Hollow Sun is run by me, Steve Howell. I am principally a sound library developer but also a product and user interface designer, graphic designer and technical author.
Since 1988, I have been working as a consultant sound library developer and product designer for Akai and, in fact, amongst other products, I actually designed the front panels and user interfaces for the S5000 and S6000 samplers! I also designed the graphics and user interface for ak.Sys! Curious? Read on....
I have been playing synthesisers since the mid-70s after developing an interest (errmm - an unhealthy obsession!) with these intriguing new instruments as a teenager in 1971.
Starting off in 1976 with an ARP Axxe, a Mellotron, a cheap organ and a Wurlitzer EP200, two stereo tape machines and a simple mixer (right), the studio slowly expanded to 4-track then 8-track until, in 1981, I went professional, giving up my day job.
I called the studio 'Hollow Sun' (don't ask why... I have no idea - it just happened!) and it was used to write and produce electronic music for local film, TV, video and theatrical productions as well as sometimes being available for use by local bands. Over time, the studio expanded to include many classic synths such as the 'Wasp', ARP2600, PPG Wave 2.2, Roland Juno 6, Roland MKS80 'Super Jupiter', Memory Moog, DX7 and many others.
In 1985, I became involved with a new start-up musical instrument company called Akai who had recently released their AX80 analogue synthesiser, S612 sampler, MG1212 mixer/recorder and other products. In a chance meeting, I happened to give their UK distributor a few sounds that I had made on my S612. They seemed to like them and they used them in their demos (which was nice and very flattering) but I thought that was pretty much it. However, when Akai released their S900 in 1986, I was approached by Akai UK's MD, Dave Caulfield, to provide some sound library for it as all they had for it was the four floppies that shipped with it! The same happened in 1988 when they later released their S1000.
Shortly afterwards, Akai Japan started taking an interest in my work and invited me to Japan where the EMI Division's founding members asked me to join them as a 'consultant' to continue developing sound library for the S1000 for them.
In this new capacity, I introduced and created the 'SWM' series of disks to the Akai library - with the Roland D50 and Korg M1 mixing short, one-shot and looped samples, it occurred to me that the S1000 could do this easily and it would be a good way to cram a lot of sounds onto a single floppy disk (the only currency for distributing sound library in the late '80s) so I made up some sounds and proposed the 'Sample Wave Mixing' (SWM) series to my new employers. Akai liked the idea as did S1000 customers and they were a popular series of sounds.
But although I was essentially just developing sound library for Akai, around 1990, I was asked to get involved with the development of their new sampler, the S3000.
I designed the layout of the front panels and proposed new concepts to the functionality that included APM (Assignable Program Modulation) as well as other 'synth' functions such as Mono Legato and Portamento.
I also designed the front panel layout for the S2800 which was released as a budget sampler to accompany the new range.
Following the success of these products, I became more and more involved in product development and in 1993, I refined my S2800 front panel layout and user interface design to create the S3000XL, introducing the concept of the 'multi' mode.
At around the same time, I was also commissioned to design a budget sampler for Akai. This was to have the same basic internal circuitry and functionality as the S3000XL but with a very reduced front panel to get costs right down for 'entry-level' users.
And so I designed the front panel layout and the entire user interface for the S2000 (although I had little or no involvement with MESA).
However, around 1995/6, Akai's R+D manager and company president (Mr Toshi Tamaki) wanted to take hardware sampling to the next level and asked me to conceive a sampler that used a bigger 320x240 LCD. This brief inspired me to design a brand new user interface using the concept of 'touch and tweak' with eight soft keys either side of the LCD that gave direct access to parameters without the constant, tedious 'cursoring' around pages required on previous products.
And so the S5000 and S6000 were born and I designed the entire user interface for these samplers.
I also defined the basic specification (i.e. expandable polyphony, 16 true outputs configurable as mono and/or stereo, multi-mode filters, larger multis up to 128 parts, Windows/Mac-like disk interface, etc.).
Despite the problems the S5/6000 experienced in the early days of their release, there was never a problem with the user interface which was generally very well accepted.
