Chris Sullivan meets the electro maestro and Red Bull Music Academy lecturer whose pioneering company introduced the synthesiser to some of electronic music’s biggest names.
Peter Zinovieff was born in 1933. His parents Leo Zinovieff and the Countess Solfa Dolgorouky were Russian aristocrats who met in London after their parents had managed to flee the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In the 1960s, Peter founded the company Unit Delta Plus that, based in his shed in Putney, south-west London, was the first company to produce a transportable synthesiser and as such was used by almost every pioneering electro outfit from Roxy Music to Pink Floyd and Kraftwerk. Thus, it’s safe to say that there are few people out there who haven’t heard his handiwork…
I hear you’re back working again in the live arena. Can you explain?
Well, it’s a concerto with this fantastic young violinist from Kazakhstan called Aisha Orazbayeva. She’s a student just finishing at The Royal Academy [in London]. She plays our concerto with the computer and the violin, which has never been done before, it’s all from the violin and sounds completely mad… well, wonderful, I should say.
How would you describe the music?
‘Avant-garde.’
OK… Avant-garde frantic or avant-garde soothing?
It’s a mixture of everything, every sort of sound you could imagine that you could get out of a violin – some of it blasted as loud as you can play out of loudspeakers and some of it so soft it’s like cotton wool.
'I’ve had a computer longer than anyone in the world…'
Is it your composition?
Yes – well, hers and mine. We did it together, so that’s why we called it Our.
Can you tell me exactly what you did invent back in the day?
Originally I had the first computer music studio, so I invented the first European synthesisers and the most famous one is called the VCS3, it was used by lots of famous pop groups, and strangely enough it’s going to be remanufactured. We invented all the modern music in this incredible studio Unit Delta Plus. I think I had the first private computer in a house in the world. It was three 19in [50cm] racks wide. I’ve had a computer longer than anyone in the world. That’s a pretty good statistic, isn’t it?
How did you get into them?
I was a geologist before, and it was difficult being a geologist and married to a rich wife, so I decided to experiment with music – and I’d always been a bit of a musician and had a bit of money to invest in this studio, which then became world-famous.
Who used your computer?
The Who, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Kraftwerk, Deep Purple, Jean Michel Jarre, Brian Eno, King Crimson …
Did any of them visit you?
Yes, they all came. I’ve got a poster of Paul McCartney and me doing a rave, and it was the first real rave. All the secretaries would faint when they saw him.
'I was very impressed by Red Bull's London studio'
Did any of the Kraftwerk people come down?
Yes. They bought a lot of our stuff. Bowie didn’t. Brian Eno did. He recently bought one for £35,000 [€41,000/US$56,000] on eBay.
A lot of people are collecting them, aren’t they?
Yes. They are going to be remanufactured by somebody I employed down in Cornwall.
Can you replicate those original synth sounds any other way?
I don’t know. I now use a computer. I think I can, but not in the same nostalgic way. Putting in these marvellous pins to create that wobble, which sounds so dated now…
And you got involved with Red Bull?
Yes, I gave a lecture for Red Bull [at their UK office] in London Bridge. I talked about music and the full lecture is on YouTube.
Why do you think the Red Bull Music Academy is important?
Well, they’ve done it in lots of places and they come and bring people from all around the world – and [the artists] don’t have to pay for it and they leave a state-of-the-art studio behind, it’s rather like science-fiction really, it’s really interesting. In London the building is actually Red Bull’s UK headquarters as well, but usually they will just leave a studio as a gift [for the host city]. It’s amazing, the one in London Bridge, with all the little mini studios and the cafe and everything. I was very impressed by it. I want them to take Aisha to [the next Red Bull Music Academy in] Tokyo next year. She is really amazing.
'I’ve only just started doing music again after a gap of 35 years'
Didn’t you invent a sampler?
Yes, I invented the first one ever. That was because the computer, by modern standards tiny, was much less powerful in those days and had less power than a USB dongle, so mine had 4k of memory that could sample about a second. Still, one could manipulate it with that, so it was a sampler.
And when was this?
In the 1960s.
How did you come up with the idea?
I had an engineer called David Cockerell, and whenever I wanted something I would say, “Why can’t we have this?” and the next week he would say, “I’ve got something you can plug into your computer and use.” He is now known to be the best electronic music engineer ever. He went on to work for AKIA doing samplers. He could interpret what you wanted, and that is a luxury to have an idea and then suddenly you can create it with a good team around you.
Didn’t you just come out of retirement in your mid-70s?
Yes, I’ve only really started doing music again after a gap of 35 years because of Russell Haswell [eminent sonic artist] who persuaded me to do The Morning Line, this sonic temple if you like, that he curated for Francesca von Habsburg in Istanbul last year.
Apart from the size, how have synthesisers changed since you began?
Well, they’ve changed from being analogue, and now basically you do everything on a computer. But now computer programmes are beginning to change too, to have enough randomness to them.
'The next great thing would be to have a direct interface… I want to just think around things and out come the sounds'
What’s the best synthesiser ever invented, apart from yours?
The EMS Synthi 100. Moog were very good as well. We nearly took over Moog. We had a good time with Robert Moog and he would play with our machines, and at one point his company was doing very badly. I really wanted to buy it, but it was £100,000 and that was a lot of money then. One of my big mistakes was not buying into it.
How do you see the future of computers?
I think it’s going to be direct input from head to sound, when you don’t have to type a keyboard or manipulate a mouse. A keyboard is a very clumsy input to a computer – any sort of input is very clunky. The next great thing would be to have a direct interface. It could be eyes, touching your head, an implant, but something that allows you to manipulate computers in a more rational way.
You mean without touching?
Yes, without touching anything. I want to just think around things and out come the sounds.
What else have you planned?
I’m going to do a Piano Concerto.
Won’t that take a long time?
Yes, but I’m not going just yet…
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