Daniel Fisher

Interview by Brian Cowell.

Those of you who owned K2000s in the early 90's may recall a mind-blowing Kurzweil program called Darkside (filename PINKFLYD.KRZ) that recreates Pink Floyd's entire On The Run synth trip without using sequencing or user samples.

This masterpiece of VAST programming was created by a then unknown synth programmer named Daniel Fisher (aka _FIZBIN_). In the years since he has become well recognized as the VAST Guru and Director of Soundware Engineering at Sweetwater in Ft. Wayne. Daniel has answered countless questions on Users Groups as well as in articles in Keyboard Magazine, Electronic Music Magazine, and his monthly Soundware Scene columns.

Along with Sweetwater, Daniel has done soundware programming for many companies including Kurzweil, Korg, Alesis, InVision, Sonic Arts, Yamaha and TC Electronic. SONIK finally got a few spare moments with the VAST Master to ask him some questions about his career and his inspirations.

SONIK: What is your music-performance history?

DANIEL: I started playing a fan-driven Magnus Chord Organ when I was 6 to get quarters from my relatives. Then, after years of school bands (Trombone, Piano, and Fender Rhodes), I got into a rock band playing a Gibson Holiday Organ, a bizarre-looking, black and orange, 2-rank electric organ with pedals, with the band's Micro Moog synthesizer on top of that.

After enlisting in the US Army as a "Digital Multi-Channel Communications Operation and Repair" specialist, I was heard jamming at the recreation building in Ft. Gordon, Georgia by a 3-Star General who got me into the Army Band program. After a year of intense music/soldier training I was sent to Germany and traveled Europe playing Beer Tents, Wine Fests, Parades, etc., with a 61-piece band that could break up into smaller groups like jazz bands, big bands, rock bands, dinner bands, etc. After two years in Europe, I auditioned and was accepted as the Keyboard Player for the US Army Rock Band in Ft. Monroe, Virginia.

When I got my Honorable Discharge I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston and joined the Massachusetts Army National Guard Band, which occasionally took me overseas (two weeks at a time) to places like Greece, Spain, and Jamaica. Since then, I have always been in one or more local Rock or Blues bands just to keep myself sane and to have a "Ben Franklin" or two hidden in my wallet.

SONIK: What is your music-technology history (prior to Kurzweil and Sweetwater)?

DANIEL: In my Senior Year at Berklee I decided to quit my Radio Shack job of three years and go into business for myself. I started a consulting company called MIDI Systems, Exclusive. My clients were mostly professional musicians who had a large number of synths and wanted them all to work together or with their computers. I also found myself doing a lot of program tweaking for clients who purchased MIDI files of popular songs that didn't work well with their particular keyboard. (Remember, this was pre-General MIDI, so keyboards never "just worked" with third-party sequences.)

Eventually I got a gig at a huge music store in Boston called E.U. Wurlitzers as a Keyboard Salesman and was lucky enough to open the first Kurzweil K2000 that arrived (back in December of 1991!) Then I heard of an opening at Kurzweil's Research and Development Institute in Waltham, MA as a QA Tester and my life changed forever. Years later (Fall of 1994) Chuck Surack, President of Sweetwater, asked if I would be interested in heading my own Soundware Development Facility. I've been here ever since.

SONIK: Do you have any Diplomas/Degrees in Music?

DANIEL: Initially I studied Electronic Music at Northern Illinois University for one year before I decided to join the Army. I chose Northern because they had a synth room with a wall-sized Moog system as well as a Putney VCS3 (Darkside of the Moon), a very large Electro-Comp synthesizer, as well as several Revox reel-to-reel tape recorders for room-length tape loop creations.

By offering to clean/maintain the synth room I was given the key. I won't go into detail about the late-night experiments that went on there, but I can say that a room lit only by hundreds of blinking indicator lights is a wondrous thing!

After I finished four years with the US Army, with a Diploma from the Army Scool of Music, I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts and got a Bachelors Degree in Music Production & Engineering (graduated Cum Laude) as well as a Bachelors Degree in Music Synthesis (also Cum Laude). Berklee is an amazing school in that they teach you how to earn a good living with music as opposed to just how to play music.

SONIK: What is the story behind your nickname _FIZBIN_?

DANIEL: _FIZBIN_ is a nickname given to me by a great jazz piano player who was my piano instructor (Staff Sergeant) at the Army School of Music. He was also a Star Trek (TV) fan. There's an episode called "A Piece of the Action" where Kirk and Spock land on the planet Sigma Iotia II which was exactly like Chicago during the gangster era. They dressed in zoot suits and had tommy guns. They were captured (of course) and held in a cellar guarded by goons. Kirk starts teaching these goons about this great card game called FIZBIN that was supposedly "all the rage on Beta Antares IV". The rules kept getting crazier as he went along...."But if you have two Jacks and it's Tuesday, then that's bad...unless you have a gun, then that's good...etc."

