Quote:
Originally Posted by
Spirou
Hypersound was the prime label back in the days. ZYX was a bit slow and pretty much didn’t want to release any spacesynth apart from what Michiel produced. Erik van Vliet ruled it. So Humphrey took on the new emerging artists like Macrocosm, Protonic Storm and mindXpander (I’m David by the way). Even though Humphrey did things his own way I’m forever thankful for his support and that he believed in us. But when Marek came along showing more agility and better adapted to the digital era Humphrey was a bit pissed when artists started jumping ship. When Hypersound closed up shop we moved to releasing the music ourselves. The only downside was marketing and how to scream and wave that something new had been released. And I’ve always been bad at that.
Those were the days. I have so many fond memories of this. Spacesynth.net was pretty much closed down after some unbiased attacks against certain artists. We (mindXpander) were sometimes under some heavy fire as well and there were troll accounts and some ugly business. But at the height of the site it was an awesome place to be

I guess it’s impossible to bring it back. I know some of the people and that they’re still producing spacesynth - but that forum is most probably dead. It’s one of those “you had to be there” moments.
I’d have to disagree actually. Surely the most basic (and boring) spacesynth had simple melodies and such but we always tried to write something more intelligent. We thought a lot about how we emphasized the melodies and how we programmed the sounds. But it’s a subjective thing and I’m quite biased

That being said. I think there are some pretty talented artists in the Synthwave genre. Have a look at Scandroid for example. That’s some prettt slick stuff right there.
Nowadays no-one needs to be able to play the keyboard. Just pre-program some clips in Ableton Live that you can trigger while waving your arms and you’re good to go.
We will soon release a new spacesynth concept album that has taken 8 years to produce. Most of the sounds are from our Eurorack modular synths but I can assure you that there are exactly zero/zip/nil/nada electric fart sounds :D
MindXpander is one of my favorite Spacesynth artists, I love Krog's Return. Almost everything that was released on Hypersound was extremely good.
IMHO Hypersound Productions and Hotsound Records are the best Spacesynth labels ever. Space Sounds Records is meh, I don't like the music they have been releasing. It sounds way too new, drenched with effects and a lot of automation, I guess I like that "flat" sound. So sad that Hypersound had to close, iirc it had to do with some things Mr. Robertson did on the internet to his competitors from Space Sound Records. It was childish of him to do but I still respect the guy for the skills he has.
Spacesynth.net was a great forum, it was a no BS forum. I have great memories of that era, I had met a few of the Spacesynth artists who released their music at Hypersound on a few MP3 piracy channels. I don't want to mention names but one guy gave me his album for free. Those were great times.
It is easier to produce music nowadays but then you get quantity over quality. I have been on a couple Synthwave forums and to be honest I wasn't impressed, it's not like how Spacesynth.net was those guys at spacesynth.net had a lot of talent. Do you really need 100+ tracks in a song? Seems like the norm on so many forums, I never used more than 8 instruments for one song.
Nearly 15 years ago I was listening to Iventi via their internet stream. They did a live interview with Alberto Carpani (Albert One). And they asked him what he thought about the modern producers he said that nowadays every kid with a computer can download a few cracked VSTi's and a DAW and call himself a producer while back in those days you didn't have much help, you had to know how to get the maximum out of your hardware. I really believe he was right. So sad that Alberto Carpani (Albertone) died a couple months ago, the covid got him.