Home is where the art is (studio snapshot)
KLAUS
SCHULZE
As far as ‘home’ studios go, German synth guru Klaus Schulze’s latest incarnation takes some beating. JONATHAN MILLER gets a guided tour…
When is a home recording studio not a home recording studio? No, it’s not a trick question; there’s home recording ‘studios’ and there’s home-based recording studios, the difference is simply a case of how much professional gear one crams into one’s home. Of course, this is entirely dependent on one’s cashflow situation and, indeed, the size of one’s home! A German artist for whom neither dilemma poses a problem is 53-year-old Klaus Schulze, best known in the ’70s as a European synthesizer ‘superstar’ of sorts, now enjoying something of a renaissance in light of the music industry’s muscular marketing arm’s newfound umbrella term electronica, with its attendant connotations of house, techno, ambient, drum ’n’ bass, et al.
Cited as a Godfather of techno throughout the ’90s, in dusting down his analogue relics for a spot of ‘ambienteering’ with fellow German Pete Namlook on their ongoing tongue-in-cheek, limited edition series of Dark Side Of The Moog albums – replete with suitably tongue-in-cheek ‘Floydian’ title references like ‘Obscured by Klaus’ – Schulze has clearly taken such complements quietly in his stride.
Yet he continues to plough his own distinctive electronic music field – oft-imitated, rarely matched. He works in a vast scale, mixing sequences and improvised parts in pieces that sometimes stretch over an hour. He’s a rarity, a true synthesist, remaining resolutely untainted by the pop music virus, more recently expanding his copious musical output – 33 solo albums and counting – with several limited-edition boxed sets, starting with 1993’s 10-CD Silver Edition and ending with last year’s exquisitely packaged Contemporary Works Vol. 1 10-CD set on his newly-formed Rainhorse imprint (with no less than 52 and three-quarter hours of previously unreleased music issued on 45 CDs in-between time). Not forgetting innumerable collaborations, clearly Schulze is not one for resting on his laurels!
Wild in the country
Schulze began as Tangerine Dream’s drummer on their necessarily low-budget 1970 outlandish debut Electronic Meditation. Yet by 1976 his solo career was in full swing; in an admittedly unusual move for the time, he ploughed his not inconsiderable earnings into building his own home-based recording studio in the idyllic surroundings of Hambühren, a small wooded village about 40 kilometres north of Hannover (where he remains to this day). Surrounding himself with a mouth-watering arsenal of the best analogue recording equipment and synthesizers money could buy – several Minimoogs, a rare Moog IIIP modular system (bought from Florian Fricke of Popul Vuh fame), a Polymoog, an ARP Odyssey and 2600, and Korg PS3300, to name but a few – he subsequently performed some of the era’s most groundbreaking music on record and on-stage.
1980’s Dig It reputedly represented the first digitally recorded electronic album, with Schulze prophesying analogue’s impending downfall: “The whole musical programme of Dig It is stored on digital disk. I didn’t use traditional analogue synthesizers. I only used the GDS, the most advanced synthesizer computer world-wide.” For the uninitiated, the GDS or General Development System, to give it Crumar’s full illustrious title, was an early digital keyboard and computer terminal combination with onboard synthesis and sequencing facilities rivalling those of both Australia’s and the USA’s then fledgling, though better-known, respective efforts, the Fairlight CMI and NED Synclavier. Any synth-spotters amongst us will already know the GDS briefly mutated into the DKI (Digital Keyboard, Inc.) Synergy before disappearing into obscurity – unlike Schulze.
Central to this ongoing musical experimentation has always been Schulze’s aforementioned studio – Moldau Musikstudio, as it has come to be known. Yet with so much gear coming and going over the years there came a time when the composer concluded his workspace needed radically reorganising. “I started removing all the old stuff in October 1995,” Schulze recalls. “Everything was working okay, but very – let’s say – unorganised. Things were sometimes not plugged in, because at this time I was moving from instrument to instrument without knowing exactly which one I was using; I’d forget to mark instruments on the mixing desk, so it took time to work things out. There came a point where my old Soundcraft mixing desk started developing faults like crackling knobs, and I wanted to switch over to a Macintosh recording system, so I knew the whole place desperately needed rebuilding. I more or less threw out everything, except some very important instruments.”
