, it wouldn't be the same. Part of what makes a great recording is the recording itself.

And this is exactly what Wendy Carlos has chosen to concentrate upon. First, she secured both the rights and all of the master tapes of "Switched-On Bach", "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer", "Switched-On Bach II" and "Switched-On Brandenburgs" from Columbia. Then, she literally scrubbed every second of the music of tape noise, splice pops and all those other delightful little surprises that wound up on the Columbia CD of "Switched-On Bach". She equalized the sound to take full advantage of current 20-bit CD technology. With the help of independent label East Side Digital, she packed it all into 4 CDs with graphics and midi files, a booklet of the original liner notes and another booklet about the whole project. Inside a single slipcase is the turning point of an entire industry and thanks to Amazon.com, it's yours for less than half a C-note.

Thank you, Wendy.

In 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.

Classical music played on a synthesizer tends to evoke rather specific feelings; you either like it or hate it, and there is precious little ground between. If you like it, this represents the definitive collection of Bach performed on the Moog synthesizer by the the best musician in electronic music. Don't hesitate, just get this collection.

The boxed set includes the several "treats." Arguably Carlos's best album of Baroque music, "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer," appears here for the first time on CD. Bach never wrote a second movement for his Third Brandenberg Concerto, and the "Switched-On Bach" CD includes two of Carlos's three attempts to compose one. Two of the CDs include "outtakes" from the original recording process -- it's facincating to hear the work that went into building these recordings. Finally, the "Switched-On Brandenbergs" CD is an enhanced CD that contains software for PCs and Macs: a copy of the Wendy Carlos web site and samples of programs that emulate an analog synthesizer. Add to this the a booklet of the original album notes, and an almost book-length set of notes describing the music, the technical process behind the creation, and a tribute to Carlos's producer, collaborator, and friend Rachel Elkind, and you have an incredible package.

Wendy Carlos changed the world in 1968 when Switched-On-Bach appeared. The Modular synthesizer became the foundation of music, ushering in the loop-based electronica we hear today. Would that current synth freaks had one tenth the imagination that Wendy Carlos does.

This box set is not for the casual listener, but an historical overview of the creation of musical interpretations that shook the foundations of Western Civilization. Carlos explains how each project came to be, which, as a self-confessed Synthfool, I find fascination. Yes, I agree that it would probably have been better to confine the spoken commentary to a seperate disk from the music. Most listeners might be happier to buy the single-CD reissues, since the music is more important to them.

Now, as for the work itself, unlike the gimcrack Moog "this" or Switched-on "that" which inevitably followed the release of this work, this music still shines, is still exciting, and is still ground-shaking. This speaks, as I said, to Carlos' taste as a performer, and imagination as a programmer/arranger. She has few competitors, and no equals in this regard.

Jason Verlinde (editorial review) are you nuts? I seems that you intended to write a favorable review but you clearly have no understanding of the music.

"Wacky", "goofy", "hilarious" are words you use to describe a serious groundbreaking milestone in both classical and electronic music. You dismiss worldclass musicianship as a "battery of special effects". Shame!

In the early seventies I bought my first Carlos record. In fact I didn't know what kind of music I actually bought, but I felt it had something. It was the time of the Quadrophonic records and my interest in classical composers was awakening. The amount of Quadro-(SQ)records in the record stores was very small, that's why I met the SQ-record of "Switched on Bach". From that moment my life went "classical", with a special interest in synthesizer music. In the years that followed I have bought a lot of synthesizer-records, but the most of all I loved the ones from Wendy and Isao Tomita. I think many of Carlos listeners have that same experience. By Wendy I have now reached a high classical listening level and I am really gratefull for that! The Switched On Boxed Set has become one of mij most precious possesions. I wouldn't have dreamed that it turned out so beautiful and full of wonderful information. What a fantastic job Wendy did and thanks to ESD! Almost every year I play Wendy's records, but they never bore. Every sound settles in your ears. Also the new CD "Tales of Heaven an Hell"is fabulous. Wendy Carlos is forever !

At 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!

Just as Bach's Brandenburg concertos remain fine examples of music written for a small ensemble, so Wendy's realisations of this music, amongst others, remain fine (dare I say the finest?) examples of synthesizer orchestration. Listen to the superb performances, to the way the melody dances around the stereo image, to how the synthesizer's sounds change every couple of bars - sometimes every couple of notes - in a way that complements the music perfectly.

The quality of these recordings is equally fine - it's hard to believe they are all twenty to thirty years old. Wendy's efforts to present the original recordings in the best possible form have paid off spectacularly well. Round this off with the beautifully produced books giving details of the music and the Moog synthesizer together with the enhanced CD-ROM section on CD 4 and you have something no-one who enjoys Bach, Wendy's music, or synthesizers should be without.

This boxed collection sets out to provide listeners with the definitive record of the Switched On Bach legacy. And it succeeds brilliantly, with near-perfect sound quality, two booklets full of text and pictures, four CDs, and extra audio and visual material.

The problem is the music itself is such a mix of highs and lows. At best, the results are extremely musical and satisfying, illuminating the inner lines of Baroque counterpoint with crispness and verve. But in other places things don't quite hold together - the notes are all there, perfectly played and arranged, but some of the poetry seems to be missing. And the (thankfully rare) worst moments sound like a bad PC soundcard playing a MIDI file.

The highlight of the collection is undoubtedly The Well Tempered Synthesizer, which has some wonderfully rich-sounding arrangements, but also keeps the fun of the best parts of SOB, before Carlos and Elkind began to take themselves and their work too seriously - the kind of fun and exuberance that makes the interpolated 2nd movement of the 3rd Brandenburg such a joy to listen to.

But in general, many of the other performances tend towards diamond-hard perfectionism rather than warmth and flow, and this is underscored by the bitty percussiveness of much of the synthesizer programming.

Overall then, this collection is perhaps more interesting as a historical record than a stand-out listening experience. It certainly has its moments, which work as well today as they ever did. But for sheer adventuresome musicality and colour, Carlos can't compare to synthesists like Tomita, who sacrificed idiomatic perfection and correctness for a richer, more poetically creative overall result.

Still, the fact remains that Carlos got there first, and whatever the imperfections, SOB was, and is a huge achievement. (Not to mention an almost unbelievable amount of work, especially when compared with the trivial ease of the technology that's available today.) This boxed set shows exactly how it was done, and why SOB and its siblings remain landmark recordings, even today.

Recommended for synth geeks everywhere, and more adventuruous classical listeners who will appreciate a different perspective on Bach to the one they're used to.