Rob Papen - Synthesizer Guru!

[modz1]

Welcome to the very first of what we hope will be a reasonably regular series of exclusive DV247 Forums Interviews. Featuring Artists, Producers, Pro Music Makers and the people behind the technology we love and use!

First up, we're more than pleased to be talking to the legendary virtual synth creator, and viewed by many as the guy who helped write the book on this creative and technical art-form..

Rob Papen

Creator of the sonically cutting edge and accessible instruments, Albino, Blue and Predator, Rob is about to launch his latest creation, 'RG', a guitar based synth unlike any you've seen before..

We caught up with Rob last week and he very kindly took time out from another launch deadline (for his new website) to chat with us..
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DV247:
“We’d take a guess you’re hard at work, sound-designing or composing today Rob, how’s your week gone so far?”

RP
I am currently very busy with the new homepage which is going to be online very soon. Together with the new RG, Predator 1.5 and BLUE 1.8 So more busy and no sound baking or musical notes
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DV247:
“Your musical inspirations are well documented with such pioneers as Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis and Giorgio Moroder: How would you describe the inner feeling you experienced when you first heard these artists?"

RP
First time I heard a synthesizer was Giorgio Moroder and one of his early productions for Donna Summer and J.M. Jarre when I was 12 years old. I was always crazy about seeing a lot of aircraft knobs and wanted to become a pilot. But…after hearing and seeing synthesizers I found the amount of knobs and the sound they produced a trillion times more interesting then a cockpit. The inner feeling is a bit different if you hear music prior to making it yourself. So at that point without playing synthesizers myself, the magic was much bigger.
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DV247:
"After achieving crossover hits in Benelux and Austria with bands ‘Peru’ and ‘Nova’, you took the step of composing, recording and releasing ‘Day Dreamer’, a solo instrumental electronica album in 2004. Do you feel this mellow and optimistic album is a personal and musical expression of your Christian faith?"

RP
When I make music now, I am just doing my own thing. If somebody likes it that is nice, but if somebody dislikes it I don’t mind. Unfortunately I don’t have enough time.

I would love to make dance music, but experimental and not with an A&R manager involved. LoL
It would be electro house style with lots of grooves and odd things. On the other hand, I would also like to produce classic old style electronic music; Just freaking out on synths…So I would like to do more styles of music, but I follow my heart when I make mellow synth music.

But as I said, right now I am very busy with the virtual instruments and that is not a bad thing
because I can have a lot of creative output this way. I simply love music and synthesizers.
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DV247:
“When not working, what form of relaxation or other pursuits do you seek?"

RP
Right now I am working 6 days a week because of the new products and new homepage. I can relax by jogging and I am still crazy about planes.
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DV247:
“Albino was your first commercially available software instrument, now at version 3, but were there any earlier prototypes or non-commercial predecessors that shaped the way Albino was eventually formed?"

RP
In the beginning I was looking for a company that could build me a custom virtual synthesizer.
After hearing the Delta III by LinPlug, I found it an interesting synthesizer. I asked Peter from LinPlug if he was interested. The rest is history and nobody talked about the Delta III after the release of Albino. The first Albino was partially based on the Delta III, but there were some major changes in features and other changes that I requested from LinPlug. This was because it was the very first custom build virtual synthesizer.

Before that I only made sounds for other brands like Emu, Ensoniq, Access and Waldorf. Then you have to work with the tools and parameters that are available.

Now I have far more freedom and you can see that also in the other products. New ideas are added.
An example would be ‘memories’, the chord inside the preset itself which was an idea I added into Albino. Now with Predator 1.5 I added a new dimension to it and introduced strumming, but which is also midi tempo based.

Chord mode inside an arpeggiator first showed up in the Virus b and guess who was asking for it…. LoL
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DV247:
"The DX7 was obviously a great influence for you when designing ‘Blue’: What was it exactly about the strengths and/or weaknesses of FM synthesis that drove you towards your vision of ‘crossfusion synthesis?"

RP
The moment the DX-7 arrived it had a firm impact. All the players that were in a band sold their Prophet-5 or Jupiter-8 to get hold of a DX-7. At that time I was more into electronic music and so found analogue more flexible and ‘phatter’ sounding. But of course the ‘pluck’ and ‘percussive’ sounds were great. It was shocking at that time was that there where no knobs……."Help"….

So everybody was depending on presets at that time and today I still have a lot of respect for the preset builder at that time. They did an awesome job with the famous E-pianos and all other classic FM sounds.

During that time I did not spend any time programming the DX-7. The FM-7 was for me the first time that I started programming FM synthesis and I dived into it…I always have different ideas about doing things. So after learning the classic FM synthesis, I said to myself "Rob…after playing around with classic FM synthesizers…what would you build". So I took it from there…..

