This video, via androidvision, takes a look at recreating the mid-century modern synth sounds of Mort Garson’s Plantasia.
While Garson used a large Moog modular system, this video demonstrates how the iconic sound of that album is less a result of the synth than Garson’s sound design choices.
The video shows how you can recreate the Plantasia sound using a Korg microKorg – one of the cheapest and most widely-available modern synths. It also shows how a handful of sound design parameters are key to recreating Garson’s vintage synth sound.
Without the tape involved it’s not going to get you there 100%. I don’t know if he was using 7-1/2ips on everything but a lot of his tape masters (2 track and mono) were at that speed. I wish there was better documentation on how he achieved some of the tones he did.
That’s trying to recreate the recording, vs the sound that was recorded.
I know that there are people that are deep into recreating the vibe of vintage tape recordings, but that’s a different thing than trying to understand/recreate Garson’s sound design.
Plantastic!