Kirk then looks over one goon's shoulder and shout's, "Oh, Look! You've got a Royal FIZBIN!........Spock what are the odds of that happening?" Spock says, "I've never actually calculated them Captain." Then Kirk knocks the guy unconscious. Spock nerve-pinches the other goon and they're free (of course). For some reason I reminded my teacher of that card game and I guess it sounds a little like Fisher. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

SONIK: What synths do you own? What synths have you owned in the past?

DANIEL: Currently I own a K2600RS, K2500RS, K2VXS, Korg Triton Pro, Yamaha EX5, and an Alesis QS7.1 (the above are fully loaded with all options.) In my Mac G4 I also have a Korg OAYSYS card, Native Instruments' Generator, Reaktor and Transformer, plus Bitheadz' AS-1, Unity, Black & Whites and Voodoo.

My previous synths in order are: Paia Strings & Things, Prophet Pro One, Korg Poly Six, Poly 800, Yamaha DX-7, DX-100, Korg MS-20 (modular), M1(EX), and T3(EX).

SONIK: Do you play in a band? What styles of music do you play?

DANIEL: I've played in various bands for most of my life, but for the past 5 years I've been focusing on Blues, Soul, Funk, and R&B. It really gives me a chance to practice my sax, brass, harmonica, Clav and B-3 emulations.

SONIK: What have been your musical influences?

DANIEL:As a young teenager, Steely Dan's Aja and Pink Floyd's Darkside of the Moon were forever linked to my infrequently successful pursuit of girls. It was the makeout music of my friends, and we listened repeatedly.

Probably the best keyboard training I got was learning to play the entire Grand Illusion album by Styx, then Kansas' Left Overture and Point of Know Return albums. Then add tunes from Boston, Foreigner, Journey, and Billy Joel and you'll have a pretty good idea where I come from.

SONIK: What are some of Daniel Fisher's favorite CD's?

DANIEL: Pat Metheny, "As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls"
Any Pink Floyd (especially the era from Atom Heart Mother to The Wall)
Return To Forever, "Romantic Warrior"
Miles Davis, "Kind of Blue"
Danny Gatton & Joey D' Francesco, "Relentless"
Mozart, "Requiem" (especially the Lacrimosa)
Jean Luc Ponty, "Mystical Adventures"
"Led Zeppelin III" (especially Since I've Been Lovin' You)

SONIK: What do you do to keep *fresh* when you are creating new sounds?

DANIEL: For me, learning or inventing a new synth trick makes me want to apply it to a whole bunch of programs. And getting a new synth with fresh new parameters is also a great way to get motivated again.

SONIK: Can you tell us the story behind the PINKFLYD.KRZ sound you created when you were with Kurzweil R&D?

DANIEL: My first position at YCRDI (Young Chang Research and Development Institute) was QA Tester. My job was to try everything I could think of on a K2000 (back in the Version 1 days) to see if I could find bugs in the software. Every few days I'd type up a list of possible bugs and feature requests and pass it along to Software. It was a fantastic opportunity to learn the VAST architecture from the actual geniuses who wrote the code.

After a while I decided to create a program that used every single Layer and available parameter so that you could hear if there were any problems (especially timing problems). By using Looping Envelopes, ASRs, LFOs, Layer Delays, and FUNs, I was able to emulate the entire On The Run portion of Pink Floyd's Darkside of the Moon. It was a very intense programming experience and it was responsible for my getting to work with Pink Floyd for a few days on their Kurzweil equipment during their Division Bell Tour.

SONIK: What was your title at Kurzweil R&D and what did you do in a typical day there?

DANIEL: About a week after the PINKFLYD.KRZ program was passed around the office I was promoted to the position of Soundware Engineer. One of my first jobs was Tuning and Volume Adjusting the Samples found in the Orchestral ROM. I was also on the team that created the GM floppies for the K2000. Later I did the GM voicing for the MASS Board, a computer soundcard that later became the optional VGM Board for the PC-88. My projects mostly involved fine-tweaking Programs, Setups, Keymaps, and Samples before they were burned to ROM chips.

SONIK: Have you worked on other synths?

DANIEL: The first synth that I really got into was my Yamaha DX-7. I liked FM programming mostly because everyone else said it was impossible to work with. I was a Keyboard Salesman at Guitar Center (Chicago) back in 1985 and discovered that I could double my commission of a DX-7 sale by selling a bank of my customized programs to go with it. That's when I knew that Soundware Development was for me. From 1989-91 the Korg M1, M3R and T1/2/3 were the keyboards I was hired to program the most. Then, when I tried the K2000, it became my sole focus for several years.

