Chris Steller

Interview by Brian Cowell

Chris Steller is the "Digital Musical Instruments Product Support Coordinator" at Yamaha Music Australia. He gets to play with all the latest equipment and "beta" test some stuff that hasn't been released. But deep underneath is a guy who is more "analog" than "digital". Sonikmatter had a chance to slow down this fast ADSR and get him resonating on what he has been up to!

SONIK : What do you do at YAMAHA on a "day to day" basis ?

CHRIS : I'm involved with the marketing and distribution of digital musical instruments (that's synths, samplers, sequencers and groove boxes) for the Australian market. I also demonstrate and support the products for our dealer network, and help with the planning of promotional activities and stuff like that. I enjoy the direct contact with products and people, and I am extremely allergic to anything involving Excel spreadsheets or calculations. Photo by S. Hutcheson.

SONIK : How were you influenced into keyboards/synthesizers in particular ?

CHRIS : Everyone in my family played an instrument, and being the youngest I was the last one to decide what to play. We had a house full of musical instruments, so I made an attempt at most of them, and didn't really take to any. Then at age fifteen, a Rick Wakeman concert and the things with the knobs that made the weird noises really impressed me. I played with one at a local music store where I was doing piano lessons and that was it - I've been working with synthesizers ever since. BTW, the synthesizer I first played was a Roland SH-3A.

SONIK : Who have been your musical influences ?

CHRIS : I've enjoyed a lot of music over the years, and my main influences are very diverse. I enjoy jazz, rock, electronic, dance and classical (not too big on country and western). I always enjoyed the German electronic stuff, not so hot on the UK pop, but was impressed by the U.S. synth artists. I also listened to Japan's YMO and the work of Tomita, plus a lot of more obscure electronic stuff like Logic System, etc.

I was particularly impressed by Roger Powell, the synth player from Todd Rundgren's band. He was a demonstrator for ARP, and his work with Rundgren and his solo work were pretty amazing. I had a piece of vinyl called 'Air Pocket' where he had programmed the drum sounds on Moog and Serge modular systems, and then written a software program on a home computer to sequence the parts. The drum sounds were so intricate, using multiple white noise generators, envelope generators and oscillators just for a single drum. That amount of detail has always impressed me. It was at the time that the Linn LM-1 and Oberheim DMX were released so the value of Powell's work wasn't recognised to the degree that it should have been.

I'm also a big fan of Thomas Dolby - the diversity of sound and the way he weaves those sounds together is fantastic. I also like the way his style evolves - from the days of 'Europa and the Pirate Twins' and Lene Lovitch's 'New Toy' to the soulful tracks from 'Astronauts and Heretics' he has always produced, written, programmed, played and sung very listenable music. His use of technology has always been at the leading edge.

And Trevor Horn, the great god of production. I've enjoyed everything I've heard that he's been involved in, from the Buggles and Yes, to Art Of Noise and all of his productions in between. Like Seals first two albums, and Grace Jones 'Slave to the Rhythm', his name on an album is like a seal of quality for me. I'm currently enjoying AON's 'The Seduction of Claude Debussy' - a sensational piece of work.

SONIK : What sort of instruments can we find in your "rig" Chris ?

CHRIS : My synth system ranges from the very old to the latest models - I love the 100M system and I can't imagine ever getting bored with the Wavestation A/D. I'm also impressed with the flexibility of the latest products like the EX5R with its FDSP section and the FS1R (I use SoundDiver for that).

I have an Akai VX600, with a serial number of '0001'. It's a prototype so it looks like a piece of junk (the left cheek says 'Headphone' but the actual jack is on the right cheek), but it sounds pretty thick. I have a CS30L which needs some maintenance but is quite a unique layout to programme, and the filters are really sharp. And I still have my Prodigy and MonoPoly analogues for solos and effects. I really love the AN1x for programming (especially with Gary Gregson's AN1x Edit software) - it has so many innovative ideas for keeping a sound moving. I am also working with the A5000 sampler and enjoying creating and manipulating sounds with that - six awesome effects in that box.

I like different synthesis types and innovative methods of creating sounds, the Yamaha stuff really keeps me happy.

Software:

Sequencing duties are handled by a Mac with Logic Audio Platinum and the SU700 loop sampler for creating instant grooves to work over. I find Logic suits the way that I like to work, and the Environment page great for customising the tracks I'm working on with just the right controllers for what I need to get at. I occasionally dust off my Atari with Dr T's KCS software - I used to put together some amazing tracks with that system. When I was working with my brother, Jeff, doing jingles and corporate stuff, it was all done with KCS. I wish Mr Tobenfeld would write music software again.

