Nick Howes

Interview by Brian Cowell.

Being successful in the music industry means having a balance of the right people developing the right products. YAMAHA have always been a "progressive" company in their product development and have never been shy on developing new methods for which musicians can express themselves.

Sonikmatter set out to try and track down some "key" personell in the YAMAHA product chain, and ran into one of their "secret weapons". He is Nick Howes from YAMAHA R&D (UK Division).

In between his busy schedule, Nick took the time to talk to Sonikmatter. Here is what he had to say!

Sonik: How did you become involved at YAMAHA R&D?

Nick: After studying for my Astrophysics degree in London, I moved into working at various music stores (music being the other love in my life after Astronomy). Whilst at one of them, 2 reps from Korg & Yamaha came in basically on the same day telling my then boss that I had to go to Frankfurt as I would be the "only person" who would understand some new "top secret" toys being developed (these were the VL1 and the Wavedrum).

This is because I had studied wave mechanics, and also some of the work by Julius Smith (on waveguide). They were right....and the whole concept of modeling just freaked me out, and still gets me excited even today.

Anyway, whilst at Messe, the Yamaha rep mentioned that they were looking for good support staff at the Yamaha UK main office, and that I should apply.

At the same time Yamaha were setting up their new Media technology Division, and the head of that Dept., a Mr. Jim Corbett (now at AHead) gave me a call to ask if I was interested in a position as a technical specialist for CDR and a new project which was to become the DB50XG daughterboard. Totally separate to this I had attended a VL launch day at Yamaha UK, and asked some really complex waveguide and physics questions to the guy doing the demo, who basically couldn't answer anything I was asking him.

He then contacted Yamaha R&D's sound designer; a guy by the name of Dan Powell. They told him to talk to me, about possibly getting involved with some synth voice development. I had that year been working for Ultravox (the pop group), on an album and world tour as programmer and keyboard tech, so I had some credentials in this area.

Dan gave me a prototype keyboard to do 32 voices for (the W7 as it turned out) of which 31 were accepted and made it into the voice ROM (apparently a very high percentage for a new guy!). I then took the job full time at Yamaha Kemble doing tech support and tech sales, but always hankered for the job at R&D London (sales never being my "thing").

After about 18 months at Yamaha Kemble, I received a call from the head of the European Music Software section at the R&D center. He was asking if I wanted to work for him developing voice data, and also building the new Yamaha.co.uk website (something I was getting into at the time was web development), and also work on a new soundcard project.

I moved down to the London office (a very nice place to work, believe me), and continued to work on soundcard R&D (SW1000XG), voice design and development (QS300, CS1x, CS2x, CS6x, An1x, Motif, AN200, DX200 to name but a few synths I have voiced, and websites (yamaha.co.uk, xgfactory.com and yamahasynth.com).

Recently I was moved over to full time computer product planning, which will involve projects such as USB devices, "mLAN" and hopefully future soundcard type products.

Sonik: Who have you been employed with previously, Nick?

Nick: Before Yamaha, I worked at various music stores in London, managing the hi-tech floor on one of them.

I spent 2 years with Ultravox, touring around, working on the Revelation Album & Tour, and basically on call to Billy Currie.

I have "roadied" for The Alarm and once spent an amusing night teching for Kylie (with an Evolution EVS-1 under my arm).

Prior to that, to pay my way through University I worked in pubs and clubs, and was in a pop-rock band called Firetown for 10 years as keyboard player. Our only claim to fame was that we had almost got the Ultravox support tour in 1992, although we were told we had some great songs. A bit like "Simple Minds" meets "Then Jericho".

Sonik: Can you describe a typical day at work for you at YAMAHA R&D?

Nick: There isn't really such a thing as a typical day.

I work in computer product planning and development. At the moment testing new drivers for SW1000XG under Windows 2000. Also working on "mLAN" projects. I answer around 100-200 emails per day as part of my support role, and maintain the Yamaha yamaha.co.uk, xgfactory.com and yamahasynth.com websites (updates).

Sonik: Who works in your team at R&D?

Nick: I work in a smallish team here in London.

James is our sound design guru, who comes up with some really mad and great sounding ideas.

Terry is one of the main men behind the "0" series mixers.

Andy works on the PM1d and Gary, (who is one of the best C++ coders in the world) works on a lot of our software developments (he is the main guy behind the new OMPS Open Midi Plug-In spec).

I obviously work closely with the guys in Japan both in export division, and the product-planning group.

