Is Switched-On Bach streamed anywhere?

[kelp]

Say a person doesn't own Switched-On Bach. The original Carlos version. It doesn't appear to be on streaming services. Or YouTube. Where could one hear it? "Asking for a friend."

 

(Ah, I do see there are now re-issue CDs available on Amazon.)

[CyberGene]

I was in your situation some time ago. But I don’t even own a CD player. My last devices with a CD were a car that I sold in 2018 and an old MacBook that my daughter broke. And the available SOB CD-s were only second hand anyway. 
 

And I pirated it from a website. Yeah, I admit it. I hate that I pirated it since I adore Wendy Carlos and I hate piracy and haven’t pirated any music or films in ages but it’s a pity there’s no other way to listen to Wendy Carlos nowadays. 

[J.F.N.]

22 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

I was in your situation some time ago. But I don’t even own a CD player. My last devices with a CD were a car that I sold in 2018 and an old MacBook that my daughter broke. And the available SOB CD-s were only second hand anyway. 
 

And I pirated it from a website. Yeah, I admit it. I hate that I pirated it since I adore Wendy Carlos and I hate piracy and haven’t pirated any music or films in ages but it’s a pity there’s no other way to listen to Wendy Carlos nowadays. 

 

Tip, find an old cd player with optical output, then you can at least grab a cd, and "backup" the content for yourself to use.

 

I have one of those portable Sony ones that were popular in the late 90's, with optical out, don't use it a lot but it's small and doesn't take a lot of space in the"cables you never use but one day when you need one...." box... 😊

 

 

[Docbop]

I remember working in the record store and selling a hell of a lot of Switched On Bach, it was the first classical record for a lot of the buyers. 

[Thethirdapple]

Internet archive has it available…

 

https://archive.org/details/lp_switched-on-bach_walter-carlos_2

There are no OFFICIAL streams nor purchasable downloads. [edit: that I know of, see below, thanks to @JoJoB3

Bummer…

 

 

PEACE

_
_
_

[JohnG11]

Way, way back when I was young (oh so long ago) in 1968 I bought the S.O.B. LP with the picture of an angry J.S.B. (that Wendy hated) on the cover.

(It's no wonder he was angry, the Moog synth wasn't plugged up, so consequently he couldn't play it!)

Then a year or so later The Well Tempered Synthesiser and later still S.O.B. II, then finally the Switched on Brandenburgs.

Then later Clockwork Orange and much later S.O.B. 2000 on CD.

I had all until a forced move from the Continent back to the UK and I had to leave all my LPs behind as well as my wonderful Thorens TD125 mkii (sob, sob!)

 

But ... I discovered in 2014 that Wendy had released a "Switched On Box Set" which, although rather expensive, I promptly bought.

All the originals (4 CDs), remastered by Wendy, along with end of CD comments and two books of written material.

I still have the box set and a CD/DVD player mounted in an old Lenovo Thinkpad T430 plus a copy of EAC (exact audio copy).

I use this combo very frequently to provide mp3's for my own listening pleasure. (VBR, Q=0)

Now I suppose that, if asked very, very nicely ...

 

JohnG

aka: SysExJohn.

[Stokely]

As an aside, as a big Tron soundtrack fan (the 1982 movie done by WC, though I also like the 2010 Daft Punk soundtrack), I played a few tracks for a friend of mine.   My personal favorite is Ending Titles.    He said, wait a sec...one of them sounded very, very much like an ELP song.  He knew ELP a lot better than I did, I don't remember which song it was.  It was the main Tron theme that caught his ear.  I wonder if both of them were inspired by some older classical piece.   When I first heard the soundtrack by Hans Zimmer to Gladiator, I couldn't believe how much the battle scene music resembled Mars, the Bringer of War.

[Franz Schiller]

As a big fan of Wendy Carlos, I bought the CD box set used off of eBay many years ago. I also have several of Ms. Carlos' album on vinyl, including the record with all the covers on it, including "What's New Pussycat" which was the first Wendy Carlos song I ever heard, and it blew my mind.

[JoJoB3]

It's on YouTube music. It's all a losing game but YouTube Premium is the ONLY service one will ever need. Dump all the rest, it has 'everything' ad-free.

 

F*** Spotify btw. Limited garbage feeding off folks who don't know any better.

[Bobby Simons]

I liked Walter (and Dick Hyman, Hambro & Kingsley etc.) but I loved Isao. The former(s) spoke to my brain, Tomita to my heart, soul and imagination.

[Ivan May]

3 hours ago, Docbop said:

I remember working in the record store and selling a hell of a lot of Switched On Bach, it was the first classical record for a lot of the buyers. 

I actually have an original pressing of Switched On Bach, I bought it several years ago at a church auction. It still sounds good for a second hand copy!

[Radagast]

I have all the CDs.  I used to have all the LPs.  This is why CDs shouldn’t be disrespected.

[CyberGene]

Being born in 1979 at the last moment before becoming a millennial, I really can’t find use for CD-s. Streaming all the way for me 😀 I’m always on the move and prefer asking Siri to play music off my library. No way I will be messing with thousands of CD-s, especially in the car while driving or on the move, or at the office. 