After the release of the S5/6000, I also designed the UI for ak.Sys and although I was not involved with the design or development of the Z-Series samplers themselves, I updated ak.Sys with a new design for ak.Sys V2.xx for these new samplers and also the MPC4000.
Aside from these sampling products, I also designed the control surface layout and VGA display for Akai's DD1500 DAW (right), a little-known product that went on to become the hardware DAW of choice in major film and video post-production facilities across the world. Although you might not have heard of this particular Akai product, the chances are that you will almost certainly have seen several movies which used either the DD1500 or its offspring, the DD8, as these have been used on countless film productions including several Oscar™ winners and nominees!
I also designed the control surface and user interface for Akai's DPS24 24-track 'personal studio', a product that set new standards for self-contained, integrated hardware disk recording products in the market with its fully automated 46-channel mixer, audio patchbay, touch sensitive faders, multi-effects, 24-track recording and editing, CD mastering and more.
I also designed the graphic track display for the initial DPS24 ak.Sys 'trackView' software release.
Other jobs I performed for Akai included the creation of the ROM sounds for their XR10 drum machine and their SG01V 'vintage' synth module (although I was not involved in the actual design of the products).
Of course, I cannot take full credit for the products I designed for Akai - without the product planning personnel in Japan and the talented Japanese and UK software and hardware engineers and the cosmetic designers and mechanical engineers who made these designs a reality, they would just be drawings probably lost long ago in various disk crashes and computer upgrades! These people refined my designs, sometimes pointing out minor flaws or oversights, other times ripping my designs and proposals to shreds, sending me back to the drawing board to start again! Of course, many sales people and product specialists across the world in Akai's distributor network played their part in the process too. In short, whilst I may have designed the panels, the 'look and feel' and the fundamental UI concepts which formed the basis of the products, it was true international teamwork and co-operation that made them the products they were to become. Similarly, I am indebted to the many talented audio and studio engineers at Akai's studio for their help with sound library.
I have never actually been an 'employee' of Akai's, only a 'consultant'.
This has allowed me to work with others and in my time, I have had the privilege to work with Peter Gabriel, creating samples for him for his soundtrack to the Martin Scorcese film, "The Last Temptation Of Christ" at his Real World studio near Bath, England.
I have also designed products for several leading manufacturers in the business that include Apogee, HHB and Genex.
I also worked on the design of the Novation VStation softsynth panel layout and also designed the 'front panel' for NUSofting for their Microrock VSTi.
Back in 2001, I set up the Hollow Sun website in order to share some of the vintage sounds I had accumulated over the years. There were several reasons for this: I wanted to find out more about website design and programming (another string to the bow and all that!) but, more importantly, I was concerned that no-one was developing sound library for what was at the time my new 'babies', the S5000 and S6000.... so I decided to do it myself!
What started with samples from a few bits of discontinued old gear soon expanded over time to the point where the place became a victim of its own success - tens of thousands of people were ravaging the place and downloading the stuff there every month to the point where I simply could not afford to keep the service active so it had to be withdrawn... very reluctantly. Instead, I concentrated on the creation of more detailed samples of vintage gear. These sounds are available to buy on affordable CDs in S5/6000 format (also compatible with Z4/8 and MPC4000 and some software samplers that support the S5/6000 format). Find out more here.
A large collection of my vintage synths, keyboards and beatboxes is also available to buy in the form of Zero-G's 'NOSTALGIA' virtual instrument. Find out more here.
In December of 2005, Alesis invited Hollow Sun to augment the sound library for their Fusion workstation, an offer that was gladly accepted.
Since January, 2006, Hollow Sun has become very involved in Fusion with many significant sound library additions, converting over many of the classic vintage keyboards, synths and drum machines to the Fusion format and using its extensive sound processing and multi-effects to augment those sounds further than ever before for life in a modern music production environment. These sounds are available for free download at Fusion's own website for all Fusion users.
The releases have understandably been a success with existing users and have also tempted thousands of new users to discover the delights of this innovative and powerful multi-faceted workstation that dares to be different in a world awash with 'me too' products
