Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

After playing a gig in which I was asked to reproduce a big fat "pipe organ caliope" sound, I discovered something that I wonder if if any of my fellow keyboardists have. That is, the unreal results of stacking some older keyboard technology for sounds you hadn't thought of before.

To use my gig example, I was trying to imagine what I could pile onto my already fat pipe organ sound in my Roland SuperJV, to achieve the request of the job. I went through a few of the patches on my second keyboard, a Roland JX-305, and caught that a few of them not only were fat patches, but had a distinct "breathiness" to the attack, that mimicked the harsh hiss of air going into the pipes of an old fashioned caliope organ. Without having time to test it out, I took a chance that it would work out like it did in my head. And it did. Spectacularly.

So the point of this post is this....with the mad onward march of technology, and the insane blind rush to embrace the "latest thing", abandoning what has cost us so much in money and time to dissect, are we routinely leaving the immense possibilities of older technology in the dust? The producers of technology are so quickly and ferociously pushing us to buying their latest products that we are whizzing by all of the offroads of exploratory possibility with the older technologies. Ever slapped an older multi-effex unit on something like a Juno 106? You'd be amazed at what you can produce if you tweak with things long enough. Maybe we should slow down a bit and actually explore.

Maybe we should walk down these sideroads for a few miles before we rocket past them without a second consideration.

Brian Eno, arguably one of the Founding Fathers of modern ambient synth music, said the same thing years ago. He spoke of one of his ancient synths, some beat up thing from the 70s, that was broken and he took it into a synth repair shop. The thing was, though, that it produced some astounding timbres because of its broken state, and he asked the tech to fix the keys that werent working and not TOUCH the "screwed up" workings of the internal electronics. It became one of his most valued instruments, when 98% of other keyboardists would have long before chucked the poor thing into a passing garbage truck.

So what about you guitarists, or players of other instruments? Ever thought of taking a time out and really experimenting with the technology and equipment that the market is trying to make you forget about, in order to line their own pockets?

From a guitar standpoint most of the new effects just emulate the sound of older units. I have a box full of old pedals and I get them out sometimes and play around with them. Most have an analog "eartheness" to them, that the newer models dont quite mimic. This is all fine at the house. But for gigging purposes I think I would opt for some all in one pedal, instead of wiring up a bunch of antiques. I destroyed a lot of vintage pedals in my past band "Aint Yo Mama" and really wish I had left them at home. I still have a lot of them but most are beyond fixing. These days I dont play out a lot and when I do I ussually just take a wah-wah pedal straight to the amp and use my volume, pickup selection and technique to get the sounds I want.

I guess to really get back to basics we should turn off the electricity and get out the acoustics.

JW

On the subject of older keys. Ive been wanting a keyboard for recording purposes that would give basic piano, organ and string ambience to some of my songs. What is an older keyboard that I might find cheap for my purposes? The last keyboard I owned was a DX 7, are they still out there with the sound cards? Just curious.

JW

I have a Prescription Electronics THE EXPERIENCE. I broke the swell function, but it changed the sound of the pedal.

I quickly realized it sounded better broken. lol So now, I just ignore the swell function and use it as is, if I use it at all.

On the subject of older keys. Ive been wanting a keyboard for recording purposes that would give basic piano, organ and string ambience to some of my songs. What is an older keyboard that I might find cheap for my purposes? The last keyboard I owned was a DX 7, are they still out there with the sound cards? Just curious.

JW

Wow, a DX-7. There's one I haven't heard of in years...the founding father of commercially available digital algorythm synthesis!

To be honest you might not want to waste your time on the DX-7, as they are now in the "vintage/collectors" synth category like the Roland Jupiter 8 - which sell for big bucks to collectors. I'd drop a few hundred bucks on a Roland remake of the Juno series for a good solid keyboard to lend ambience to your recordings. They sound great, they are new and they have all the manuals.

I still use an ANCIENT Technics SX-K-200. This thing is so old that it uses ROM cartridges to create/store additional sounds. Unfortunately, I only have 2 left... can't find 'em anywhere, not even EvilBay.

Interesting development: alot of synth makers have been including patches from "vintage synths" more and more in their new lines. I guess they are responding to consumer demand.

Ah a DX7, man when I was a bit younger and hence broke, I used to drool about owning one of them.

I had an original Juno and some of the function keys would stick and after a few of the keys stopped responding I ended up giving it away. I eventually ended up buying the Juno-G and although it's nice to get the Fantom X sounds, it still wasn't quite the same. I wanted a Juno for the pure sound manipulation, but ended up with the complexity of the X. It stifles on the fly creativity, "Sub menu right arrow what?" I have an old Korg Trinity and it's still my favorite. The key action is real light and responsive after years of pounding on it. Although most of the sounds lack the fatness of newer synths, for leads it's my favorite. I can't even come close to the same speed on a Roland S, the keys are just to heavy.