SONIK : You had a firm introduction early in your career to some of the big names in analog equipment. Which one's stand out in your mind the most?

CHRIS : I've played with some amazing products over the years. There was a time quite a few years ago that I'd worked with just about every synth available, except for the NED Synclavier and a few custom synths from around the globe. My time at Orbital Music had a lot to do with that sort of access.

I have fond memories of the Oberheims - the XA was particularly impressive as a sound maker, and I worked closely with an amazing synth programmer by the name of Rick Chadwick, who was a wiz with 'the System' - he spent hours putting demos together, with me sometimes doing the DMX stuff (the sorceror's apprentice kind of thing). I remember the first time I played a Memorymoog, putting it into unison mode and almost taking out all the windows in the shop - eighteen oscillators all humming together was a powerful combination. And my wish list still has an Oberheim SEM on it.

The warmth of the Prophets, the movement you can get from the wavetables in the PPGs, the old Rolands, the anaolgue Korgs are so rich, ARPs, Crumar, Elka and others including Steiner-Parker synths and a lot of other stuff over the years have all been a fabulous experience for me. I've never met a synthesizer I didn't like, but some of them take more work than others to come around to my way of thinking.

SONIK : Do you see "mLan" changing the way musicians currently create their tunes ?

CHRIS : It won't really change the way tunes are created, it will just make systems more efficient. Less patching, cleaner sound and that sort of thing. I work with a CS6 rack with the mLAN8E fitted, and it's just a great thing to have it connected to the Mac with a solitary cable. I've got eight separate synth parts being fed into eight channels of Logic's mixer, so I have a choice of the 8E's EQ and processing or Logic's plug-in stuff. Running one of our digital mixers with an mLAN card talking directly to a Mac with Logic or Cubase will be a very capable setup.

SONIK : What particular YAMAHA products do you think stand out ?

CHRIS : For the last few years I think the Yamaha designers have really nailed the sound of our synths ' maybe it's the roundness of the digital filters. It's a good even tone that is big in the bottom end but still sits nicely in a mix not overpowering. I hear harshness in a lot of the market that takes a fair amount of EQ to fix.

I've already mentioned the FDSP section of the EX5, and my first question to the guys in Japan during a visit last year involved my hope that the technology involved would be used in future products. The stuff you can do with the FDSP algorithms is very different, and the processing types are all interesting (modeled pickups, filters and effects). The SU700 is quite unique - I love the time slicing of the loops, not just for the beat-matching aspects, but also the rhythmic tricks you can do with the slices. Nothing else does that with such real-time control. The new DX200 is a current favorite they've managed to put just the right parameter controls on it to make it 'super' flexible. I'm also looking at a very prototype RS7000, and wondering what new tricks it will perform.

SONIK : Do you get a chance to communicate with YAMAHA R&D much ?

CHRIS : It's difficult for me to imagine that any ideas I have about products haven't already been suggested before, but I guess it doesn't do any harm to make the suggestions. I did my first trip to Yamaha HQ in 2000 and that was an amazing experience - I learned quite a lot. Me with twenty something years of synth ideas in my head doing my best to get some of them into Yamaha products.

I do email my thoughts to a contact in Japan and they get passed on. Engineers discuss the usefulness, etc and then they go into the ideas pot, I would imagine (what can be implemented, what can't)

SONIK : What do you get up to when you get some spare time ?

CHRIS : I'm writing some tunes at the moment a bit unusual for me because I normally put together synth pieces. I've prepared a bunch of basic tracks that I've given to Vonda Jane, a singer/songwriter, to tie together with her melodies and lyrics. I'll let you know how it works out.

I read a lot of Sci-Fi, and on weekends I try to fly a lot of things in the yard with my kids (paper aeroplanes, kites, balloons or whatever), I drink in moderation which keeps the falling down to a minimum, and I listen.......to a lot of things.

I write articles for Australian industry magazines - retros and occasionally 'how-to' things. I'm not allowed to do reviews because of Yamaha connection.

I would like a DVD player and a bunch of good Sci-Fi movies, but I'd get nothing else done. I like good soundtracks and sound effects in films. I'm always the last one out of the cinema because I stay to read the credits - who did the sound design, stuff like that. I love the work of guys like Frank Seraphine - I met him at NAMM a couple of times and felt like an idiot, but had to introduce myself :-)

SONIK : Do you program your own instruments ?