Sonik: What particular YAMAHA products do you think stand out above the rest?

Nick: The best for me in the past 10 years have been the VL1, the FS1R, SW1000XG and the AN1x. All of which were pretty ground breaking.

The VL was just light-years ahead of its time, and really did spawn a generation of modeling synths. I loved the playability of it, and the authentic sound.

The An1x was the closest thing to a Prophet 5 (a synth I owned and sold...DUHHH) I ever heard. It really did capture the Prophet sound quite well.

The FS1R paved the way for formant shifting synths, again, a great sound that if you have the "special software" that we have to really make it tick, can produce some amazing results.

Sonik: The FS1r has developed a reputation for "cool" sounds. Do you think it would be available as a "plug-in" module in the future?

Nick: Indeed, and I am really glad you brought that one up.

I have been pushing for it in a PLG card form for some time, and will continue to do so.

What we need to do with FS is to make the editor that allows FSEQ's fully available to the public, get a Windows version out, and tidy it all up/make it more user friendly.

Then FS will rock.

Sonik: Will the "in-house"editor ever be released for the FS1r?

Nick: Again, this is out of my hands. But I keep pushing for it to be at least updated to a stage where it can be released to the end users. The VL software when we were developing for it was not something the average user would even want to play with, far too complex, and unwieldy. And looking at the number of people who "actually" use the expert editor software, it still appears that releasing high-end development tools, is only for a minority.

I do agree though that the "minority" should get access to what units like FS1r are "really" capable of.

Sonik: Do you see the FDSP that was used in the EX5/7 being used in future products?

Nick: I hope so, I loved it on the EX series. Very unique effects were produced.

Although in the EX we (as anyone who uses one will know) tried and pushed the envelope a little too far for the time. "DSP Resource Full" errors being the most visible reminder of that.

Sonik: How do you see "mLAN" being implemented into studio/stage rigs in the future?

Nick: "mLAN" is a very important step forward for the professional studio and live musician.

The possibilities of digitally transferring everything, (all your MIDI and audio data, plus video and whatever else you feel like) at up to 3.2GBPS in the future on one cable, is very cool.

"mLAN" is to us just a natural progression on MIDI and digital audio interfacing. It also seems with MOTU and Digital Harmony's work in this area that we are not alone in that way of thinking.

Sonik: Do you see YAMAHA ever making their own personal computers that are hardware/software based?

Nick: NO WAY! The C1 was a big enough mistake... :-)

Sonik: Do you see dedicated music computers platforms with YAMAHA cards in them?

Nick: They are already fitted to a wide range of dedicated music PC's from various companies.

The speed of chip development and motherboard/Graphics card changes would mean Yamaha would never be able to keep with the cutting edge, as it is not what we specialize in (building PC's that is).

What we do best is make musical instruments and DSP technology.

Sonik: Do YAMAHA see a future in soundcards with built-in DSP processors now that soundcards seem to be obsolete within 6 months?

Nick: Who says?

Creamware don't think so, MIDIMAN don't think so, (shall I go on?).

The problem with software based systems is still very much here. In that not everyone has a P4/1500 with 1 gig of RAM. We found this with SW1000XG which is still one of the UK's best selling soundcards, and has been for almost 3 years.

Even if you do have a "balls out" PC, you always want more. When that last TC Reverb has just tipped you over the edge on the VST CPU resource Meter, what do you do?

I think that "mLAN" (firewire) will help matters a lot, as it will negate the need to "get inside the PC". USB is just too slow at this time, and has a lot of inherent problems (as anyone who uses some of the low cost interfaces for MIDI will testify!).

PCI based open DSP cards, like the OASYS, Powercore, and Creamware stuff are very, very, interesting. The problem with most of them is that they aren't powerful enough in their own right, and the cost is still a little too high for the "average Joe". This is something, which Yamaha have addressed in the past.

SW1000XG and DS2416 had enormous power under the hood. Don't forget they came from using DSP technologies designed for a specific purpose, and not general "off the shelf" parts.

What the likes of Creamware are now doing is very exciting with the AD Sharc processors. And as they keep getting faster and faster, more and more things will obviously be possible.

The Native (host) DSP vs. Dedicated DSP argument will always rage on. What we need to look it is how to make these technologies more affordable, and also make them non-static systems, in that as faster DSP's come out, you don't have to spend a fortune updating your existing card or device.