What I basically missed in the FM synthesis…and then the classic one based on the DX-7, was the fact that you can’t modulate the pitch of an operator and next to that I really did miss great sounding filters. Of course, then, it was impossible to also add analog type filters to a DX-7. But now we live in different times and lot more is possible these days with software. Basically FM synthesis can be very complex, so that’s why we picked a ‘subtractive’ audio route inside BLUE. All major ‘envelopes’ are in one page and the ‘Volume Envelope’ always has the last word.

So BLUE combines the best of both worlds in one exciting synthesizer. If you look into the first bank of BLUE, the preset "Muai Sunset" displays very much what you can do if you also are able to modulate the pitch of an operator, and the preset "Fifth Element" shows very much the combination of FM synthesis with Subtractive.
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DV247:
“With full featured oscillators, great filters and the wonderful ‘symmetry’ control, the basic ethos of your most recent virtual synth, ‘Predator’, is one of strength through ‘Sound Structure’ – can you elaborate more on this concept and what your inspiration was to realise it?"

RP
Inside my studio I do regular training on using synthesizers. This training inspired me to build Predator and the fact that ‘easy to use’ is very musical. Most parameters of Predator are always visible and that makes it fast and easy to use. Next to that we added a smart trick to give it an extra dimension in terms of synthesis. If you dive into the Ambient bank, but also elsewhere, you find out that Predator is also a 3 operator FM synthesizer. So.. easy to use, ‘wicked’ and ‘phat’ in sound. That was our goal. We tweaked the sound and I got a lot of feedback from Jon Ayres on this subject.

So I know a lot more now about what you can do with software and the influence it has on the audio quality. I make different choices than programmers but that you can hear inside Predator. Now with faster CPUs, we have superb audio quality with software synthesizers. No more do we have a plastic muddy sound but now a real ‘in your face’ sound and a lot of dynamic range (a good audio card is needed of course).

Also, if you really want to compare software with hardware, record your hardware synthesizers into your host and make a track. You will find out that high quality software synthesizers are as good as any DSP based hardware synthesizer.
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DV247:
“You have an intimate team of programmers you regularly collaborate with: Can you tell us anything about the workflow that is handled by each of them, and how it crystallises into a final marketable and usable product?"

RP
After the success of Albino I formed my own team with Jon Ayres called RPCX. Of course for Albino I still work together with Peter of LinPlug. But with Jon Ayres I will build all the future products.
We have already made BLUE, Predator and now RG though more will follow of course :-D

I develop the basic concepts and then we start to work it out together. Jon Ayres then adds his ideas about my concept. This mix or teamwork makes products like BLUE, Predator and RG possible.

The great fun for me is that with Jon Ayres, nothing is impossible. He even takes it a few steps further and often surprises me with the extra options he adds. So I am very blessed with him!

My background is being a musician, composer, synth player and sound designer.
This mix with a software coder is great and full of surprises.
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DV247:
"Released (very soon/this week) is your latest creation, ‘R.G.’ (‘Rhythm Guitar Synth’): This morphs extremely controllable, sequenced electric and steel guitar samples with an immense ‘Papen’ armoury of modulated, filtered, oscillated and warped synthesis – Its uniqueness is its ability to split the controller keyboard into ‘major’ or ‘minor’ keys, and use the array of controllable synthesis to turn the ‘standard’ into the ‘edgy’. Did the catalyst to create ‘RG’ come from perhaps frustrated sessions with guitar players ☺ or a desire to realistically expand the horizons of both the synthesizer and guitar worlds?"

RP
Well, I am more into new things and RG is inspired by the Rhythm guitar. My dad always played soul music and I, as a teenager, grew up in the ‘Disco’ age.

Sure, with RG it is possible to replace a Rhythm guitar player and it even sounds very good for this purpose. We added about 200 basic grooves for it. But the cool part is the special "RG" sounds which a guitar player could produce. New fresh cool grooves…great for contemporary music or any production that needs fresh new sounds.
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DV247:
"As with Albino making the gradual development from version 1 to 3, do you envisage even at this early stage, that ‘RG’ could creatively evolve even further, perhaps allowing guitar players the ability to ‘play in’ their own riffs and take advantage of its synthesis engine?"

RP
Hmmmmm…Nice idea.
But the concept of RG is very different. You think too much based on a ‘rex’ concept. RG is very different from that but you can find that out very soon.

Still, if a Rhythm guitar player is also a synth freak he can use Predator FX for this purpose.
It is not fully the same as RG, but then he can add also Filters, LFO and so on to this groove.

