Robs Stylophonogram
The instrument featured David Bowie’s "Space Oddity"
ByRob Asselstine
The story
All funked up – this instrument was created using the iconic (very annoying) sound of “The Original Pocket Synthesizer – The STYLOPHONE”. The monophonic Stylophone was invented in 1967 by Brian Jarvis of Dubreq Studios, London. There are lots of tags in Wikipedia that can fill you in on all of the different stories about the Stylophone but perhaps the most famous song that featured the instrument was David Bowie’s “SPACE ODDITY”. I got my 50th Anniversary Edition Stylophone to play that very song in a performance of my show “WORLD ROCK SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA”.
My ”Stylophonogram” is an updated child of that original sound – I sampled the A2 tone using my Zoom H2 mic and recorded the tone in LOGIC PRO X. I then pimped it out with 3 stock pedals located in the Logic Pro X Pedalboard – Flange Factory, Roto Phase and Phase Tripper (photo attached showing settings) which gave me this great stereophonic sound. The instrument can be played with abrupt attack and release like a Clavinet or used as a sustain pad or if you go to the bottom of the keyboard, it can be a very cool “atmospheric”. FYI – The samples are 4 measures long at 120 bpm.
I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it!
Reviews
Unique, bright toned library
Very interesting! I could not tell what was it by listening to the sound. Very bright and vivid tone of the instrument which has a lot of potential.
A sharp and thin synthetic sound
This sound is really something. It's the kind of sound you will either love it or hate it right away. I can't tell you if you'll like it or not, but I can definitely say that it is very nicely sampled and it plays really well too. The range is spread on the entire keybed - with a funny surprise in the highest octaves, lol! The included options make it versatile, since you can shape it to sound like a pad or a lead.
Really interesting sound
While this is a unique sound for piano book and definitely has an outer space quality, i think you could have included more samples instead of stretching on sample across the keyboard. It has a unique space rock and roll sound but if left wishing it was a little more mellow. Maybe you could have provided us with a clean patch so we could put our own reverbs and amps on it. Never the less its still a fun and cool instrument.