Ah, the BBC. Their world news sounds like an apocalyptic rave and their inexplicably long-running, trippy strange “children’s” sci-fi show has one of the greatest pieces of synthesized music ever.

I’m running out of ways to say Delia Derbyshire is one of the most brilliant composers ever to use electricity, so let’s just get straight on to the bit where Coldcut show up and hold a big musical party for the Beeb Radiophonic Workshop and do their own kickass remix of Who’s opening titles and sounds. (Making the classic Doctor Who video feedback seem psychedelic? Not really a challenge. And yet these episodes always wound up with wandering around a rock quarry…)

Coldcut were there, the wonderfully-talented Dick Mills and Mark Ayres… sounds delicious. I’m still waiting for the Derbyshire music release, and I think there’s still more that could be done to document the UK’s electronic history — CDM stands at your aid, ye worthy workshop of sound.

BBC Electric Proms 2008: Coldcut
Via Carter Rosenberg’s tumblr and
vdmx co-creator David Lublin’s Twitter

Because it must be done, let us also consider Orbital’s classic remix (thanks, gwenhwyfaer) – provided it doesn’t make you hide behind the sofa:

Tristram is credited by some as the father of tape music, originating tape music techniques in World War II. He’s notorious to the general public and sci fi fans as the composer of the music for the Daleks in Doctor Who (along with other music) — like an evil counterpart to Delia Derbyshire, who built the studio Cary would later use. But he was also a pivotal composer of music for film, electronics, voice, and instrument alike, a well-known Australian music critic, a leading figure in studios and academies, and, oh, yeah, he did the visual design (product design, really) for the legendary portable VCS3 "Putney" synth from EMS, the synth maker of which he was a founding Director.

It’s safe to say that, out of this web of contributions to electronic sound, Tristram Cary is another of those people who charted the course for what music technology is today. From the technology to his extensive music to his work in popularizing musique concrete in England, his impact is felt even by those who don’t know his name.

Christian Haines writes to let us know of Tristram passing, evidently following a long illness.

If you don’t know his work, there’s no time like the present to discover what he’s given us.

Official Tristram Cary Site

Wikipedia article, with lots of references and an extensive composition list

Resources at the Australian Music Centre

EMS, the "Moog Music of England", lives on (apologies to our UK readers, but Americans are just discovering EMS); see also the Synthi blog

And for a little Tristram Cary listening:

Trios LP by Tristram Cary (EMS) is a trio of EMS synth plus turntables; full tracks on the Synthi blog courtesy the composer. Really brilliant sounds:

And, you know, looking at all of this I’m reminded of why things like the Dalek connection are important. For whatever reason, mysterious science fiction worlds have been the entry point for listeners around the world into the sometimes alien and frightening new timbres of electronic music. We’re all lucky enough to have grown up in a time in which we’re challenged to create music that evokes other parts of the universe, real and imaginary.

Christian sends along a complete obituary provided by the Director of the Elder Conservatorium, David Lockett:

Tristram was born in Oxford on 14th May 1925. He served in the Royal Navy from 1943-6, specialising in radar and thereby receiving training in electronics. During his war service he independently developed the idea of what was to become tape music, and began experimenting as soon as he was released from the Navy in late 1946. From 1954 he found himself able to live by score commissions, and from that time produced a large variety of concert works and scores for theatre, radio, film, TV, public exhibitions etc.

He was founder (in 1967) of the electronic music studio at the Royal College of Music, and designed and built his own electronic music facility, one of the longest established private studios in the world. The equipment from this studio was brought to Australia, and most of it was incorporated into the expanding teaching studio at the University of Adelaide. He was also a founder Director of EMS (London) Ltd, and co-designer of the VCS3 (Putney) Synthesiser and other EMS products. He called upon a wide range of resources for generating film, TV, theatre, radio or concert music, special dialogue treatments, or anything in the area of specialised sound. His wide experience as a composer included all aspects of instrumental and vocal ensemble, any facet of electronic music, or combinations of several types.

Tristram played a pivotal role within the Elder Conservatorium until 1986, when he left the University to resume self-employment. During 1988-90, he was largely occupied with writing a major book on music technology which was published in London as The Illustrated Compendium of Musical Technology in May 1992 (Faber & Faber). The American version – substituting Dictionary for Compendium – is distributed by Greenwood Press, Connecticut.

In 1995 and 96 there were performances in London and Adelaide to mark his 70th birthday, and a new suite based on his music for the Ealing film The Ladykillers won The Gramophone Award for best film music CD in 1998.

Apart from composition activity, Tristram was a respected music critic for The Australian newspaper. In recent years he held the position of Honorary Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide, in which capacity he continued his computer music research. In 2001 the University also conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Music. In 1991 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to Australian music. In 1999 he received the SA Great Music Award for the year, and Symphony Australia commissioned a new work – Scenes from a Life – to mark his 75th birthday in 2000. He received the Adelaide Critics Circle 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award on December 5, 2005.

Giving all the credit to Ron Grainer seems a little unfair; while Grainer composed the melody, most of the features of the Doctor Who theme itself were in fact the work of gifted pioneer Delia Derbyshire. Whereas Howell could actually play parts live, Derbyshire had a much harder task: painstakingly piecing the sounds out of repeat passes of tape, with only the simplest test tone generators and processors to produce sounds. Ironically, I think there was a far greater gap in the way synthesizer sounds were produced between 1963 and 1980 than 1980 and 2007, even if Howell brags about a “very modern synthesizer” that can play “8 notes at a time.” It’s cheaper now, but programming most synth patches hasn’t changed in the least. In fact, the CS-80 had more accessible hardware for programming, and never had to contend with OS X updates. Out of tune slightly? Erm, yes … but that’s cool, right? (Better add that to your software emulation. I’ll make no argument for superiority of value or weight. And I’ll make myself feel better by routing through some digital effects.)

