The infinite riffing synthesiser
In this month’s Synth Masterclass, we create a patch to run the duration of your track, and possibly even further!
Dave Gale
Dave Gale is an Emmy award-winning media composer, producer and orchestrator, with an enormous passion for synthesisers, in all their forms. His varied composing style embraces everything from full orchestral and hybrid scoring, to fully electronic scores, employing synths wherever possible. He also happens to own some of the finest synths in existence but we’re not jealous, OK?
There was a time when music technology would only allow the sequencing of a few notes. A far cry from the DAWs of today, the limit of four, eight or even 16 notes (if you were lucky) was very much the norm.
As with all things creative, the level of technology was never an issue for creating great music. This note-based limitation gave rise to a number of tracks, beginning in the ’70s, where a short sequence of notes would be constructed, and run the duration of the track. This was debatably most notable throughout the ’80s; ask an artist like Howard Jones, and he will tell you about many a hit song that featured a synth riff repeating continuously.