Hoover sound
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Hoover sound refers to a particular synthesizer sound in electronic music, commonly used in Hard House music and other styles. Originally called the "Mentasm" or "Reese", the name that stuck was the one likening the sound to that of a vacuum cleaner.
The sound
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 is traditionally created with the Roland Alpha Juno-2 synthesizer using the WhatThe? patch. Most hoover sounds are generated on this synthesizer as it uses a unique method of PWM, splitting the wave into 4 segments and separately modulating their widths. Where a Juno-2 is not available, Hoover sounds are sometimes produced by using samples of Alpha Juno-2 Hoovers and Granular synthesis on these samples. The Hoover has become something of a fetishized item in certain circles of music production (not unlike the sound of the Roland TB-303).
This is what a basic hoover sounds like: Basic Hoover Example
History and popularization
The hoover sound is believed to first have appeared in a commercial production in "Second Phase - Mentasm", produced by 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.
The most famous record using a hoover sound is arguably "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!"
Hoover replacements
Although the original hoover sound was created with a Roland Alpha Juno2 there are several replacements to choose from that include, but are certainly not limited to, the Alpha Juno 1, Alpha Juno 2, MKS-50 (Rack version of the Alpha Junos), and the JP-8000. The new Roland Juno G has a few presets that feature the Hoover sound.