See my two year-old roundup, though many of the sound links are now broken:
Doctor Who Theme: Behind the Scenes, Hear the Themes

Sound editing can be an unenviable job: against some sometimes absurdly tight deadlines, you have to work with complex, extensive changes to the film or TV show. Virtual Katy is a piece of software that integrates with Final Cut and Avid video editing and handles conforming — basically, taking all those changes and making everything fit. It’s not a wildly expensive piece of software, ranging from US$400 to $1000. But it’s surprisingly elegant, at least from my layperson’s point of view. If you’ve ever been curious how these things work, check out the short quick start tutorial.

VK is used professionally on some interesting and geek-pleasing projects, ranging from Lord of the Rings to South Park. Boy, those two projects need it, too: Lord of the Rings was infamous for its far-reaching, deep edits (composer Howard Shore talked about that), whereas South Park gets wrapped up literally a few hours before you see it air in the U.S. on Comedy Central. Naturally, VK loves to send out press releases about these projects.

This one caught my eye: VK is used by Douglas Sinclair, sound editor on the new, slicker Doctor Who. (More stories in VK’s press release PDF, with the sales pitch but interesting nonetheless.) The whole process happens in just two and a half weeks per episode. That’s more lavish than, oh, say, South Park. (They get a few days, but by contrast, South Park sound editor D.A. Young told me things like explosion sounds often don’t line up with the effects when the show first airs!). But just over two weeks is pretty tight given the cinematic level of sound and visual effects Doctor Who requires. Conforming comes in as visual effects are finalized and trailers and re-caps are generated.

And all of this gives me both another chance to talk about Doctor Who and an opportunity to run a picture of David Tennant for my girlfriend. Previous examples of me finding excuses to talk about Who:

Doctor Who Theme: Behind the Scenes, Hear the Themes
Doctor Who Theme, Remixed and Roasted

Note: Anyone who actually does use these tools — since I know nothing as I don’t do post production! — please feel free to say hello in comments, whether you’ve used VK or anything else. One person has already stepped up. I do prefer hearing from real people to hearing from press releases, as regular readers know. -PK

Difficult as it may be for Americans to 'get', the Doctor Who
theme is one of the most significant electronic music pieces of all
time and a cultural icon to the Brits. So, why not mess with it?

• whomix is a site entirely devoted to remixing the theme
• The composer for the new show says he thinks the bridge sounds just like Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas"? (Um, far be it from me to split hairs, Murray, but wouldn't that be Band Aid sounds like Doctor Who, not the other way round?)
• Bill Bailey
  has an infamous (and hilarious) sendup of the show's music, both the
  silly FM synth meanderings of the early 80s and an ingenious remake of
  the theme as Belgian jazz (Doctor Qui, which you may be able to via these comments)
• The worst cover ever must be this one, as performed on kazoo.
• BBC has its own Flash game where you can mix your own version of the theme song

There you have it. Nothing is sacred.

Behind the scenes: Before
the Moog analog synth allowed patching together music with knobs and
telephone switchboard cables, Delia Derbyshire (shown) and assistant Dick Mills
started with a simple score by Ron Grainer and pieced together one of
the most recognizable TV tunes of all time using individual sound
modules, razor blades, an enormous amount of work, and a lot of
imagination. (Read the detailed history by Mark Ayres, who composed for the show and produced a CD re-release; here are some of my favorite highlights — read more)

• 

  1963 original equipment: 12 test-tone generators (not
  originally intended for musical use!), a couple of EQs, an LFO, and a
  noise generator; pieced together by hand without keyboards onto tape
  (no, really) — the result is incredibly organic, and probably impossible to reproduce with today's tech!

• "Cliffhanger" screech: Again, according to Mark Ayres' superb write-up, the screech was produced by gradual tape frequency shifts with delay
• 1980 Peter Howell version: This
  brilliant remake employed a hit list of great gear: Yamaha CS80, ARP
  Odyssey, EMS Vocoder, Roland Jupiter 4, and additional tape — plus
  some samples of previous Doctor Who effects and sound. I think this is
  probably the most underrated of the versions of the song; while not as
  significant as the original, it translates its spirit to a later
  generation of synthesis
• Dalek speech: Normally, if you want to tell an English
  audio student what a ring modulator is, you point to the Daleks, though
  Music Thing has an article
  on the debate over that: basically, ring mods are used now (and I would
  guess on many later shows) but would have been unlikely in the 60s
  programs (see discussion of the Moog sighting on the new show).
• More Delia Derbyshire: Mark Ayres is features in a BBC 4 program (info and video clips)
  featuring Derbyshire's catchy ditty "Ziwzhi Ziwzhi oo-oo-oo" — a tape
  reversal trick that produces a bizarre song by robots worshipping a
  power converter

And horrible Doctor Who variant songs:  Go buy the CDs and give the BBC its due (and hear the music well-produced), but Clive Banks' extensive TV site has some oddities you probably won't hear elsewhere: (aside from the 1963 original and 1980 remake)

• Even Delia Derbyshire didn't like the "Delaware" theme (Pertwee era) — proof positive that it's not easy to make a good Who theme
• Try to act surprised when I tell you the composer of this overblown theme for the US movie flop also did Passion of the Christ
• And you thought only William Shatner did bizarre spoken word "music"? So did Doctor #3 Jon Pertwee
• Apparently the Doctor is in distress (as will you be when you hear this)
• K9, the song — need I say more?

Oh, and let's see how long it takes BBC's lawyers to notice the new series theme is up there, too.