The Hoover is a complex waveform that can be created with three oscillators, each spaced an octave apart, a heavy use of pulse-width modulation and a thick chorus effect. The sound is characterised by its thick swirliness that stems from a fast LFO controlling the PWM and the chorus. It was originally created by Eric Persing for the Roland Alpha Juno,[1] although the term 'hoover' was not introduced by him.
The archetypal 'hoover' synth, Roland Alpha Juno
It is traditionally created with the Roland Alpha Juno-2, Alpha Juno 1, or rack mount version MKS-50 synthesizer using the built-in What thepatch. The hoover sound generated on these synthesizers is unique for the use of a "PWM" sawtooth wave, which inserts flat segments of variable width into a sawtooth waveform.[2]
History and popularization
The hoover sound is believed to first have appeared in a commercial production in "Mentasm" by Second Phase (1991), produced in a collaboration between Joey Beltram and Mundo Muzique, and sometimes is referred to as a "mentasm". However, mentasm normally refers to the sound sampled from this tune and re-used.[3] This sound was widely used in Belgian techno tracks of the early 1990s.
Another notable example of a record using a hoover sound is "Dominator" by Dutch techno pioneers Human Resource. This track gained fame in 1991 and became a top 10 hit worldwide. Characteristic for this track was not only the hoover, but also the over-the-top rap: "I'm bigger and bolder and rougher and tougher, in other words, sucker, there is no other... I'm the one and only dominator... Wanna kiss myself!"
