Larry Fast
Encyclopedia
Lawrence Roger 'Larry' Fast (born 10 December 1951 in Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...

) is a synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

 expert and composer. He is best known for Synergy, his 1975–1987 series of synthesizer music albums, and for his contribution to a number of popular music acts, including Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...

, Foreigner
Foreigner (band)
Foreigner is a British-American rock band, originally formed in 1976 by veteran English musicians Mick Jones and ex-King Crimson member Ian McDonald along with American vocalist Lou Gramm...

, and Hall and Oates.

Biography

Fast grew up in Livingston, New Jersey
Livingston, New Jersey
Livingston is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 29,366.Livingston was incorporated as a township by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on February 5, 1813, from portions of Caldwell Township and Springfield...

 and attended Lafayette College
Lafayette College
Lafayette College is a private coeducational liberal arts and engineering college located in Easton, Pennsylvania, USA. The school, founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter,son of General Andrew Porter of Norristown and citizens of Easton, first began holding classes in 1832...

 in Pennsylvania, where he obtained a degree in History. There he took his previous training in piano and violin and melded them with computer science to become interested in synthesized music and to build his own primitive sound-making electronic devices.

He was introduced to Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...

, the keyboard player from the band Yes
Yes (band)
Yes are an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music. Regarded as one of the pioneers of the progressive genre, Yes are known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets...

 during a local radio interview, and traveled to the UK to work with Yes on their 1974 album Tales from Topographic Oceans
Tales from Topographic Oceans
-2003 CD re-issue:A remastered edition was released in 2003, which restored a two-minute ambient section at the beginning of the album's first song. This section was deleted at the last minute before the album was originally pressed...

. It was there that he got a recording contract with Passport Records.

The Synergy project

Fast recorded a series of pioneering synthesizer music albums under the project name Synergy. Some of this work was used as the basis for music in Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

 and Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...

 computer games, notably Rob Hubbard
Rob Hubbard
Rob Hubbard is a music composer best known for his composition of computer game theme music, especially for microcomputers of the 1980s such as the Commodore 64...

's score for the C64 version of Zoids
Zoids
is a multi-media model-kit-based franchise originating from Japanese toy company Tomy ; though now produced by various companies through licenses. The majority of the franchise is built around and focused on the various model kit series...

, which was an unofficial cover of Synergy's Ancestors from the 1981 album Audion
Audion
An Audion is a wireless signal detector device invented by Lee De Forest in 1906.Audion may also refer to:* Audion , an electronic music album by Larry Fast* Audion , a media player for Apple Macintosh created by Panic...

.

The first album in the series, Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra, was released as an LP
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

 in 1975. Like the following albums, it exclusively makes use of electronic instruments, mainly synthesizers. Throughout the 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...

 and 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...

, Fast released eight more Synergy LPs on Passport Records, all of which were later re-released on CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

s. The 1998 re-release of Semi-Conductor, a compilation album originally released in 1984, was a remastered version of the original, and contained ten additional tracks. The eleventh album in the series, Reconstructed Artifacts, was released in 2003, and contained completely new performances of select compositions from the previous albums, using modern digital synthesizers, as well as the new digital recording technologies.

Currently Fast is slowly developing a new Synergy album, which is likely to come out in either 2011 or 2012. This will be his first studio album consisting of new material in over twenty years. According to Fast's website, it will heavily make use of software synthesizer
Software synthesizer
A software synthesizer, also known as a softsynth is a computer program or plug-in for digital audio generation. Computer software which can create sounds or music is not new, but advances in processing speed are allowing softsynths to accomplish the same tasks that previously required dedicated...

s (one of which is, fittingly, Sample Logic's Synergy synthesizer) rather than the hardware equipment he has been using so far. He has amassed a lot of new thematic material and plans to rework some old, as yet unreleased pieces for the new album as well.

On Synergy's first and second album, the following statement appears: "This album was created with absolutely no guitars." This is an apparent counter-reference to repeated statements appearing on albums by the rock group Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...

 that "This album was created with absolutely no synthesizers."

The albums by Synergy are:
  • 1975: Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra #66 Billboard 200
    Billboard 200
    The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

     (18 weeks)
  • 1976: Sequencer #144 Billboard 200 (11 weeks)
  • 1978: Cords #146 Billboard 200 (6 weeks)
  • 1979: Games
  • 1981: Audion
  • 1981: Computer Experiments, Volume One
  • 1982: The Jupiter Menace (soundtrack for film The Jupiter Menace)
  • 1984: Semi-Conductor (compilation containing two new tracks)
  • 1987: Metropolitan Suite
  • 1998: Semi-Conductor, Release 2 (re-release of Semi-Conductor, remastered and containing ten additional tracks)
  • 2003: Reconstructed Artifacts (compilation consisting of re-recorded versions of old tracks)

Other music projects

  • Fast worked sporadically with Nektar
    Nektar
    Nektar is a 1970s English progressive rock band originally based in Germany.- History :The band formed in Hamburg, Germany in 1969, members included Englishmen Roye Albrighton on guitars and vocals, Allan "Taff" Freeman on keyboards, Derek "Mo" Moore on bass, Ron Howden on drums, and Mick Brockett...

