all things SYNTH & KEYBOARD thread

[RAGER]

Is it the CS-01?  Cuz for me it might be just ok but I need more knobs.  CS-15 or more.  I need that Sub 37.

Yep gotta do some research on the stereo p.a.  Will Just piece it together as I find decent components.  Prolly start with speakers.

[RAGER]

Got rid of the Micro Korg yesterday.  The girl that got it was so hot I gave it to her for free.  But I sold her the synth for $200.

[eyeprod]

Can't you just run the left and right outs to separate amps? You seem to have plenty of them.

[RAGER]

I think I understand what you're asking.  I would much rather use full range speakers for synth stuff than guitar speakers.

[RAGER]

Early morning coffee jam before work.

[eyeprod]

Ah yes. Full range speakers could be nice . might not look as cool as a couple of sweet stacks tho!

[jibberish]

rager is on the right track.

way back I used to get into it with mr foxen regarding music REproduction vs music production.
my world was home stereo. the goal: reproduce whatever signal is put into it as accurately as possible adding no coloration from the gear.
y'all's world is : make crazy sounds with giant 12" midrange speakers tweaked to sound fuzzy and nasty.
a synth is a music creation device yes, BUT it has created its own sounds internally if you will, and when that signal comes out, it is ready to be amplified as is.

I took my x50 korg over to my son's to show him how awesome it was. I put it through the triple x head and hartke 4x12". it sounded so fucking horrible. I almost freaked out in disappointment that I could not show my son how awesome the synth was. that 1/2 stack sounds great with a guitar and absolutely unlistenable with th synth, pure ass.

keyboard amps have always been clean full range amps.  

just to dick around, you can run your synths into a stereo that has any kind of line in.  that is basically what I do when not concert volume. when concert volume, just use different amps, but still is a stereo.

the thing I am starting to wonder is the best way to run like 3 or 4 pre outs without using some daisy-chain bullshit.

even as it stands, my super stereo will drop you to your knees and make you weep with joy at the ungodly rich sounds from synths. 6 big ass stereo speakers is amazing. and I will finish it up with subs so I can make everything not nailed down dance for me as I sweep the freq

so, definitely do a comparison between the 2 types of music systems and I think you will also see that a guitar rig really cheats the synth out of its sound.

I think guys like mortay and liquid are onto it: have big PA style amp system and use boutique micro amps mic'd into the main mix. synths would go right into here no problem too. a synth almost makes you set up a little "front of house" system, but you can then mic and send anything else through it too, provided you have enough channels of mixer, heh..wheeee


I still say true discreet 4 channel is needed to really express mind blowing synth stuff. you need that shit whirling all around you. I am meditating on doing just this live. I have found 2 axis joystick pots, I have 4 buss mixer, will look into the possibility of a software solution using visual basic(they give it for free, awesome powerful graphical object uses most old school basic commands) and control the mixer section in a soundcard. some soundblasters have 32 channel mixers in them, or maybe they all do if they have the same chip. I might do a many input firewire deal and the soundcard's mixer. you need 4 channels per surround channel group, so channels get eaten up fast.

[jibberish]

those brutes sure are clean sounding. 

sub 37  74 knobs 43 switches or something awesome crazy like that  booyah!

I tell you what tho, $1500 is in range of a prophet 8 module or a used p8 full keyboard.
I would take the prophet in a heartbeat,  the moog is more of what all these little synths already give us(IMO of course)
also the moog is only 2 voice.  I lived with my 2 voice ARP odyssey for a long time. I knew its limitations very well.

the tetra module is the cheapest way into dave smith synth land.

check this sick SICK video out of a dude obsessed with "run" from pink Floyd dark side of the moon doing it up on a tetra(4 voices)

[eyeprod]

I don't doubt that a full range system would prod uce a more full range sound than a gguitaramp. I  think it's going to depend on what your goals and budget are. Personally I am not going to go spend a lot of money on gear. I am more of a budget musician but hey, if I made more money I might want to buy some more expensive stuff too. That said, I believe that there is a fine line, and people who spend a lot in order to achieve the "best" sound quality or arsenal of gearare oft en the ones who spend more effort trying to arrive at some plateau of sonic greatness and less time makingg ood music. I tend to get preachy about doing more with less and using what you have. We aall know or have known thedr ummer with 20 cymbals and the high end kit that can't play to save their ass. I never want to be that guy and I generally try to steer my friends away from that path as well.

[jibberish]

the amp isn't as important as the full range speakers needed for synths, vocals, percussion, orchestral instrumentation and all the other PA-ish stuff.

PA speakers play cd's pretty good because they are full range. 

to do it on the cheap, use a pair of full-range speakers with a pair of guitar amps if you already have those.
you run your tube amps at the highest gain setting with lowest input gain you can get away with before falling into the noise floor. drive the amp like a power amp vs a pre+power amp. a tube amp has good freq response. you may have to disable input capacitor-hi freq killer circuits or othe bullshit tone stuff, but a straight amp is a straight amp

so IF like rager came up with any  pair of 8 ohm full range speakers, he could run one from his marshall amp and one from his orange, match the volumes and run stereo. in fact, I would guess, the bottom end through tube amps and the right speakers would be dreamy rich and thick and chocolaty
tube bass is sweet bass. I would try it, especially with the amps sitting right there haha.
 

[RAGER]

I understand what you're saying robert but I love gear and like to have lots of options. I just sold my microkorg out of non use and redundancy. Other things might be sold off as I decide their usefulness and non redundancy.

Jib. As far as the sub 37 and the DSI stuff, I like the immediate access to controls instead of menus. Don't get me wrong DSI stuff is awesome as is the elektron and stuff of that ilk. But once I get proficient with the knob turning stuff then maybe some of that other will be in order. Right now it would just confuse and frustrate me.