We also need to address how the user can best work with the explosion in software technologies, as moving a mouse to control a virtual synth SUCKS!! Obviously there are a range of controllers available, but I still think that there are better ways of making music more fun.

Sonik: What does YAMAHA plan to do now that the Mac OSX operating system is now released?

Nick: We are currently finishing off a whole new driver program for our soundcards and USB Audio (low end) devices.

"mLAN" is going to have native support from Apple in OSX, and when we get Win2K and XP out of the way in terms of driver updates, we will then get to work on OSX.

The sad fact from our web stats, and user polls is that, important though the Mac is, it really only accounts for around 3% of our userbase.

We have seen a huge increase recently in the Win2K installed base, mainly from Mac users who have seen how stable it is, and that most software is coming out on the PC these days. We have spoken to a wide range of other companies who all concur that this is the case.

OSX is going to have some of the teething troubles that Windows had, I feel, and this is reflected in many user comments. I hope it does well, as the Mac users are a dedicated bunch, and I would hate to see it all fall away.

Linux can go rot in hell though (just kidding!!).

Sonik: Where do you see audio conversion rates heading towards?

Nick: I feel that the rates will get higher.

Obviously 16/44.1 isn't going to please the true audiophiles and never really has. I find it funny that people go on and on about 24/96 when most people using 24/96 cards end up putting them through $10 multimedia speakers.

I think we will max out soon at a higher rate though, perhaps 32/192 or 32/384.

If anyone complains that this isn't good enough, then just shoot them. :-)

Sonik: What sounds have you programmed?

Nick: Way too many to list !

God, I think "Madkeef" on the CS2x was the most fun. That was all over the place, I had been listening to WAY too much Prodigy at the time we were developing it.

I got into some trouble with one sound though. I called it "MDMA" (Mad Matrix), although the anti - drug lobby didn't see it that way. :-(

Sonik: When you develop products, is it from "consumer research"? Or is it from a predetermined process?

Nick: I am on various newsgroups and forums all the time, talking to people. I love to get emails from users who tell me what THEY think of the gear, and how it could be bettered. The fact remains that a guy sitting in a Class 1 clean room with a set of computers isn't going to be the musician using the gear.

If we can bridge the gap between the rocket scientists in the labs and the end users more, then I think even better products will come out.

DJX for example was a very "end user" driven product. We do a lot of testing with end users during the R&D process.

The mixing desks, for example, are normally in test or being tried out with high profile users up to 2 years before launch. It is something which one of my colleagues here in London is a big believer in with the synth side of development.

Sonik: What "in house" names have been used for past products in development?

Nick: Lol. :-)

Well without giving too much away, the prototype name for AW4416 was "Cinnamon".

The DX200 and AN200 were code-named "DRUG A & D".

Motif was code-named "Kangaroo",and we were toying with the name "Sandbox" for one project
recently, though I can not talk about that one...

I think we should call one "Area51" and really get people talking ..

Sonik: What can users expect from the new MOTIF keyboards?

Nick: Great sounds, That is the basis for Motif.

We learnt a lot of valuable lessons with the EX5 and S80. The most important being that we shouldn't try is to cram too much into one box. S80 was designed for players who were into traditional sounds and a great keyboard action.

Motif is set to take that one step further, and bring the sounds more to the traditional keyboard synth player. The sounds are some of the best we have ever done (not wacky just good!).

There are some great experimental sounds in the higher banks, which one of our new guys brought to the synth, which do represent a "radical" departure for the traditional Yamaha instrument.

Motif is really aimed at players and composers. The sampling side of it also adds a nice extra touch that now works far better than in earlier keyboards with this function.

In a way, Motif is a step back for us technologically, as it doesn't have FDSP etc. But it does sound great, works very well, has some unique features, and plays like a dream.

Sonik: If Nick Howes got his way, what sort of product would he develop?

Nick: Not so much a synth, but a product is hopefully still in development which I will be very proud of if it comes to light.

All I can say is that we did very well with the SW1000XG!

If I let loose some of the ideas I have then someone else will go and develop them.

One product I would still like to see though is a proper music creation tool for the Playstation 2. So much power under the hood, and they have already sold in excess of 2 million of the things in 6 months. This makes the DX7 (biggest selling synth of all time) look like a drop in the ocean.

Sonik: What would you suggest to people looking to get employment in the music industry?

Nick: Don't give up trying is my motto.

I went from working in a music store in London, to working for the R&D Division of the World's Largest Musical Instrument company.