    , providing much of the dominating synthesizers on their 1975 album Recycled.

  • Fast is also known for his work with Peter Gabriel
    Peter Gabriel
    Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...

    . He played synthesizer on records and on tour, and rounded out the production team on Gabriel's albums from 1976 to 1986.

  • Fast produced Canadian progressive rock group FM
    FM (Canadian band)
    FM is a progressive rock band from Toronto, Canada which existed from 1976 to 1996, with a brief return in 2006, although they had a period of inactivity between 1989 and 1994. Their music has been categorized as space rock, and lyrics are dominated by science fiction themes...

    's 1980 album City of Fear
    City of Fear
    City of Fear is the fourth album by FM, a progressive rock group from Toronto, Canada, released in 1980 on Passport Records and distributed in Canada by Capitol Records, catalogue number PB-2028, and in the USA on Passport distributed by Jem Records, catalogue number PB-6004...

    .

  • Fast provided additional synthesizers on Foreigner
    Foreigner (band)
    Foreigner is a British-American rock band, originally formed in 1976 by veteran English musicians Mick Jones and ex-King Crimson member Ian McDonald along with American vocalist Lou Gramm...

    's 1981 album 4
    4 (Foreigner album)
    -Foreigner:*Lou Gramm – Lead vocal, percussion*Mick Jones – guitar, keyboards, background vocal*Rick Wills – bass, background vocal*Dennis Elliott – drums, vocals, background vocal-Additional personnel:...

    and Foreigner
    Foreigner (band)
    Foreigner is a British-American rock band, originally formed in 1976 by veteran English musicians Mick Jones and ex-King Crimson member Ian McDonald along with American vocalist Lou Gramm...

    's 1984 album Agent Provocateur.

  • Fast toured and recorded with bassist Tony Levin
    Tony Levin
    Tony Levin is an American progressive rock musician, specializing in bass guitar, Chapman stick and upright bass ....

     (himself an alumnus of Peter Gabriel's band) as part of Levin's Waters of Eden
    Waters of Eden
    Waters of Eden is Tony Levin's second solo record, released in 2000. Most songs feature the basic quartet of Levin, Larry Fast, Jerry Marotta and Jeff Pevar...

     band.

  • Fast collaborated on the 1980s pop music project Iam Siam, which produced the hit She Went Pop.

  • Fast contributed music to the Carl Sagan
    Carl Sagan
    Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...

     1980 television program Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
    Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
    Cosmos: A Personal Voyage is a thirteen-part television series written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter, with Sagan as presenter. It was executive-produced by Adrian Malone, produced by David Kennard, Geoffrey Haines-Stiles and Gregory Andorfer, and directed by the producers, David...

    , and to the 1992 film Netherworld.

  • Fast produced and played synthesizer on Annie Haslam's
    Annie Haslam
    Annie Haslam is an English progressive rock vocalist and songwriter.Originally a fashion student, she began studying under opera singer Sybil Knight in 1970 and developed her five-octave vocal range...

     1989 release Annie Haslam
    Annie Haslam (album)
    Annie Haslam is the third solo album by Renaissance vocalist Annie Haslam, released in 1989.The album consisted mostly of original material and included covers of Mike Oldfield's "Moonlight Shadow", which had been a UK number 4 hit in 1983, and Rose Royce's 1978 UK number 3 hit "Wishing on a...

    .

  • Fast helped create the music for Tokyo DisneySea
    Tokyo DisneySea
    is a 176-acre theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort located in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, just outside Tokyo. It opened on September 4, 2001. It is owned by The Oriental Land Company, which licenses the theme from The Walt Disney Company. Tokyo DisneySea attracted an estimated 12 million visitors in...

    , a new Walt Disney theme park.

  • As of 2006, Fast was touring with the Tony Levin Band
    Tony Levin
    Tony Levin is an American progressive rock musician, specializing in bass guitar, Chapman stick and upright bass ....

    .

Other interests

Fast shows an interest in photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

, with the picture on the back cover of Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra being taken by him, which he describes in great detail on his website, for example mentioning the type of camera he used and describing the circumstances under which the picture was taken. He occasionally shares original pictures on his website as well.

He has done some work with designing listening devices for the hearing disabled. His wife had been working in the field for some time. He owns several patents for optical distribution using infrared audio technologies.

Fast is also part of a government group aiming to protect some of New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

's historic assets against developers.

External links

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