I agree about Roland's Fantom series. They are studio boards, not really performance boards. Roland needs to take a cue from Moog, who just reissued this nifty remake of its original invention, with a short keyboard that has a large, up in your face front panel and big fat old knobs to manipulate the frequency, mods etc. Like the good ol' days when electronic sound was much more on the fly.

I stand by my obsolete Yamaha SY-55 as an great sounding live keyboard and an excellent workstation. I stack a SY 35 and MIDI them up to take the strain off the old deteriorating plastic keys of the 55. I'm on my third touch sensitivity strip. They are getting harder to acquire as time gos by.
I've replaced nearly every key. Both synths fit nicely in (and on) the case of my old Farfisa Combo Compact. Makes me feel like in still in 1965.
<---------- (check em out)

Touch strips will gradually be impossible to replace because they are using light beams now. Have you messed with the "Q beam" on a Groovebox?

Irminsul thanks for the info.

Recently I was considering replacing my Fantom S88 with another full sized keyboard. I had not given it much thought until now, the last thing I want or need is another workstation since I actually record analog anyway. It seems to me most full sized are either a work station, or very complex and clunky towards sound manipulation. I'm reluctant to use MIDI recording and software composition and I really like the hardware avenue, even with the limitations. I can understand why many people would say it could all be done through cheaper and more efficient software processing, virtual synths etc. not too mention almost limitless expandability, but it isn't what I want to do. I just like to play, sure it's less then it could be in quality, but it's what I enjoy. I get a lot more satisfaction from hands on using hardware, then I do clicking a mouse.

I don't know why, maybe because it isn't the usual preference now days, but I didn't even consider an analog synth. I became curious and checked out the Moog Voyager Performer, I still think it's a bit pricey for what you get. Then I checked out the Dave Smith Prophet 08. I would imagine Dave Smith and Robert Moog would probably have comparable reputations and the quality would probably be top notch, but they just seemed to be lacking a bit in features for the money, or maybe they just don't present them as well in advertising. After searching around the net for a bit I came across the Alesis A6 Andromeda. I'm seriously considering getting one of these, I already read the manual and it doesn't seem overwhelming and has some nice features.

In either case thanks a lot for the thread. It was just enough inspiration to decide what I feel would be the right path for me. It's been a long time since I was really enthusiastic about the next keyboard.

Off topic...

Hey Howlin, the vocalists from Misguided Madness sounds a lot different from the one in I Put a Spell On You and Caldonia, are they different singers? If so, which is you singing? I'm not a big Rush fan and unfamiliar with their stuff, but to me Misguided Madness sounds like Rush, nice riffs in Caldonia BTW. Irminsul, some nice sounds in Past Fillmore, the ending reminds me a bit of Equinox. Cool ambience and some outstanding strings, really well done.

Irmy,
We may be confusing the sense strip, to which I referred, to an external "ribbon controller". Yamaha incorporated a strip of soft rubbery plastic material in the SY series, as an advancement over the older type mechanical keyswitch system. The strip is an interior component of the scanning matrix system. Its purpose is to encode all keyboard information (velocity, after-touch and pitch) . If you play the keyboard hard, over time the strip is prone to develop a small hole at the key tang impact point, that will impede the function. It's not designed to be a user replaceable part, but if you want to keep on playing old synthesizers, ya gotta know how to fix 'em. ..... (and guitar players think THEY have it rough!)




Lalong,
I'm am in fact howlin' on all four songs. The two originals were recorded back in 82! I'm still playing my Farfisa (over 20 years old at the time) on those recordings.

"Spell on you" is my version of the Screaming J Hawkins" classic. Its my old band from two years ago , and was recorded live with a monophonic minidisc recorder. The piano is my trusty SY-55

Caledonia is a prime example of the SY-55 in the roll of "workstation". I step programmed the basic piano track from old sheet music. The piano solo was played "live over " on another track. Bass on yet an other track, and drums "custom step programmed" ( I learned how to read drum music to be able to do this properly. I never played drums "live".) After mixing the whole mess together, I plugged into the mixer, sang over the top, and let it molder on a cassette for a few years before presenting it to you!
The drummer on "Misguided Madness" is an exceptional player, and I recall him mentioning his admiration of Neil Peart as a major influence. That song was composed around the drum pattern , so your "Rush" connection is spot on!

I enjoyed listening to your playing. The sound of your synths put me to mind of my old Korg DW-6000s . My favorite is "In A Dark Age". is that your stratocaster in the beginning? (just nosey)


hope to yak more with you guys about keyboards later,
John

Has anyone here ever owned or played a Prophet 5? Peter Gabriel used the heck out of those.

Howlin, you're right. Thanks for the clarification. I have had "pads" on the inside of my piano weighted keyboard controller replaced and they were NOT cheap. Must come from years of that lead-weighted left hand of mine.