But it would be fun if Guitar players would buy a synthesizer and use the audio input to make RG grooves. LoL
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DV247:
“And finally Rob: You must hear so many tracks on the radio or television where you KNOW that it is a ‘Papen’ sound being used – Do you still get a ‘buzz’ and feeling of satisfaction about that to this day?"

RP
Well, my buzz and satisfaction is the moment I make a preset and I enjoy it. That is real fun for me…my satisfaction.

Sure I hear a lot of my sounds in productions. But the satisfaction is the moment a preset is ready and I have this feeling that it is a cool sound. And sometimes it can be a simple bass, using just one oscillator and no fx. And sometimes it is a great wide pad sound.

It is also a journey for me. Now with the new Predator 1.5 presets I am totally into these dry sounds without any FX. It is easy to pick out a Chorus effect, but with the new banks a lot of sounds are dry. Especially the basses are different than before. Music changes, but my inspiration for sounds does too. It’s all fun for me.

It is of course great to hear that famous producers all over the world are using your products but the ‘happy’ feeling…that comes after a new preset is born. As my products have so many presets…I am addicted to this "buzz" of a good preset! Lol..

Ps. Our synths are heavily used in the music to be played during the Closing Ceremony of the Olympics!
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A huge thanks goes out to Rob for taking time out from his busy schedule to chat with us, and also props go to Joel at Time & Space for all assistance in arranging this interview.
robpapen.com

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This interview copyright DV247.com Forums 2008

[krykos]

I gotta admit when I saw "guitar based synth", I was thinking something along the lines of the Roland GR20, but this looks good for those that can't play the guitar. Or those that just want to get the timings spot on easily.

Keep it up with the interviews as they're quite interesting.

[Jeremy Lumsden]

Quick Headz Up: The Week 8 Prize i.e. the prize for the forum member who contributes the most quality posts between 19th August and 26th August is Rob Papen Rhythm Guitar!

[conor_j]

very interesting read, thanks guys

[krykos]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Lumsden

Quick Headz Up: The Week 8 Prize i.e. the prize for the forum member who contributes the most quality posts between 19th August and 26th August is Rob Papen Rhythm Guitar!

I still don't think we've learnt what the prize for Week 7 is. The way things are going though, they just keep getting better and better...

[JAYDMF]

Love Blue and i Love Albino, nice to hear a story like this where someone with Ideas can actually get somewhere with it. We need more people like Mr Papen in the synth world as things are getting just a little stale, need someone to come along and bust things open again with some whacky new ideas.

[modz1]

Originally Posted by krykos

I still don't think we've learnt what the prize for Week 7 is. The way things are going though, they just keep getting better and better...

See todays announcements K..

[waxxy]

wow excellent prize ive been keeping an eye out on this product since it was announced at namm..and ive posted the videos of it in action a few weeks ago on this forum too show what it could do.itd be cool if one rob papens company would release a vst with some kind of hardware controller..i know you can control his products with houston or novation controllers but if he did one like korg did with the ms20 a controller you could physically patch theyd sell bucket loads the only controller ive seen with patch cables is the korg legacy collection controller...someone else should make another one.

[JAYDMF]

Originally Posted by waxxy

wow excellent prize ive been keeping an eye out on this product since it was announced at namm..and ive posted the videos of it in action a few weeks ago on this forum too show what it could do.itd be cool if one rob papens company would release a vst with some kind of hardware controller..i know you can control his products with houston or novation controllers but if he did one like korg did with the ms20 a controller you could physically patch theyd sell bucket loads the only controller ive seen with patch cables is the korg legacy collection controller...someone else should make another one.

Yup and they stopped making it with the MS20 controller before i could buy it the gits. I remember spending hours on that thing in brum just getting far too involved.

[Monarch]

Also, if you really want to compare software with hardware, record your hardware synthesizers into your host and make a track. You will find out that high quality software synthesizers are as good as any DSP based hardware synthesizer.

Very interesting comment from Rob Papen. Subjective but I personally agree.

My background is being a musician, composer, synth player and sound designer.
This mix with a software coder is great and full of surprises.

His background is similar to Eric's...(being a sound designer for Roland.) Also Eric works with software devs at Spectrasonics as well. Nice.

Well, my buzz and satisfaction is the moment I make a preset and I enjoy it. That is real fun for me…my satisfaction.

Sure I hear a lot of my sounds in productions. But the satisfaction is the moment a preset is ready and I have this feeling that it is a cool sound.

Yes. It can be very rewarding to tweak a sound to ones liking. Even more satisfying when it sits together in a mix.

Nice interview with Rob...it started and ended before my time here but I kept forgetting to comment on this interview until now.

[iceHouse Project]

Awesome guy!

We must sound like 'trainspotting' nerds to everyone else but gimme interviews like this anyday!