Optigan has released Pizzicato Pop, a new sound disc for the ’70s lo-fi optical sample playback keyboard, the Optigan.
Here’s what they have to say about it:
“Pizzicato Pop is the latest in our series of excavations into the Optigan Archives in search of material that was left on the cutting room floor.
The working title for this disc was “Contemporary #107”. It was recorded in 1970 during the initial Optigan session in Cologne, Germany, with the pizzicato string overdubs being added sometime later. Previously only heard on the song “Hope In Your Eyes” by Optiganally Yours.
The keyboard sound is also from the Optigan Archives – an experiment that combines a Hammond B3 with a hand-played tremolo on an RMI Rocksichord.”
Here’s the official video demo:
Pricing and Availability:
Pizzicato Pop is available now for $89 USD.
love playing those old tunes on the app..
I simply don’t see the purpose of this. Modern software, and improvements in recording samples since 1970, offer vastly better sound quality, with significantly more control over playback. Why would anyone want to impose 1970’s technological limitations on himself circa 2025?
Take off the rose-colored glasses, folks. This old gear was deprecated for a good reason.
jg, its like the Mellotron thing. The sound comes from a strange, mechanical place. It fits a certain slot if you want to do space music, prog, maybe a touch of glitch or fun little psychedelic songs that need a dream-like break. Every instrument has a space.
I agree with you about the real thing. Its a maintenance nightmare. Sample sets are more than close enough for me. I recommend GForce’s M-Tron Pro. I love how stable it is. They have add-on sound sets that include the Optigan. Its a great instrument.
Right, dave.
If you want that “old dated sound”, it’s so much easier and reliable to get it from today’s gear using a sample set of the original gear. Why would anyone want to deal with the drawbacks of the original gear? (For example, in that demo, you can hear an obnoxious amount of electronic hiss. That can be eliminated with new gear).
I can only speak for myself, but for me, the experience of playing an instrument is at least as important as the raw sound. The journey is important, not just the destination.
I have never played one of these, and I doubt it’s one of those instruments for me, but I have other “irrational” instruments and effects, that could easily be replaced by a computer, if all I cared about was the end result.
My primary goal is to have fun and feel fulfilled though, the rest is a bonus. People seem to have fun with this thing.
Owl, that’s a good point. Some people aren’t wild for softsynths because they feel disconnected. I’m lucky. I can love my soft Memorymoog because I had a Mini and 2 Multis. I remember the feels, so its in my bones. Having the sound is plenty.
I had a real Optigan as a kid. I sometimes laugh at build complaints, because that thing gave “toy-like” a bad name. To be fair, it >was< meant for kids. Its living proof that every vintage doo-dad you can name is sitting unopened in a few basements, NOS waiting to happen. That's the only way there are any to sample today.
Yes, if it’s a matter of wanting to preserve the physical means of playing an instrument (because you’ve mastered the ability to physically play it), then I can see a desire for the original instrument. For example, if you’re replacing an actual pedal steel guitar with a VST of a sampled one, you likely want some sort of physical control you can operate with your foot to play the VST. If you don’t have that, and you actually can play a pedal steel guitar, you’re not going to want to use a VST you can’t physically play like the original instrument. You’re going to want the original instrument instead.
But the better solution (than dealing with the added complexity of recording the real deal) is to have some custom MIDI physical controller that allows you to play the VST just like the real deal. (ie, You want a midi pedal controller that looks and operates just like the pedal on a real steel guitar).