At the end of 1994 I was flown to California by a company called InVision to be part of a 5-man team who's mission was to entirely revoice the recently released Alesis Quadra Synth. The public liked the keyboard but hated the factory presets. After revoicing, the QS line became one of the best-selling synths of all time. I was later commissioned by Alesis to do programming for their GM Card, Piano Card, Sanctuary Card, QS PlusPiano, and QS6/7/8. And, after years of creating Korg programs independently, I was finally hired to do factory preset programming for their Korg Prophesy, Trinity, and Triton workstations.

SONIK: What are some of the things that you would *personally* like to see added to the Kurzweil K2 series?

DANIEL: The famous inventor/scientist Archimedes once said, many centuries ago, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." I always say, "Give me enough FUNs and controllable parameters to send them to and I can make a sound do anything you want." I love the VAST concept and basically want *more* of it. Ideally, you'd be able to have a shopping list per Layer like: OK, I'll take 4 LFOs and I'm willing to give up an ASR for another Envelope, but I need 3 VTriggers, etc. That way you could get more of what you need at the moment and none of what you don't need.

SONIK: Can you tell us a little about the team you have working with you at Sweetwater?

DANIEL: I am privileged to have two creative experts working full-time with me including Jim Miller, a sampling expert who's written most of the articles about sampling for Electronic Musician and other magazines. Jim has been creating sample libraries for over 15 years and the quality of his samples is an important factor in the success of Sweetwater's Soundware.

My right-hand man is Gary Phillips, a Soundware Engineer who specializes in very modern-sounding synthesis. He is a highly-regarded VAST programmer as well as a creative Korg, Roland, and Yamaha programmer. Gary's main axe is Acoustic and Electronic drums, and he's the best V-Drum programmer I've ever heard. He is one of reasons our Total Stereo Session Drums CD-ROM is as playable as it is.

SONIK: What are some of your favorite pastimes?

DANIEL: My latest infatuation is with electric guitars. I've spent a large part of my life trying to emulate them on keyboards, and our most highly-rated CD-ROM is our Ultimate Guitars (rated 20 out of 20 stars by Keyboard Mag). But last year I bought my first Parker NightFly and Line 6 AX2-212 amp and it's changed my life. I still love keyboards, but if I don't play at least an hour a day on guitar I ache. Once a month I write a column for Keyboard Magazine called "Synth Tricks" that you can find in the 411 section, and I write 3-4 articles a year for various other technology magazines. I also love fooseball and I'm a Simpsons addict. (I have every episode taped while editing out the commercials in realtime.)

SONIK: What sort of things do you consider when you are about to program a sound on your K2?

DANIEL: Some programmers tend to turn knobs until they hear something they like and then hit Save. My style is more goal-oriented. I know what I want and keep trying different paths until I can achieve it.

SONIK: Of all the sounds you've programmed over the years, what would you consider to be your favorites?

DANIEL: Well, the PINKFLYD program has been very good for my career, but there are other favorites too. I really like my BARCHIME program that allows you to realistically drag your finger up and down the keyboard, and my SWEET_ST stereo strings program that uses new Keymaps to create a true stereo ensemble out of the mono ROM Strings.

I'm also proud of my K2B3, a 9-drawbar organ program that works on any K2000/K2500 with any OS. Recently Kurzweil included this program as a factory preset in their new K2600 (#19 VAST B3!). Of instruments that I've personally done the sampling for, my favorite is the ZZ Top 32MB Guitar with multi-velocity picks, mutes, and 3(!) different pick harmonics for each note. It still gives me goose bumps when I jam.

SONIK: What projects will Daniel Fisher deliver us in the future?

DANIEL: For my own personal amusement I tinker a few nights each month on two more Pink Floyd programs. One, which I've been tweaking for years, lets you play the entire song of Money just by walking up an octave of keys in your left hand. It automatically does the Bass, Drums, Rhodes, Guitar Echoes, and Cash Register sounds as you walk up. Your right hand is free to play leads.

My other night experiment will let you do the first 10 minutes of Shine On You Crazy Diamond just by hitting the Root note of the chords you want. Your right hand will be free to do the Guitar and Mini Moog leads.

At Sweetwater, we're finishing up a massive project involving many large full-stereo recodings of Pipe Organs, Harpsichords, Pianofortes, and other historical keyboards. And there's many other future projects that I can't talk about right now, but keep your eyes on our Web site for more information.

Sonikmatter, December 1999.