Studio makeover
Schulze invited Frank Helbig, a local music store technician with whom he’d had some dealings, to assist with this thankless task. Helbig’s recollection of the event makes for illuminating reading: “Klaus invited me over for a glass of beer and, although he gave me directions, I lost my way – his studio’s located in the middle of a forest! I nearly fainted when I saw the place; I’d never seen anything like it before! Klaus then asked if I would like to work at the studio when necessary and I agreed. First we looked at the current set-up and decided a lot of cabling that had been damaged during live concerts needed replacing.”
Helbig,
together with another technician, spent around a year redesigning and rebuilding
Moldau Musikstudio to suit its owner’s specialised requirements, replacing
the ageing, bulky Soundcraft 3200 console with a sleek Mackie 32-channel,
eight buss and two 24-channel slaves to accommodate Schulze’s vast collection
of electronic instruments along the way. Helbig’s new studio layout was dominated
by the so-called ‘Moog Wall’ comprising the aforementioned mighty Moog modular
fresh out of cold storage, with two MiniMoogs (fitted with the Lintronics
MIDI convertor), two MemoryMoogs (fitted with the Lintronics Advanced MemoryMoog
Modification, or LAMM) and three Studio Electronics SE-1 ‘MIDIMoogs’ in close
support. Schulze was evidently taking the prevailing analogue revival very
seriously indeed.
Plush red carpeting befitting an electronic music ‘royal’ of Schulze’s unquestionable pedigree provided the finishing touch; the refurbished studio certainly looked the part. At the time Schulze summated, “All the cabling is specially treated, now under the floor. It’s constructed like a modular studio, so I can add new instruments without disturbing its existing running system.”
This theory was put to the test in late-1999 when Schulze’s vintage Moog modular was replaced with the aptly dubbed ‘Big Wall’, an awesome, custom-built ‘modular system’ from Quasimidi, initially designed for live work. According to Schulze, “The ‘Big Moog’ had become more like a dusty museum piece. Pete Namlook fell in love with it when we were working on the Dark Side Of The Moog albums and wanted to restore it. So I said, ‘Take it away’. Now he’s buying it from me for quite a lot of money. I don’t mind; I prefer working with the Quasimidi system anyway – it sounds quite close to the Moog and, more importantly, stays perfectly in tune! Essentially, it’s six independent Polymorphs that are kind of a rebuild of the old Moog sequencer – it also has eight steps in three different rows. For instance, I can use one for filtering, one for the envelope and so on – whatever I want. In addition, it includes six Rave-O-Lution 309 drum computers, each with five MIDI channels. Now the wall also includes four Access Virus synths; I’m using it in the studio and live!”
2001: A Studio odyssey
But technology’s inexorable onward march waits for no-one. Times change and Schulze is not one for being left behind; on May 22, 2001, a message was posted on his new label’s Website proudly proclaimed, “After nearly 8 weeks of reconstruction my new studio is now ready for work and adventures,” together with a most impressive accompanying photograph. So what’s new this time, Herr Schulze? While not as radical as the previously outlined studio rebuilding process, it’s a clear-cut case of out with the old, in with the new.
As the accompanying photos show, the focal point of the latest incarnation of the studio has become a large, pull-down screen, sited above the aforementioned ‘Big Wall’ onto which a variety of information can be displayed. Schulze’s reasoning for this is disarmingly simple: “Firstly, I hated the depth of the big computer monitors I was using before. Secondly, with the new screen, I, or anyone else in the studio, can see and edit the music from a sofa at the back of the studio using a remote, wireless keyboard and mouse. It’s also good for film and video screening, and therefore soundtrack work – and it can be also used as a home cinema!”