I would try and make as many contacts at trade shows as you can. If you want to work in this field, talk to people. Let them know who you are, and what you can offer their company. The other way is to make something, which stands out, and gets you noticed.

Gary Gregson for example, (the author of XGEDIT, who now works for Yamaha R&D) made a nice little app which tens of thousands of people use daily. Part of my job was to find apps like this, and it was me who got Gary into the Yamaha fold.

I look at the net every day, trying to find new and exciting software and developments that Yamaha could use. I get hundreds of emails every year asking about jobs, and it is a great job. Not many people can say that they get to play with the cutting edge of technology every day, and basically get paid for their hobby. It's hard work at times, and isn't as highly paid as say a job in "The City" (London's financial markets). But then I have a great life outside of work, meet some great people, go to lots of music events, travel a lot, and don't expect to be dead from stress by the time I am 40.

Sonik: What are some of the funniest/strangest things you've seen happen in the music industry?

Nick: I had one guy phone me up asking about his "M ONE D ONE" and how he could get it working with his HIFI (MIDI = M ONE D ONE).

When I was with Ultravox, their guitar roadie (who shall remain anonymous for reasons you will see) had me holding on to the seat of a car for dear life, from Hannover to Calais, as he was driving at 90MPH "with his knees" whilst trying to consume a vast amount of Cannabis before getting on board the boat, to avoid customs arresting him for possession.

What was so funny about it was the various shades of green he passed through when we got on the boat to cross the channel in a gale force wind.

By far the best one was getting a Yamaha demonstrator arrested (it was a practical joke for his birthday) live on stage at the Live 96 show in London. We planted an expensive camcorder in his rucksack on the stage (courtesy of the Sanyo stand next door), and then got one of the girls on the stand to drag a rather huge security guard over with his Alsatian dog, and take this person away for questioning.

The look on his face was a picture, as this security man, frog marched him off in front of a few hundred people at the show. Little did we know that in his rucksack were some things that "shall we say" were a little bit incriminating. Hence the look of real terror on this guys' face.

Sonik: Is there something about the music industry that drives you crazy?

Nick: From the engineering side, it has to be the time it can take to get a product released. All of the planning meetings, discussions etc. can take forever sometimes. Which I find frustrating.

Musically, I HATE AND DEPLORE all the "Boy/Girl" bands in the charts. Too many to name, and I don't want someone's legal dept. getting on to me. You only have to listen to someone like Neil Finn (Crowded House) playing songs on an acoustic guitar, to realize what real talent is all about.

Don't get me wrong, I love cutting edge stuff, and most forms of dance music, but I like originality in songs.

Early Prodigy was stunning, Freestyler by the BOMFUNK MC's was a great tune, most of the Artful dodger stuff is great. I just hate prepackaged pop.

Thankfully, groups like Travis, Coldplay etc. are still making music which proves that there is no substitute for real talent.

Sonik: What is your view of the "software versus hardware" debate?

Nick: Sad to say (or glad) that software is taking over.

The sad thing is that kids aren't really into playing in bands with keyboards as much (at least not here in the UK anyway). The upside is that it has made getting into music much more affordable for anyone, and the levels of integration are far better (one bit of software becomes an entire studio).

Hardware still has its place, in pro studios, and for specific tasks, such as mic preamps for example (no one has yet got close to a Manley VOXBOX in a plug-in!!).

But then hardware is just micro coded software, and as PC's keep getting faster and faster, then the capabilities and goalposts keep moving. Some things (such as routing and input devices) will always exist.

"mLAN" aims to get the best of both worlds, in that it will easily integrate with the software environment and offer things that plug-ins can't do.

I still think it is sad that kids today think that a plug-in version of a classic synth, sounds like the real thing. They are close, very close, but...well I guess I am just an old fogey...

Sonik: From your own personal point of view; What forms of synthesis do you think have been "under utilized" or need further exploration?

Nick: FS (Formant Synthesis) for sure. Granular (I like messing around with granular synth systems) and VL.

VL is truly amazing, and gave the "player" a chance to really utilize synthesis. Anyone can make techno boxes, or analogue synth models. Anyone can do FM.

FS and VL brought some new ideas to synthesis and ones I think are still largely untapped.

Sonik: What did you do for Billy Currie of Ultravox?

Nick: Programmed most of his synths for the Revelation world tour and following album work. I was with them for around 2 years, and went to many places.

Billy had recently got a Korg endorsement. This meant a pair of Wavestations which I knew like the back of my hand, an 01WPRO (heavy bugger), and various other odds & sods.

