The ability to sample one’s own sounds was less important to the consumer than having quality banks of recognizable instruments already in memory.
Synthesizers have traditionally been the principle battleground for the future of music technology.
The original conception of synthesis had strong associations of creating realistic sounds with machines.
That mission had a powerful futurist appeal that entrenched itself firmly in the industry’s core values.
Reality bytes
A common narrative is that the true potential of synthesizers wasn’t accessed until experimental artists “discovered” that they needn’t be used to imitate real instruments.
But the commercial and technological forces driving the industry’s development remained squarely focused on crossing the uncanny valley throughout the early modern era.
Despite these goals, the early electronic instruments could never really pass for real strings, horns or drums.
Even the futuristic FM technique with its knack for struck percussion and complex attacks had a sound that was distinctly synthesized.
It wasn’t until sampling technology became cheap enough for the consumer market that keyboard instruments began to sound real.
Samplers were revolutionary, but early sales of instruments based on the technology revealed another direction the market was taking.
The ability to sample one’s own sounds was less important to the consumer than having quality banks of recognizable instruments already in memory.
The next logical development was a sample playback instrument with a fixed library, featuring only the most essential instrument sounds.
ROMpler room
A sampler with fixed memory is called a ROMpler—a portmanteau of sampler and the acronym for read-only memory, ROM.
ROMplers allowed efficient resource usage and larger storage, but memory was still in incredibly short supply.
Even when working with the less expensive read-only form, synth designers had to squeeze the chips for every last byte to produce realistic sounds.
The earliest ROMplers had internal memory capacities of kilobytes.
For context, Sonic Couture’s excellent Balinese Gamelan—a realistic modern sample set—weighs in at nearly 40 GB.
The earliest ROMplers had internal memory capacities of kilobytes.
Designers came up with clever tricks to get the most out of modest memory, but at the end of the day these basic sounds simply did not sound convincing on their own.
Their distinctive tone is the musical equivalent of early polygon game graphics.
ROMplers relied heavily on the new capabilities for inputting musical expression that were made possible by the MIDI protocol.
All the musical gestures needed to make static samples behave like real acoustic instruments had to be painstakingly inputted in MIDI by the user.
Presets had the dual purpose of selling the synth in the showroom and providing built-in sonic versatility for users who did not understand synthesis yet.
Patch genius
In the hands of an expert programmer you could almost believe a ROMpler patch playing an expressive MIDI passage was a real string section or electric guitar solo—if you squinted.
It was an incredibly difficult feat to pull off.
Not only did you have to understand the unique performance nuances of a wide variety of musical instruments, you also needed to effectively translate them into MIDI and navigate the hardware’s labyrinthine menus and functions to make it work.
Standardization of electronic instruments was in its infancy at the time. New devices were often built from the ground up with completely different operating systems and editing paradigms.
Those in possession of this disparate skillset found themselves in a unique position in the industry.
Demos sell synths
Recallable presets were standard on most electronic instruments by the time samplers and ROMplers entered the enthusiast market.
To succeed in the marketplace these devices had to ship with banks of great-sounding presets.
Presets had the dual purpose of selling the synth in the showroom and providing built-in sonic versatility for users who did not understand synthesis yet.
But selling the expanded capabilities of ROMplers using presets posed some challenges.
The limited samples weren’t convincing unless rendered with expressive MIDI parts. And these devices could do a lot more than play a single sound mapped to the keyboard.
For instance, improved processing power now allowed for many devices to ship with onboard sequencers.
Selling the extensive capabilities of these machines required a full musical implementation: the demotune.