Helbig supplies the technical background: “Three years ago Klaus and myself were invited to a presentation by CreamWare; in their new studio was a large screen with two beamers which had been lined up seamlessly to create a huge screen image, much larger than 16:9. We were both fascinated by this and thought a similar solution was needed at Moldau Musikstudio. But this technology was still too expensive, so we stuck with the 21-inch monitors. This made for poor working conditions – the mixing position was too high, but that was necessary so that a master keyboard could be positioned immediately below as Klaus simultaneously takes over most parts of his productions by himself. Klaus never had a problem with this, because of his height, but whenever a guest musician or engineer used this mixer they complained about aching neck muscles from looking at the monitor screens. A different solution was needed.”
Ghost in the machine
Meanwhile, Schulze had his sights set on a new Soundcraft Ghost mixing console, avoiding cost-effective digital solutions like Mackie’s popular Digital 8•Bus: “I don’t like digital consoles because the bass EQs sound artificial and sterile,” he says.
“It
seemed like the Mackie desk was about to die,” continues Helbig. “Actually,
the Mackie hadn’t been the ideal solution anyway, but it was the only one
in its price range expandable to 80 channels. Before then, Klaus had been
working with a big Soundcraft and was still a fan of its sound. The new Soundcraft
Ghost features some useful functions, but its long delivery time meant Klaus
had an unexpected opportunity to think about changing the studio further,
so he bought a beamer and screen.”
Installing the studio’s visual display system proved problematic, however. “The beamer was positioned on the back wall, directly above the couch,” explains Helbig, “but the screen is seven metres away while the G4 is five metres away. As the connecting cables couldn’t be placed over the carpet, we decided to use the cable channel running to the Quasimidi wall opposite, then up to the rooftop and finally on to the beamer. The problem was that Moldau Musikstudio doesn’t have a floating floor and the cable channel we made in 1996 for the most important cables doesn’t have room for a video cable.”
Helbig cunningly adapted some redundant audio cables for video transmission, eventually resulting in a 1024 x 768 resolution image on the big screen. Village People graphics cards within the 733MHz Apple PowerMac G4 also access two flatscreen TFT displays straddling the Soundcraft Ghost. These are capable of displaying the same content as the main screen, though their primary task is displaying effects and virtual instrument plug-ins running within Emagic Logic Audio Platinum. That Schulze can now complete more music within the virtual world of the computer using the likes of Steinberg’s HALion sampler and Model•E soft synth, plus Native Instruments’ Pro-52 and Reaktor, partly explains his decision to downsize the studio’s console.
Wired for surround sound
According to Schulze, “Wiring the new desk was not the biggest problem. The Mac G4 had to be integrated into the system; the Digidesign card had to be sent to Ireland for upgrading; two new reverbs – a TC Electronic M•One and Roland SRV-3030D – had to be connected; the new KS digital 5.1 speaker system had to be installed; other smaller updates had to be taken care of; some woodwork had to be done, and so on.”
Speaking
of speakers, Helbig again elaborates: “We are still using KS Beschallungstechnik
speakers. Instead of a central subwoofer, we’re using two ADM-Q subs, together
with four ADM-2 speakers, all of which can be accessed in digital or analogue
modes, but because of the desk we’re sticking with analogue for now. As the
studio room acoustics are quite dry, there is a good, direct sound, without
too many reflections, so these speakers are not positioned as nearfields,
although we’ve installed two Event Project Studio speakers for comparing productions
with ordinary systems.”
At time of writing, Schulze is currently putting his new set-up through its paces, preparing for a rare headline concert performance at the KlangArt Festival in Osnabrück on June 8, 2001, with a live CD recording to follow thereafter. “Everything sounds better and is much easier to handle,” he concludes. “Even if I’m not familiar with all the new stuff yet, that won’t take long!”
After Osnabrück, it’s back to Moldau Musikstudio, getting to grips with the new Mac, Dolby Surround and DVD recording in readiness for another studio album and a forthcoming collaboration with Alphaville. Without a doubt, Klaus Schulze still has much to say musically.
© Jonathan Miller (June 2001)