[J.F.N.]

1 hour ago, Ivan May said:

I actually have an original pressing of Switched On Bach, I bought it several years ago at a church auction. It still sounds good for a second hand copy!

 

My brother in law have that one too, it was my favorite album in his collection as a toddler visiting my sis and him when they had just moved in together. He had a reel tape machine too, for recording music on like others did with cassettes... Need I mention he is a geek.. hehehe!

 

Last time I visited them (I live abroad) some years ago, we actually listened to the Switched on Bach LP, oh the nostalgia!

[Thethirdapple]

39 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

Being born in 1979 at the last moment before becoming a millennial, I really can’t find use for CD-s. Streaming all the way for me 😀 I’m always on the move and prefer asking Siri to play music off my library. No way I will be messing with thousands of CD-s, especially in the car while driving or on the move, or at the office. 

 

the times they are a changin'

 

 

 

Burning cd's sucked!!! was it the correct color, was it cd-r or -rw... but it FELT so awesome

 

You will own nothing and be happy...

-WEF

 

 

 

PEACE

_

_

_

[NewImprov]

Love Switched-On Back, and Wendy Carlos' work in general.

 

One of my several jobs is working at a used record store. A couple years ago, I helped a family sell off their recently passed father's record collection and stereo gear. As a gift, they gave me his reel-to-reel deck, a mint Pioneer RT 707, and a box of commercial RTR tapes, including SOB. I've had many versions of SOB over the years, vinyl and digital, but this is hands-down the best I've ever heard it. Incredible depth of field, and the stereo effects are stunning!

[David Emm]

Its a first-among-equals thing, but for me, its a toss-up between "Beauty In The Beast," her alternate tuning treatise and the full-length version of "Timesteps" from her own full "Clockwork Orange" soundtrack. The latter is a surreal modular masterwork I've never heard rivaled. The nearest contender is "Wuivend Riet" by Johannes Schmoelling, which has some serious breadth. Wendy made me think about synths critically while I was being amazed. My hero.

[dazzjazz]

It’s not available on Qobuz. Shame. 

[John Tweed]

I’ve got the vinyl if anyone wants it - just pm me. I have no record player anymore and plan to get rid of all my records.

[CyberGene]

I guess you know that already, but in Apple Music if you play digital files (MP3, Flac, Wav, AAC, etc.) on your Mac or on your iPhone through the Music app, it will automatically import them and upload to your private iCloud space (without counting against the quota) and then you can stream that music on all your devices. It works even if you remove the local files where you first imported them. I've been using that feature for a long time with my own rips of CD-s that are not available on Apple Music from the times when I owned CD-s. In some odd cases like with Wendy Carlos, I couldn't even find any purchasable digital files to import, nor I had an original CD to rip in the past while I still had a CD, which is why I found those rips on a pirated website and imported them in Apple Music and they are now streamable on all my Apple devices. I'd gladly donate some money directly to Wendy if she had such functionality on her website, to pay for listening to her wonderful music.

[DeltaJockey]

I was another SOB fan. I remember when I was a lad buying the vinyl when it was first released. I remember it used to be commonly used as demo music playing on hifi systems for sale in stores.

Sadly, I sold all my vinyls in the 90's after I ripped what I wanted to write-able CD's, then sold my quite unique collection for a lot of money, as much of it was not mainstream.

Unfortunately I still have digital versions of only some of the movements of SOB, as I only kept the ones I really liked at the time.

Wendy's SOB was pretty much my first exposure to synths, and the beginning of a lifelong passion. I'm listening to fast paced Brandenburg 3-3 while I type this, and am reminded of how warm, smooth and punchy the Moog bass notes were, and on my rips, complete with dusty crackles and pops😀

[kelp]

18 hours ago, JoJoB3 said:

It's on YouTube music.

 

Thanks. I can't confirm this though. I see a "Switched On Bach" entry but it's by various artists.

[Motif88]

Happy to own it on vinyl…before the insanity of it all.

 

https://www.discogs.com/master/76226-Walter-Carlos-Switched-On-Bach

 

 

[Thethirdapple]

11 hours ago, kelp said:

 

Thanks. I can't confirm this though. I see a "Switched On Bach" entry but it's by various artists.

Doh!

 

Must be the same album which is available on 🍎Music.

Faint memory of reading, somewhere on her website, a reason for not participating in the “streaming” distribution. And I dont think she is too impressed with compressed music quality.

 

 

 

PEACE

_
_
_

[Radagast]

On 3/26/2024 at 5:10 PM, CyberGene said:

Being born in 1979 at the last moment before becoming a millennial, I really can’t find use for CD-s. Streaming all the way for me 😀 I’m always on the move and prefer asking Siri to play music off my library. No way I will be messing with thousands of CD-s, especially in the car while driving or on the move, or at the office. 

I’ve never had a problem with buffering problems or interferences when playing a CD.  Streaming is always going to be susceptible to signal interruptions.  You can have it.  I also like to read liner notes.