The rig he had was immense, MiniMoogs, Oscar, Technics Pianos, all sorts. Lovely lovely gear. I basically had to get it all running live, get all the sounds that he wanted (trying to get a Wavestation to sound like an ARP Odyssey!!).

We spent months in the studio getting it all programmed up, I also spent a lot of time at home, with my own gear (which was similar) getting the types of sounds he wanted. Billy gave me the entire Ultravox album back catalogue to work from, which did help a lot.

I think the best sounds I did for them were the Pads for "Hymn" on the 01W, and WSEX, and one track called "Perfecting the Art of Common Ground" from the Revelation album, which has some really nice textures in it. The best part of the set was "One Small Day" as I got a 5 minute break (the only track live that wasn't sequenced!).

Billy was blast to work with. It was just after the Ultravox gig that I started contracting for Yamaha R&D before being made full time. The trickiest part of the Ultravox tour was getting the whole show running from a crappy old Atari 1040ST (not that they were bad, just this one was), running Creator live.

I remember having an argument with the tour manager after one gig over dumping the Atari and getting one of the "then" brand new ADAT machines, and just running it from tape. He claimed it would take away the "liveness" of the gig. :-)

We played to a huge crowd in Malta which was amazing, armed police escorts, limo's, the whole nine yards. Plus we jumped a huge queue to get into a nightclub.

Sonik: What equipment do you have in your own "personal" studio?

Nick: You sure about this ??

Okay, I have :

Korg Wavestation EX with almost every PCM card they ever made.
Ensoniq TS10 fully loaded with SCSI & 8 MEG Ram.
Yamaha CS6X (with mLAN).
Yamaha Vl70m.
Yamaha 02R & 01V (with mLAN, ADAT cards).
Kawai k5M.
Yamaha FS1r.
Emu Proteus 1XR with Invision board.
Ensoniq ESQM.
Audio Architecture Function Junction.
EVS-1 Evolution.
Korg 03RW.
Kawai SX240.
Alesis ADAT XT.
BBE Sonic Maximiser.
Alesis MIDIVERB2.
ALESIS MV3.
ALESIS 3630 COMP (nasty).
Kenton Plugstation.
Geffell UMT800 Mic.
Rode NT1 Mic.
Sequential TOM.
Alesis HR16B.
MOTU MTPAV.
Mac G4/450.
Mac G3/300.
Dual Pentium 3/800 with more stuff in it than I care to talk about!
Pentium P3/500 Win98SE (as above).
P2/400 Win98.
HHB Circle 5 monitors (pair).
Genelec 1032 monitors (pair).
Yamaha CDR400TX.
Yamaha SW1000XG.
Yamaha DS2416.
Yamaha UW500.
Yamaha UX256.
Yamaha UX96.
Yamaha mLAN8P.
Sony Playstation 2 (debugging station).

Various software synths, plug-ins, software music apps. My favorites are the Wavestation, the FS1r and the VL70m. I just don't get tired of the sheer number of ways you can really mess around with sounds on them.

The Wavestation in particular I still think is one of the best digital synths ever made. Dave Smith and John Bowen, the guys from Sequential who worked on it deserve a Nobel Prize for that baby.

Sonik: Who have been your musical influences?

Nick: In the 80's it was seeing Duran Duran, and "that" Fairlight I think was the spark that got me started. The RIO album was to me brilliant in its use of synths, and arpeggio lines (although only RIO and Save A Prayer to me still stand the test of time).

Depeche Mode, Ultravox, Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones.

More recently I have moved almost totally away from synth music (it keeps work and pleasure apart!!), and been really heavily into Neil Finn, Roger Mcguinn, The Eagles, and basically just good songwriting.

I don't really listen to "bands" as such, just good songs (although Finn, and Don Henley are truly great songwriters full stop!!). If it sounds great on an acoustic guitar, it's a good song.

Sonik: What do you get up to outside of work Nick?

Nick: I travel a lot, and I mean a lot.

In the last 3 months I have been to Japan, USA, India, Portugal, France and Germany. I've just booked my next holiday in Australia and Fiji.

I like to Scuba Dive, collect DVD movies, the odd spot of gardening with my wife. Love being on Holiday, and seeing the World for what it really is. I Like to go to exotic places (Kenya, Cuba, Mexico etc. in the past year or so have been my faves).

I think that travel really does broaden your horizons in a way that nothing else can.

Sonikmatter, June 2001.