[jibberish]

I gotcha.   my perspective is always skewed since I look from the angle of a keyboard player vs a sound constructor. so ya, I always scope out the ymaha tyros and all those big "player" synths too.

[RAGER]

I think when I connect up both the Micro and Mini Brute I basically have a CS-15.  Really cool.  i wanted to go home and play tonight but my girl wants to go out to eat.  I reluctantly agreed.

Oh and I think I'm gonna get an Arturia Beatstep.

[RAGER]

Beatstep hooked up to the super Nova for an upstairs coffee table evening jam.

[RAGER]

This SE-1 is so super badass. This is pro shit. Very apparent difference between this and consumer grade shit.  Super clean sounding oscillators filters and envelopes. Just incredibly bad to the bone.

Can't wait to get the Sub 37 this fall. That's when they'll be shipping.

[jibberish]

ya, next level. those arturia synths are very clean too. actually, just getting synths with knobs will make it easier for you to "get" the whole synth thing. easier to see that it is just massive mangling of a waveform. but subtle things like using th elow freq wave to influence the main wave, or what is a filter, how do all parts of an envelope work. that is all key shit and it does make more sense layed out with all th eknobs.

I learned on an arp odyssey. like the 2 oscillator version of the se-1. everything was right out front.  I remember I didn't get wtf an LFO really was for a while.

[RAGER]

Fuck me, there's another SE-1 on the local CL.  Do I need two?

[RAGER]

My shit's startin' to look like a Herbie Hancock video.

[RAGER]

So I talked to my buddy this morning that owns this place  http://briz.us/  

He performs as BRIZBOMB using this.



Shit gets really loud and he swears by QSC powered mains.  For some stuff he uses the 2 way 12's which are plenty loud with a Mackie mixer.  I guess as of late he's been using some serious big shit for BRIZBOMB like 5k watts with 15's and 18's.  He can afford to buy what he wants but has had the best luck with the QSC shit so that's what I'm kind of looking at.  Maybe these, used of course.   http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/K12?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=PPC&utm_campaign=livesound&device=c&network=g&matchtype=&gclid=CJ7Fr5ip4b4CFQ9hfgodDwIAFA

[mortlock]

I thought you said you weren't into noise and power electronics..that dudes rig is unreal..

[RAGER]

I know I like what I like. But as a whole, much of it I don't like. His stuff is very soundscape/ambient and the last several years he's incorporated visuals. It's quite the thing. He can afford all that shit.

[mortlock]

right on. to each his own. although, admittedly I do have a hard time understanding how someone like yourself can be so into synths and not at least be a little morbidly curious about the extreme versions of music that incorporates it. but you seem to be..to some degree apparently. I may be able to turn you to the darkside after all.   
check out 905 tapes, if you already don't know of the label. I think theres stuff you might dig.
http://905store.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

[RAGER]

Yes. I've been aware of 905 for quite a while.

[mortlock]

and?? you like the stuff?? no?? feel free to elaborate. or not.

[jibberish]

holy patch cord wars batman.  

can I have that brizolith o synth

/inb4lumpy

those QSC's are nice piece-part PA setups for dj's. lots on CL and used at GC, but never dirt cheap. they are great to just run right from the mixer or a splitter/buffer/pre wtf you have heh. less pieces parts for easier setup and keeping track of the less total parts and cables.
I have the GC boys only looking for 2 ohm QSC's for me.  I am that impressed with this baby of the rmx line: rmx850. quiet as a home stereo. kind of meh bottom end for home stereo listening(yeah I spent a day working it out with all kinds of sources. oh sweetness with the synths, which is what it is for anyweay) but ok for PA work since everything is processed and eq'd and everything else. I even tried it out using th eline level from th etape out on the receiver and used the master gain knobs to control volume. worked great. mixer, great, actual preamp great whichnow we have a set n forget master gain setup with variable volume preamp, but it isn't necessary to just use the amp gains as speed governors heh.

nice nice nice all the way around and they keep themselves plenty cool, even was chilling me a little from the fan draft

those class D amps have a different power supply. it is some hi-freq magnetic switching voodoo that I think bob carver first used on a lightweight 200w/ch amp around 1980, at least for home. everyone was amazed at the weight reduction by not having big power transformers anymore.

amp mfrs like crown and qsc have several series of amps. they have several series of prices. these 2ohm amps I keep going on about are old school with toroidal transformers and weigh a ton. the class d's are the 10 # great priced ones.

class d is actually good for subs, but not low impedance shit like car stereo. a car stereo sub amp can arc weld. a class d switching supply cannot put out that kind of raw current.  however, the class-d amps are just fine into reactive loads and full range shit, especially at 8 ohms. they can drive plenty of voltage to get watts, just not plenty of current to get watts.  power(W)=I*IR.  car stereos use this to get the square of big current with low resistance. power(W) also =V*V/R so you can get power from squaring up hi-voltage through larger resistance.

electronic flouescent ballasts are switching supply devices. you need wtf 300v but shit for current so they run a hi freq square wave and save a ton of energy under the entire time vs energy curve(think setting up an integration here like in math class)

ps, rager, all that shit lit up is beautiful, even without hearing anything it's awesome to look at.

edit: I want a couple of amps with low impedance stability for certain speaker combos and my 2 ohm frankensteins, otherwise I would have gotten a pair of crown SL1500's(class d 350ish w/ch into 8 ohms like 700 into 4 ohms, weighs 15#, fuck yeah) last winter, but I rethought the ultimate needs which requires 2 2-ohm amps. but I will snag a class d crown or qsc as the final amp ( I want 4 stereo PA amps total for 8 separate channels of amplification is my whole story, but I might have parallel sub arrays or massively parallel mid/high arrays, so need some 2 ohm capability ....)