CHRIS : I used to have a policy of never using anyone else's sounds but I realized that was pretty stupid, because the trick is making different textures work together, so I was limiting myself by not using other people's sounds. I use SoundDiver on the newer MIDI stuff, but it's good to grab hold of an older machine and make it work. I like big drones and washy pads - it fills the track up so you don't have to do much else :-)

I don't do much stuff for other people now, but that was something I really enjoyed. Creating sounds and effects for corporate video or someone's songs - just hearing/seeing the results was enough of a buzz for me.

I was working in Melbourne at the SoundHouse (technology facility) and I learned a lot about programming sounds by watching the kids messing with the knobs. Every now and then you've got to throw in a weird turn to break your routine - the results speak for themselves.

SONIK : What strange things have you've experienced in the music business ?

CHRIS : You mean apart from the usual madness and abuse. In this industry you see strange things on a regular basis. Sampling.........when I was at Orbital Music we got the first Emulator 1, and proceeded to sample all of the body noises we could make. I didn't think Dave Rossum would be impressed with that until I heard some of the sound sets that his guys had done. I'd bet that microphone had some stories to tell.

Should I mention delivering an OB-Xa backstage to a Grace Jones concert in Sydney and not being allowed in by the security staff at stage door? We spent about thirty minutes arguing with these guys who were convinced we had no right to be there, and we had to use the old 'let's see if you have a job in the morning' routine to get the big silver roadcase through the door. The keyboard player had just enough time to get the old machine out of his rig and power up the replacement. And there was a time when I had to sit through an entire Lou Reed concert at the Entertainment Centre because I was on standby to do memory dumps for the Prophet 5 and Memorymoog if anything went wrong. What an oppressive way for a band to make a living. At least I got a chance to talk with Fernando Saunders (bass player from Jan Hammer Group). Another time I was invited to a soundcheck for Nik Kershaw's band - now there's a talented man - and what a professional. I was allowed on stage to have a look at the band's rig and chat with the guys, while Nik wandered up and down behind the sound guy discussing any changes he wanted in the mix. The band was brilliant and the concert that night was perfect.

Strangest thing at a trade show was listening to a guy play 'Eye of the Tiger' on one of those big ugly organs - that guy really rocked in his white suit and red bow tie. For some strange reason it's burnt into memory!

My weirdest sale in retail was to a guy who asked if the synth could do the sound of 'potato chips frying'. God knows why he wanted that, but I messed with some noise modulation in a sound and got a nice, crisp bubbling thing going and he said "OK, here's the cash".

And the strangest job I've ever done was a vitamin pill ad that was to be aired during one of the Olympics - when I arrived at the studio the clients asked me where my Fairlight was, and once I convinced them I could do the gig with a Polysix, a Juno-6, an MC-202 and my KPR-77, weren't happy until I included a pulsing rhythm like 'Chariots of Fire'. I think all of the production houses at the time wanted the health product ads to sound like 'Chariots of Fire'. An easy job and the money was great - so much for professional integrity!

SONIK : If you could build a synth, what "specs" would it have ?

CHRIS : Having buckets of polyphony in one box doesn't appeal to me. I'd like a combination of synthesis types and quite a few insert effects. I don't like to use too many sounds coming out of a synth if it's only got a couple of effects or a minimum of assignable outs. I'd prefer to use a number of different modules (kind of like I do now). The EX's FDSP is the most amazing processor I've heard, and I would like to see that available in another generation, so that would have to be in there. I want an EX rack with a good chunk of ROM and just FDSP (not the other synth types off that processor), with four PLG slots and a nice big screen. The concept of the Kenton Plugstation is more my style. I'll enjoy filling one of those with PLG boards and having some fun.

SONIK : What is your view on the "software versus hardware" debate ?

CHRIS : Software synths are becoming pretty damned impressive, I must say. I've started experimenting with the PPG Wave and Model E soft synths, and also the TC Mercury-1 and they sound fine. I'd like to do more with those, but I think I'll need more RAM for the Mac before I can go much further.

They still don't feel as good as an analogue synth, but I'm talking in terms of being tactile. You can get those knobby controllers to talk to the softsynths but I don't have the time to do that sort of setup. I don't want to spend too much time changing screens to get at each synth - I just want it to be there. The whole concept of having everything in one place is certainly appealing, but knowing my luck the computer would crash when I finally got it all set up. Not right now, thanks.

SONIKMATTER : February 2001